John 17:20 “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us…”

Before we can understand the unity Jesus wants for us, we need to understand the unity he has with his Father. This isn’t so much about the unity of great Christian institutions. There are over 30,000 Christian denominations in the world today. There are some things they must have in common to be considered Christian at all. Historically, creeds like the Apostles or Nicene Creeds, which summarize Christian teachings, have been seen as kind of a litmus test, the bare necessities, what C.S. Lewis once called “mere Christianity.” Deny and oppose what these say, and there is a good chance you are standing outside of the Christian faith. But beyond that limited and brief consensus among Christians, there are still these 30,000 flavors, each with some unique take on the things Jesus taught. Certainly that is not what he intended for the billions of people who claim to follow him.

But the concern of Jesus’ prayer is more personal, less institutional: “that they may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us…” This is something deeper, more profound, than a set of ideas we can all agree on, though it is not something less than that. Jesus and his Father are so united, so joined or combined as one, that they are never really apart. Jesus remains Jesus, and the Father remains the Father. Yet, where Jesus is, the Father is in him. Where the Father is, Jesus is in him. They share a oneness in their very being. It is more than the oneness of an old married couple. They have been together so long that they finish each other’s sentences. They sense what the other person wants before he or she even asks. They have adopted pretty much the same set of opinions and ways of expressing things. They even start to look like each other.

Yet husband and wife may still be parted by geographical distance, or by death. Jesus and his Father are one God, so they never are parted. They are connected, they are bound together, in a way that far surpasses our ability to describe or understand. They are connected, they are bound together, at a level of oneness, of all things held in common, that we will never share with another human being this side of heaven.

Still, Jesus says, “may they be one, Father just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us.” The oneness of Jesus and his Father is still the pattern for our unity. When we come to faith, we know that the Holy Spirit makes our bodies his temples. Christ lives in me and begins to live his life through me. The Father also makes my heart his home. God comes and lives in me, in us.

At the same, it is also true that by faith we are in him. God, so to speak, takes us into himself. We live our lives immersed in his presence, enveloped by his love, directed by his purpose. It is a oneness with God himself. Jesus is not merely saying that if we were a fish, God would be the water in which we swim, or that as land creatures, he is the atmosphere through which we move. Nor is he saying that we have become gods. We remain his creatures.

Yet by faith we have this intimate and unbroken connection with his whole being. We live and move, and his will is being done. His grace and promise are blessing us. His love is touching the people we help and serve, because he is in us, and we are in him.