Paul DeCelles gave this retreat talk on April 1, 2000. He described our need to find ways to talk about our experience and what God is doing here and now. He then went through John’s Gospel pointing out how, at every turn, Jesus identifies himself as one who is sent. The rest of this South Bend branch menâs retreat can be found at https://peopleofpraise.org/file-library/collections/35/.
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
PAUL: There are a few fixed points in the day-to-day that you can really count on, and they are . . . mealtimes! [Laughter.] Everything else may slip and slide and vary a bit; however, at the end of each session we should know when we should return, at any rate.
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson were camping in the mountains. [Laughter.] After a magnificent day climbing and hiking, they returned to their campsite. Following dinner, they crawled into their bedrolls and retired for the evening. Lying on their backs prior to falling asleep, Holmes said to Watson, âWatson, look up above us and tell me what you see.â Watson replied, âHolmes, it is magnificent. I see thousandsâno, millionsâof stars. I see the Milky Way; I see galaxies, all sparkling in this clear mountain air.â Holmes then said to Watson, âWatson, what does that tell you?â Watson replied, âHolmes, it tells me of the beauty of nature. It tells me of the magnificence of creation and the power of the Creator. What does it tell you, Holmes?â Holmes replied, âWatson, it tells me that someone has stolen our tent.â [Paul and the audience laugh.]
Well, we are going to be doingâconsidering a lot of wonderful different ideas today, but we should be careful to keep our eye on the main thing, whatever that might be for you. But it will be one particular thing this day that the Lord wants to enforce in youâreinforce in you.
Let me turn to John 17 with you. The prayer of Jesus. As I said last night, I believe this is the place where Jesus teaches the disciples to pray in Johnâs gospel. And you can, as you go through this on your own, see parallels between whatâs being said in chapter 17 of Johnâs gospel and those demonstrations of the Lordâs Prayer in the other gospels. But mainlyâIâm not gonnaâIâm certainly not going to try to do that now. My purpose is to give you a few points to consider, so that when you go off to pray after Iâm finished talking, youâll have these things on your mind that might aid you in prayer.
[Paul reads John 17.]
After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, âFatherâŠâ
So immediately you think of âOur Father, who art in heaven. . . .â He looks up to heaven, and he says âFather.â
âThe hour has come. Glorify your son so that the son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.â
I have a suggestion for you, and Iâm going to do a little bit of it now. I suggest that during the day, if you feel so led, that you read Johnâs gospel beginning with chapter 17, and working your way backward: 16, 15, 14. . . . Go back as far as chapter 6, perhaps. Donât read every word backwards, just chapter by chapter, okay? [Laughter.]
There are a couple reasons for doing this. You know, sometimes when youâre reading some science books, for example, you come across situations where the person will say something and it is just not clear exactly what he means, and it doesnât become clear until you get to the next chapter, when he explains it more fully. So, actually, I think youâll find something like that happening in Johnâs gospel. Sometimes itâs worthwhile to see what heâs talking about in chapter 17 in order to understand why heâs saying what heâs saying in 16, and 15, and so on.
At any rate, if it doesnât work that way for you, thatâs okay. Youâll find it refreshing and it will certainly change the way in which you read Saint Johnâs gospel, normally. [Laughter.] Give you fresh eyes.
So Iâm going to read a little bit from John 16. As I said last night, again, in verse 22:
So you have pain now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. On that day, you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
I believe he is saying that afterâno oneâletâs see: âI will see you again and your hearts will rejoice.â I think he there is referring to the resurrection, after the resurrection when he appears to them.
I may just have to. . . . A little later on he talks about how âI have said these things to you in figures of speech.â As we try to explain things about our experience, we have to ourselves keep stretching for ways to talk about what is going on with us, how God is manifesting himself in our midst. We also, in our own way, are always striving to clarify: what is God doing, for example, in this room, right now? What is God up to? If God is not here, he isnât anywhere. God is here with us now, and I ask you to discern: what is God doing? What is God up to here? And as we think about that and try to talk about it, we find ourselves reaching for new ways of talking. We have to invent new things to describe our circumstances and our situation, with our own cultural inclinations.
So, last night I said that we have Godâs DNA. Well, of course thatâs not in the Bible. They hadnât seen DNA yet. So obviously itâs also true that God doesnât have genes as we understand them. But there are these Godly characteristics: the way God is. Thatâs what I meant by Godâs genes. God has a way of being. These are characteristics of God that are passed on to his children at their birth in him. They are genetic; they are generative. They are passed on to you at baptism. They come to you by virtue of the new nature that you take on at baptism.
Suppose you were an orphan. When you were born in Minnesota andâyou were put up for adoption, and you never knew your parents. You were whisked away at the age of two weeks and you wound up in South Bend. You live your whole life; it seems a long time. You grow up the way you are, not knowing who your parents are. You have foster parents whoâve cared for you very well; youâve been well-treated by the Lord, have had no reason to be anxious about anything. And then one day you get word from your father, your natural father, your birth father, that heâs alive, and he wants to see you. You arrange a meeting and you go to see him. Youâre 50 years old now, and heâs 75. Itâs just an amazing moment. You look at him and you can see yourself in his face! He has a nose very similar to yours. Heâhis hair is a different colorâwhatâs left of itâbut you can see, in him, and in his forehead, the same kind of forehead you have. You look at himâeven when he speaks, his voice is different from yours, but it has the same tone. Itâs just amazing! You didnât learn that. He speaks with a lisp, and so do you. He speaks Minnesotan, and you speak South Bendish, but nonetheless you still can pick up these characteristics. Those are things that you didnât know you got from your father. You didnât know you had them. But when you see them in him, you have to say, âMan! So much of what I have was simply given to me straight away by my father at birth!â These are not learned attributesâ these are genetically made-up attributes. These are things by virtue of being his son.
I think thatâs similar to our situation in relationship to our Father in heaven. We, after baptism, pretty well grew up not knowing our Father very well. And yet we have these residual characteristics. We are a lot like our Father in heaven, but we donât know him very well. We donât talk to him very well; we donât know how.
We canât go on with what we have to strengthen what God has given us, because we donât understand what is of God and what is of man. But that is what we want to do increasingly in our life. Our Lord Jesus told us that he came to reveal the Father to us, so that we could grow in the sonship of the Father with God. So we speak in figures, in order that we can understand, as well as weâre able, not what God did then, but what God is doing now, how God is your Father, and how you are a son of God.
Now letâs go on with John 17.
âGlorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people.â
So the first thing Jesus asks of the Father is that he glorify Jesus, even as he, Jesus, had glorified the Father. Now, I want to talk a little bit about the word glory.
Weâre familiar with glory as an attribute. We usually think of glory in terms of something being glorious. Like, wasnât it a glorious day? Well, first of all, it was a day; it was a twenty-four hour period. It had all the elements of âdayhood.â But it was a special kind of day, it was a spectacular day. It was a day like other days, but it had a gorgeous sunrise; it had great, low humidity, a wonderful, cooling breeze, and sun shimmering off the beautiful new leaves that are forming. You can see the glory of God meaning something like this: the iridescent beauty of God, an attribute of God. Or we can see that it was a glorious day: you can see the glory of the day itself. All those things that I just described, however, are attributes of glory. They are something that you attribute to, or things that modify, the basic thing youâre talking about. So itâs a form of speech.
In Johnâs gospel the word glory is not used as an attribute about 60 percent of the time. About 60 percent of the time it is used as the thing itself. Itâs parallel toâwith a stretch of your mind you could say that glory means God, glory is God. God is not separate from the glory. If youâre seeing God, youâre seeing Godâs glory. Itâs not the glory that God has; it is God. God is all glory. God is glory.
So when he says, âGlorify your son,â he means, âGodify your son; glorify me, make your presence in me.â As you read Johnâs gospel, you see over and over and over again the parallel between Jesus and glory, and Father and glory. Another way of saying it isâwhat Jesus is saying [is]ââFather, indwell me. Completely inhabit me. Make me fully your temple. Be fully me. Become me, be with me: fully God present.â
There are lots of other things in PaulâI wonât read them; itâs rather tediousâin Paulâs writings where Paul makes it clear how parallel Jesus and glory are. You can just file that away and sometime when you are reading through the epistles, you can think about that.
So, â. . . the hour has come,â Jesus prays. âGlorify your son, so that the son may glorify you.â
Now, I donât know everything about Johnâs gospel, chapter 17. Iâm sure that nobody knows everything about it, but here you see that Jesus, just before heâs about to be crucified, is praying, âFather, glorify me.â Now, we understand that the moment of greatest glory for Jesus is on the cross. So that one could look at him and see the crucified Lord. This is a very strange kind of glory. This is what Jesus is praying for. He says, âFather, glorify me, make my sacrifice complete, fulfill your purposes for all creation. At this moment, bring about my immolation and my resurrection.â What you see here, at this moment in this prayer, is God at the moment loving us. The immolation on the cross is the greatest sign of Godâs love for mankind: âFor he so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son to die for us.â So when we look at the cross, we see Godâs glory loving us.
We see the Son playing a role in the glorification of God the Father, too, because he prays, âGlorify me as I glorify you.â Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, is, you could say, also making the Father by the Spirit. There would be no Father if there was no Son. He goes on, â. . . since you have given him authority over all people.â Another way to say this would be, âSince you have given him responsibility for the many, you have given him sufficient power to be able to do what has to be done for the sake of everyone. You have given him, Father, the responsibility to take care of the many. Youâve given him authority over all people, in order to give them eternal life.â
Now, remember, in the beginning of Johnâs gospel, in the first chapter it says that Jesus came into the world to give us life. This life is a gift from God, in Christ, that will never end. Thatâs why he calls it eternal life. Itâs life that wonât quit. Itâs brimming over and itâs abundant. Sometimes we experience so much life that we feel like itâs going to kill us if we get any more.
Okay. Now, you can say, as I said about glory. . . . Letâs see; I want toâI need to read a little more here. In John 17:
. . . and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
You could read this a different way: â. . . and Jesus Christ, the one who is sent.â Or, âJesus Christ, sent.â
Everything that youâI said about glory, that glory is a word that can be applied to Jesus in the same way, for instance, as the word logos is [applied to Jesus], the word itself. . . . You can say that Jesus is the word of God. You can also say Jesus is the glory of God. In the same way, there are various cognates of that sort that you can apply directly to Jesus. And another one similar to theseâlike Lord, the Righteous One, glory, Christâanother one similar to that is remarkable, and itâs clear when you read all of Johnâs gospel that Jesus identifies himself as Lord, glory, Word, etc., . . . and as âsent.â Jesus equals âthe one who is sent.â He is sent. Itâs a little longer phrase than the one in relationship to logos, say. You have to understandâI think you have to see, when you read Johnâs gospel, that Jesus senses that his entire existence is wrapped up in the fact that he is sent by God into the world for the purpose of saving us. Jesus is his mission. [From the Latin, the word] âmissionâ means âsent,â of course. Jesus, the Word of God, is sent. He is the one who is sent.
Take a look at Mark 12 or Matthew 21. Letâs go to Matthew 21, verse 33. Let me jump from gospel to gospel here. . . . Jesus is telling us a parable, to the scribes and Pharisees and all the people.
There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to the tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his product.
They understood this, evidently, as the prophets [i.e. the slaves signify the prophets].
But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, âSurely they will respect my son.â But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, âThis is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.â So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? They said to him, âHe will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.â Later, when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parable, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
Jesus, at this most critical moment in his mission, identifies himself primarily as the one sent from God to reign over his vineyard, to produce good fruit. And they haveâand heâs accused the scribes and Pharisees, the chief priests, the elders, of having killedâof being sons of Satan, of those who have in the past been killing the prophets and those who were sent to them. And he says, âTheyâre going to do the same thing to me, even though I am the one who is sent.â
Now, itâs interesting that Jesus and the prophets, it says, are sent, but theyâre not sent from someplace else. As in the case of the prophets, they were sent to Israel, but they were Israel. Itâs not like God was out there, sending them in from outside. They were Israel, and yet he sent them to Israel. That is to say, they were Israel, but they had this mission to be to Israel what they needed to be in order to proclaim the word of Godâand in Jesusâ case, to be God. To proclaim the word of God means to speak the word of God in that situation, to speak the Godly word. To be God, speaking in that word. To be one speaking Godâs word.
I would say you havenât got the relationship between the Father and the Son right if you donât understand that he is the one who is sent. And if you donât experience and activate your having been sent to save, you also donât have the right relationship with the Father. Because as Father, he has sent the Son; he has sent you. Just as he sent the prophets, just as he sent Jesus. To be Christ is to be sent. He sent Isaiah: âI heard the voice of the Lord say, âWhom shall I send? Who will go for us?â Then I said, âHere I am. Send me!ââ
You know, the missionary spirit of the church has always been associated with the spirit of martyrdom: the glory of Jesus on the cross, identified with being sent into the world, to save it. The testimony of the blood of the saints has always been the life of the church. The vitality, the very spirit of the church, is mission.
Let me give you a few citations.
In John 3, verse 34âWhy donât you just jot these locations down and you can read them later? âHe whom God has sent. â That is to say, âhe whom God has sentâ is a name Jesus utters.
John 4:34. âMy food is to do the will of him who sent me.â
John 5:23. âHe who does not honor the son does not honor the Father who sent him.â
John 5:24. âHe who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.â
John 5:30. âI seek not my own will, but the will of him who sent me.â
John 5:36. âThese very works that I am doing bear witness that the Father has sent me.â
[John] 6:29. âThis is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.â
[John] 6:44. âNo one can come to me unless the Father, who sent me, draws him.â
[John] 7:16. âMy teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.â
[John] 7:28. âHe who sent me is true.â
John 8:18. âThe father who sent me bears witness to me.â
Iâll give you a few more. You can find them all over Johnâs gospel.
John 8, verses 26 and 29 and 42.
John 9, verse 4.
John 10, verse 36.
And so on. At every turn, Jesus identifies himself as the one who is sent. As the one who exists for the Fatherâs purposes. His whole being is tied up with doing what the Father wants. He exists to do what his Father wants. He exists to accomplish the purposes of his Father. And thatâs why he is the âone who is sent,â who comes from God to accomplish the Fatherâs purposes. So, in Johnâs Gospel, just as you call Jesus the Christ, the Lord, the Messiah, the Savior, the Word of God, glory, you can say he is the one who is sent.
Have you ever wished that you could get a glimpse of Jesusâ self-consciousness? What did he think of himself? What did he think he was doing? Well, remember what Scripture says, and whatâs obviously true, is that Jesus is a man just like you. The caveat, the qualifier there, is that Jesus is just like you in everything except sin, which is a reality we have to keep conscious of. But we let the qualifier be like a hole in the bottom of the bucket, and it drains the meaning out of the first part of that statement. The statement is that Jesus is just like you; youâre just like Jesus, except for sin.
What we do is, we tend to think that the modifier becomes the most important part of this. That thatâs a statement that weâre sinners, instead of that weâre like Jesus. And so we concentrate on our sin. And we go day from dayâfrom day to dayâexamining ourselves to see how it is that weâre not like Jesus! Weâll buy another book today, perhaps, to clarify it, so that we can make our way through Lent, finding out whatâs wrong with ourselves. Thatâs not what Jesus meant to say there. Sin isâwhen sin is not a part of your lifeâif you donâtâif you look over your life. . . . Letâs see, what do I want to say? I want to say that we have become experts on sin, and not experts on Jesus. We become focused on ourselves, and see how we can improve ourselves, so that we can be holy, instead of looking to the Father to see where we should be sent.
I think that we come closest to seeing Jesusâ self-consciousness, what he thought of himself, when we see that he sees that he is the one who is sent by the Father to save us. That he is on the mission to save the world. He knows that heâs saving them, one paralytic at a time, perhaps, but heâs beginning the process. He doesnât come and wave a wand and cure all paralytics around the world, all at once. Rather, heâs establishing the kingdom. âThe kingdom of God is here,â he says. âLook at me; here I am.â And heâs bringing people into his community, one person at a time, individually. Heâs going after this one, and this one, and this one, and everyone who comes to him and says, âI need something. Will you give it to me?â He says, âIâll give it to you; come on in.â Thatâs his mission, and that mission continues in us. Our Christ-consciousness has to be that of those who are sent by the Father to save the world. You have been sent by the Father to save the world, because God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten son to save us.
Jesus had a comfortable life in Nazareth, but he was called. So he left his house and family and lands, and went into the world, just as he said his disciples would have to do. He was not exactly like the prophets of old, because he wasnât sent as a servant. He was the Fatherâs very own son. In the Old Testament the prophets spoke of the word of the Lord coming to them. The word of God didnât come to Jesus. He was the Word of God! So, God in Jesus is doing something brand new. God in Jesus is saving the world.
[Jesus says] in [John 17,] verse 3:
âThis is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.â
In verse 20 he prays for us. He prays for you:
âI ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, . . .â
Youâre the ones who believe in him because of the word of the disciples.
â. . . that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.â
I suggest you go and pray about chapter 17. And as you pray, pray to the Father as Christ and in Christ. Read it over and make those words your words. Put those words in your mouth. Speak to the Father as Jesus; make his prayer. Pray to the Father, glorify the Father. And enter into the mystery of Christ in you. Enter into the mystery of your sonship. You are a son of God. Enter into that sonship, the spirit of sonship, which comes from the Father. The Spirit of God has been poured out on you so that you can cry, âAbba, Father!â
Now Iâve touched on a lot of different things here: about being sent, about glory, about being in-dwelt, about fatherhood, sonship. There are many things that you might have been stimulated by that you could think about. But I suggest that you find the one thing and focus on that for this period of prayer. And let the Lord enlighten you. Whatever it doesâwhatever it takes, let the Lord open you up at this time of prayer, and stay with that, and follow the light that you see.
Letâs go and be silent as we pray, now. Weâll return at 11.
[Recording ends here.]
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