FROM THE CHURCH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 3, 2 October 1950, Page 6

FROM THE CHURCH

KNOX PRESBYTERIAN

St. John chapter 17 and verse 21 begins: “That they all may be one.” The whole chapter gives us what is really the Lord’s' Prayer, expressed shortly before Christ’s death upon the cross. The master has said, “I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do.” He had revealed by deed and word what God was like and had brought his followers into the new life of this revelation. He will soon taste the bitterness oi death through crucifixion, and rising triumphant from the grave will resume the glory that He had with the Father before the world was having the perfect sacrifice of His life—a sacrifice for sin that need .never again to be repeated. If men will have faith in this offering for their sin and will accept the proffered forgiveness they will be brought into the life of Chrislfs Kingdom where rebellion and confusion will give place to unity and where alone such unity might be looked for. Jesus Christ had laboured and would die and rise again for that unity—an atonement. The aspiration of our text is not a solitary expression. Four times in this prayer we find the words “That they may be one.” It was the purpose of His coming that we should be reconciled in Him to God, and that being reconciled through one faith in the same saviour we should be one in the family of God. What is the “one-riess” that Jesus desired and desires still? Does He desire a uniform type of believer? There are some types of mind that would be rested by the mass-pro-duction line of Christian alike as VS'of the same year would be alike, s’inging out ; of the same book and only that one, “not doing” the same things, and using the same religion accents. Christ spoke against such an attitude when His disciples complained that some men were doing godly wmrk by methods differed from those of the* disciples. It is quite apparent that Jesus accepted a diversity that could be part of a final unity. Paul says “As we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ.” The essential thing is the being controlled by one will and that the will of God. It is also essential that I as one member in the body of Christ will recognise as equally a member of the body some one yvho is quite different. The hand must not say, the ear is no part of the body because it doesn’t perform the same offices as the hand. There must be no bickering rivalry no proud pretension, no wasteful competition in effort. By all means let the ear do what God quipped it to do, and let the hand be diligent in the service for which it was constructed. Let there be one-ness of Christian purpose. This Christian purpose today is being served by the institution of World Communion Sunday. With millions of believers we are sharing in the central act of Christian faith and worship. In many languages, by Very diverse customs, men and women out of most races under the sun will be approaching a table belonging to none of them exclusively but to the Lord Himself. In one language of penitence and faith and gratitude they will take simple elements of bread and wine in a memorial act fulfilling Christ's own command, “This do in remembrance of me.” As we share in this loving rite, remembering that “He idved me and gave Himself up for me” let us hear in spirit His prayer “That they all may be one.” And may the rich grace of God heal us from the disease of our diversions and demonstrate in the Church of Jesus Christ “that man to man . . . can brothers be.”