The Big Comma

This morning the biblical passage for our denominational devotional book, Rejoice, referenced the beginning of John chapter 17, verses 1-5. My custom is to read the passage before I read the written devotional material. When I did so this morning, it struck me that Jesus stated in verse 4 that he had glorified his heavenly Father on earth by finishing the work that the Father had given him to do.

I was somewhat disappointed then when I turn to the actual writing of the devotional and found that the writer jumped right to the interpretation of verse 4 as being a reference to Jesus' death. I really do not think we have to come to or perhaps even can come to that conclusion. Let me explain.

Jesus was ostensibly praying this at the end of his Last Supper with his, by then 11, followers. To be sure, his death was imminent, and he is asking his Father to glorify his Son [in his death], but he is already saying that he had glorified the Father by "finishing the work that you gave me to do." It seems to me he is talking about work that was completed before he died.

It, therefore seems evident that the work that he was referring to was the preaching, teaching and healing that he had done over the previous years. This made me think of the remark made in a plenary session of our Mennonite Church British Columbia Annual Conference in 2013 by Anabaptist writer David Augsburger, professor of pastoral care and counselling in the School of Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in California in reference to what is generally known as the Apostle's Creed. As many of us know, it begins as follows:

I believe in God,

the Father almighty,

Creator of heaven and earth,

and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died and was buried;

The Apostle's Creed is an item that is generally more known by the so-called mainline churches, in which it is often recited, as opposed to other more post-Reformation Protestant churches. One of the criticisms that these latter churches had of the mainline denominations, which led to the Reformation, that they did not put enough emphasis on what Jesus taught and also showed by his life's example how we ought to live. For over a millennia it had been by and large seen as sufficient to be baptized at birth, to attend mass and donate to the church. When the reformers, particularly our Anabaptist spiritual forebears, got their hands on the Bible and began to read it for themselves, their eyes were opened to how much was missing in what the church was teaching about Jesus.

Indeed, if all that was expected was to believe what the apostle's Creed states, it includes no mention of the importance of Jesus's whole life and practice. As you can see, it goes right from "born of the Virgin Mary," to "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried." It is that comma, after the word Mary, that was referred to as "What a comma!" It covers the whole life of Jesus: all that he taught about how we are to live as his disciples and followers. As Augsburger stated, “The comma is where it’s at! It’s that comma that you and I live by as disciples. It’s that comma that contains all the healing. And oh what a comma!” Let's give more credit to that, and pay more attention to what it hides for too many.