23.5 John – Jesus Prayer, part 2 – the dance

I love the image that Timothy Keller painted in his book, The Reason for God, of the divine dance that is so beautifully illustrated in our verses today.  In the beginning, man was made in the image of God and was invited to participate in the dance.  It is a beautiful and eternal dance, one where each partner of the Trinity is in constant motion with the other, complementing and leading and bending and twisting, and supporting and relaxing in a completely fluid and beautiful dance.  Adam and Eve participated in this at the beginning of creation.  They were with God fully, hearings, seeing, touching, together in creation and the glory and holiness of the everything that God had created for them to be part of this dance.

Until they day that they stopped dancing with God, because they had made the decision that they wanted to be god instead.  When sin entered, they stopped, they stopped listening to the music of the heavens, they stopped moving in synchronicity with God, they just stopped.  The dancefloor of Eden was no place for someone who wasn’t going to dance and they were cast out.

But, Jesus’ prayer of Joh 17:20-26 is for us, those who were not with Him but who believe because of the words and works of those who were in that room with Jesus that night (including Jesus himself!).  It is a prayer that God, again, bring us back into the dance.

Look at the beauty of Jesus’ words in this passage, “I in them and you in me so that they may be brought to complete unity”, “all of them may be one”, “Father, just as you are in me and I am in you may they also be in us”, “I have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one” .  Do you see the motion of the dance in these words, the spinning, holding, connecting that is the glory of God?

My Answers:

11.
That all believers (then and now) may be one as the Father and Son are one.  In God so that the world may believe.
Restored to our original state.
There is one (body, spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism, God, Father, overall all through all in all

12.
John 17 is Jesus prayer for His disciples, as the high priest prayed to God in the temple and offered sacrifices for the atonement of sin, Jesus brought them forth to God to receive the sacrifice that He was going to make on their behalf

13.
Unity that is unity in God