I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
John 17:22-23, NIV
In the verses above, Jesus is praying for His disciples and ultimately, His Church. Jesus longs for His people to be united as one as He and the Father are united together, He longs to see His people brought to complete unity. But why is unity so important to Jesus? Why is it something He prays for His people to experience together?
This unity is important to Jesus because it is how the love of the Triune God is best shown to the world. The love that the Father, Son, and Spirit share with one another is a love that unites. Three distinct beings brought together in perfect, unbreakable unity, still maintaining their own distinction, but inseparable bonded together in love. When the Church more fully reflects this kind of unity, the Church more fully reflects this perfect love to the world.
The Church was meant to embody the love of Christ for all the world to see. This love is best embodied when diverse groups of people, individuals who are distinctly different from one another, come together and are united by this love. Then these distinct individuals, while maintaining their distinction from one another, become one together. This perfect love that has been shared with us, is a love that does not do away with differences, promoting uniformity, but instead celebrates those differences and finds unity and commonality with those differences to unite people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.
Unity that still makes space for differences and diversity is far more meaningful and powerful than uniformity, where everyone is simply the same. It shows a love that is not put off by differences, is not scared of different thoughts or ideas, but actually makes space for those differences and still finds commonality and can identify with the other. This is the unity that Christ longs to see in the Church, and the unity that we at LoveINC long to see in our local network of churches.
May our local churches learn to see past their differences and find unity in Christ’s love, appreciating one another’s differences, while identifying with each other in the life Christ has imparted to each of us.