As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world

 "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name.  Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.  But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.  I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  Sanctify them by Your truth.  Your word is truth.  As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.  And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth."

- John 17:12-19

Starting from last Monday, we have been reading through Jesus' farewell discourse to the disciples at the Last Supper.   Yesterday we read what is called the High Priestly Prayer:  Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said:  "Father, the hour has come.  Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.  And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.  I have glorified You on the earth.  I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.  And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.  I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world.  They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.  Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You.  For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me.  I pray for them.  I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.  And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.  Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You.  Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are."

"While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name.  Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled."  Them, of course, refers to Jesus' disciples, for whom He prays.  The son of perdition (or "destruction") is Judas Iscariot (6:70-71).  Old Testament prophecy alludes to Judas, says my study bible (Psalms 41:9, 109:2-13; Zechariah 11:12-13), and Judas becomes a type for all those who will fall away in the last days (see 2 Thessalonians 2:3, where "son of perdition" refers to the Antichrist).

"But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.  I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one."  As Christ Himself is from heaven, those who are joined to Him become like Him, my study bible explains.  So, therefore, all believers attract the world's hatred.  The second-century Letter to Diognetus (6:3) states that "Christians dwell in the world but do not belong to the world."  To be reborn in Christ means that Christians have their citizenship in the Kingdom of God (3:1-5).  However, their vocation is in the world, where they are protected by God against the evil one. 

"They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  Sanctify them by Your truth.  Your word is truth.  As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.  And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth."  To sanctify, as my study bible defines for us, is to consecrate, make holy, separate, set apart from the world, and to bring into the sphere of the sacred for God's use.   This is an essential concept of understanding that all Christians must grasp.  St. John Chrysostom interprets Jesus' words as saying, "Make them holy through the gift of the Spirit and by correct doctrine."

What does it means to be not of the world?  Christ calls us out of the world; that is, the ways of the world.  There are a number of ways in which He does this throughout the Gospels.   In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us, for example, not to be like the hypocrites, doing things for show, a practiced "goodness" or feigned holiness that is designed merely to impress other people and done without a love of God in the heart, an acute awareness of the presence of God.  He calls us not to serve material life, to live merely for material goals.  He powerfully exhorts us not to be consumed with worry and anxiety (see Matthew 6).  But far beyond this, our participation in the love of God, in the grace of the Holy Trinity which is at work in us, calls us to holiness, to a life that manifests something different from what we find in the world.  In John's Gospel, in this farewell discourse through which we've just read, Jesus calls us to a kind of joy and a kind of peace that are not of the world, but of this holiness about which He speaks.  We are to abide in Him, and as we do so, we dwell also in the love of the Father and the Holy Spirit.  It is this life of participation in that love that brings us into a place where that love grows in us, and we serve this purpose.  When Jesus is called to name the greatest commandment, He names two of them.  The first, He says is to love God with all one's heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).  The second is like it, to love neighbor as oneself (Mark 12:31).  There are those who would emphasize only the second, forgetting the first, but to do so is forget the words of Christ.  It is through the love of God and participation in those energies that we are drawn to grow in knowledge and understanding of what love is and does, for this is where love originates.  It is inseparable from holiness, from learning and growing in God's energies in which we are invited to dwell and participate.  A faith that does not share in this mystical reality may become lost in its own ends and rules and definitions of what is good -- and fail to grow and live in the grace of God.   Jesus promises us a participation in love, and it is in love that we are taught to grow and to be transformed, a mystical reality of participation in the kingdom of God.  It is through this mystical reality that we bring these energies into the world, growing and shaping what we understand of love.  Through this we are on a path, a way -- not just a fixed set of rules with no mercy to them, no matter how modern the rules may seem to be.  It is this truth into which He leads us, this kind of holiness.  This is the goal to which He calls us in our lives, the focus.  Without it we lose His true gift.