Our Common Unity

Date: Saturday, August 29, 2026

John 17 is often called Jesus’s High Priestly Prayer, and for good reason; it echoes the Old Testament image of the high priest entering the Holy of Holies once a year to intercede for Israel (Leviticus 16). But Jesus does something no earthly priest ever could: He prays not just for the people standing in front of Him, but for “those who will believe in me through their message” (John 17:20). That includes each of us, by name, two thousand years before we were born. His plea is majestically specific: “that they may be one as we are one” (17:22). Unity among the body of believers is a paramount priority and something that often eludes the church in America today.

In the 1940s, a young French pastor named Brother Roger began welcoming refugees from a continent torn apart by war, eventually founding the Taizé community; a place where Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants still worship and pray side by side today as living proof that Jesus’s prayer for unity wasn’t wishful thinking. It was a promise being worked out slowly, imperfectly, across centuries.

Psalm 50 warns against hollow ritual detached from a genuine heart: “offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving” (50:14) rather than religous performance. Jesus’s prayer and this psalm meet at the same point: God isn’t interested in religious theater. He wants real unity, rooted in real relationship, worshiped in spirit and truth. To be obedient to this, we must leave our secondary priorities of politics, ideology, and social status behind, and be present with one another in our common-unity in Christ’s grace, which is where the word “community” comes from.

Devotional Prompts:

What would it look like to actively pursue unity with believers who worship or believe differently than you do?
Where might you be offering God ritual instead of relationship this week?
Where might you be prioritizing your own views compared to others in identifying as a “Christian”?

Prayer: Great High Priest, thank You for praying for us before we ever knew Your name. Make us instruments of the unity You desire for Your church. Amen.