20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,
21 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 so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
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A biologist cracks the shell of an egg containing a fully developed chicken. He then extracts a few living muscle cells from the chick's tiny heart and drops them in a saline solution. Even though the cells are isolated from the body, each heart cell beats out an incessant rhythm.
When he gazes at them under a microscope, he sees each cell tapping out a rhythm approximate to the 350 beats a minute normal to a chick. But over the hours somethiing astonishing occurs. Instead of several independent cells contracting at their own pace, first two, then three, then all of the cells pulse in unison. There are no longer any independent cells beating out their own rhythm. Instead of several different beats, there is one.
Why does this happen? It occurs because those heart cells sense an innate rightness about playing the same note at the same time. Each heart cell has a sense of belonging that causes it to work in unison with the others. While they are each separate, they are also one. (Taken from Fearfully & Wonderfully Made by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1980, pp. 45-46].)
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are unique individuals, akin to those independent cells. Yet we've been called to live in unity, to function as one body. That's what Jesus prayed for in this passage as he considered all the people who would come to know him through the work of his followers. That means he prayed for us today--for me and for you and for each person who calls on Jesus' name in our time.
Among other things, Jesus prayed for our unity. He asked that all future believers would be one as he and the Father are one. Jesus wasn't asking for uniformity. He didn't mean all believers should look alike, think alike and talk alike. Nor was he asking for organizational unity. The sum total of all the world's believers will never organize their churches alike or worship alike. While we can agree on certain Biblical standards of approaching God and preaching the gospel, Jesus wasn't praying for a lack of diversity in worship.
Jesus prayed that all future believers would have a unity of relationship, as he has with his Father. This unity already exists, and we as believers are called to "make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:3). Such unity rests on mutual acceptace of differences, and is based upon our faith in God and the truth of God's Word. The unity that Christ prayed for here includes all people who confess Jesus Christ as Lord, and is intended to be a foretaste and sign of the kind of love, unity, and community that will be present in Christ's coming kingdom (Acts 2:24-27; 1 Peter 2:9-10).
Jesus said that when such unity occurs among his believers, it validates his mission to outsiders and proves that he came from God (John 13:34-35). And he said it demonstrates something else, something that defies human comprehension. Our unity proves that God the Father loves us as much as he loves Jesus. Love unites the members of the Godhead. And love unites believers. When we live in unity with believers of a different color and creed, we reveal the supernatural love of God.
As a Christian, you have a high calling to live in unity with your fellow believers. Make it a personal goal to build a friendship with a man of a different color or from a different church. Focus on that which you have in common in Christ. Like the cells from the heart of that chick, let's beat to the same tune. After all, we do belong to the same body.
