Missio Dei: WK1 - TUE
THE GOD WHO TALKS TO HIMSELF
John 17:20-23 (NLT) “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one, as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.”
Before there was a world, there was a conversation. This is one of the strangest and most beautiful ideas in all of Christian theology. The God of Scripture is not a solitary being sitting alone in eternity. He is, from before the beginning, a community: Father, Son, and Spirit in a relationship of such complete self-giving love that creation itself was an overflow of it, not a necessity.
There is a story in one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and yes, it is a little cheesy, and it may not even be true, but it points at something real. A young boy’s sister is gravely ill. The doctors determine that a blood transfusion from her brother, who has survived the same disease, offers her best chance of recovery. They explain the situation to him and ask if he is willing. He agrees without much hesitation. As the transfusion proceeds, the boy lies quietly beside his sister, watching the color return to her face. Then his own face goes pale. He looks up at the doctor and asks, in a small voice: will I start to die right away? He had misunderstood. He thought giving his blood meant giving all of it. He had said yes anyway.
That is the shape of the love inside the Trinity. Total. Not calculating. The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The Spirit flows from and toward both. Mission, the reaching outward, the going, the sending, flows directly from that interior life. It does not originate in a plan. It originates in a nature.
When Jesus prays in John 17 in his final hours before the cross, what he asks for is unity among his followers. He doesn’t ask for strategy or numbers, rather he desires uity. A community that loves the way the Trinity loves confronts the watching world with something it cannot explain or replicate on its own terms. The mission that flows outward from the church has its source in the life that flows between the persons of God. We don’t manufacture it, we receive it, and let it overflow.
John 17:20-23 (NLT) “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one, as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.”
Before there was a world, there was a conversation. This is one of the strangest and most beautiful ideas in all of Christian theology. The God of Scripture is not a solitary being sitting alone in eternity. He is, from before the beginning, a community: Father, Son, and Spirit in a relationship of such complete self-giving love that creation itself was an overflow of it, not a necessity.
There is a story in one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and yes, it is a little cheesy, and it may not even be true, but it points at something real. A young boy’s sister is gravely ill. The doctors determine that a blood transfusion from her brother, who has survived the same disease, offers her best chance of recovery. They explain the situation to him and ask if he is willing. He agrees without much hesitation. As the transfusion proceeds, the boy lies quietly beside his sister, watching the color return to her face. Then his own face goes pale. He looks up at the doctor and asks, in a small voice: will I start to die right away? He had misunderstood. He thought giving his blood meant giving all of it. He had said yes anyway.
That is the shape of the love inside the Trinity. Total. Not calculating. The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The Spirit flows from and toward both. Mission, the reaching outward, the going, the sending, flows directly from that interior life. It does not originate in a plan. It originates in a nature.
When Jesus prays in John 17 in his final hours before the cross, what he asks for is unity among his followers. He doesn’t ask for strategy or numbers, rather he desires uity. A community that loves the way the Trinity loves confronts the watching world with something it cannot explain or replicate on its own terms. The mission that flows outward from the church has its source in the life that flows between the persons of God. We don’t manufacture it, we receive it, and let it overflow.
- How does understanding God as a community of love reshape the way you think about mission?
- Where are you tempted to make mission more about activity than relationship?
- What would unity in your church or relationships communicate to the watching world?
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