Sunday of the Fathers at the First Nicean Council 2024

Postfestive Day of Ascension

Ambon Prayer 41

Our Holy Fathers Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus, and Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople

Title

Glorify Thy Name

Outline

What is the mark of a Christian leader?

We see it in Paul. He hastens to Jerusalem. Why? Well for the Jewish Feast of Pentecost that also had Christian meaning. Yet his purpose seems to be in part to enhance the unity of Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus. He would risk his life for this. And it was fitting on the day the Spirit exploded the Church into the world that a leading missionary to the world would return with some of the fruit of his ministry. He risked his life for the church.

He does not talk to the presbyters from Ephesus about how many converts he made, about church growth under his influence, about the miracles he worked there, or about his doctrinal accuracy. He talks about how he sacrificed for the church and lived uprightly. This he gave as an example, especially for the presbyters, but also for everyone, including the “elders” of domestic churches.

Paul was following the example of Jesus

Here in Jesus’ last great discourse in John Jesus asks God to “glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee.” The glorification of the Son in John is Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection in obedience to the Father’s will. He embraces it to display the Father’s honor, not for his own sake.

A big reason for the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus is, “since thou hast given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him. And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” That is, it is to give eternal life, life of the age to come, to those who follow him. It is for the sake of others, for this gives glory or honor to the Father.

And having completed the work he was doing for the Father, having revealed the Father to his followers along with revealing himself as son, he now asks for the completion: “Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.”

The key attributes of the disciples are (1) “keeping thy word,” i.e. obedience and submission, and (2) doing this out of commitment to Jesus based on knowing him. And Jesus extends to to future believers, those who will come to know the Father and the Son due to the witness of the disciples.

He concludes the prayer with praying, not for protection for himself, but for the protection of the disciples, since he will no longer be with them. This is not for his good, but for theirs, “that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” This is fulfilled in their having his joy in them in his ascension and session, presumably by the Spirit.

So that is how we are to live in the light of the ascension and session of Christ.

We are, like Paul, to be detached from this world, for we know it is all passing away in the coming transformation, and doing this not because we reject the material world but because we love others and love God.

We are, like Jesus, to rejoice that Jesus has taken up his manifest power and honor, manifest at least now to the spiritual world, not because it gives us a power source, but because it completes his work of redemption and empowers us to carry it into the world to others. In other words, we are love God with our thankfulness and love others as we bring them the good news.

Jesus lived out of love for the Father, seeking his good and obeying him, and out of love for us, bringing us that new quality of life that we call eternal life. And he is still doing that now as he rules from the Father’s presence. We are to do likewise on whatever level of leadership in the body of Christ we are assigned to.