Sweet Communion

The high purpose for the whole human family

There’s an idea that’s so beautifully simple concerning the high purpose of God for the human creation, so easily grasped that we might rush to dismiss it for its lack of obvious splendour.

I’ve heard many a preacher and prophet earnestly proclaim soaring destinies for the faithful which filled their congregations with as much nervous apprehension as it did awe.

The desire to describe the ultimate purpose of life has ancient roots. The Greeks had a term - ‘Telos’ - to speak of perfect fulfilment. Famously used by Aristotle, it implies achieving a perfected, ultimate state. Similar to the word ‘destiny’, ‘telos’ can have we mortals nervously asking: will the arrow of my life fall short of it’s target, veer off-course completely, or land in just the right place?

Early theologians tossed around destiny and telos ideas of becoming “gods”, “divine” or “deified” (known as ‘theosis’ or ‘divinisation’), which might be the ultimate nerve-wracking idea! What a happy day it was when I realised that practically all I once believed about destiny and purpose was not a proper concept to live by.

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Enjoying God Forever

The 17th Century reformers in England and Scotland struck a better note when they wrote “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” The statement from the Westminster Confession seems to take all the intensity and loftiness from the telos, and with it our nervousness about whether we’re doing the right stuff in order to attain some ultimate state. Enjoying God forever also seems like something I am doing right now and far more in sync with why God set out to create mankind in the first place.

C.S. Lewis points out that the words “God is love” (1 John 4:16) have no real meaning unless God contains at least two persons. The fact that God has been love eternally tells us that God is a community … other-centred love being the dynamic activity of this community. We know this community as Trinity. A loving circle of three.

We’re here because God creates in order to include others in an ever expanding circle of affection.

In his book Mere Christianity, Lewis refers to the Trinity as a kind of dance - The Great Dance. There’s a ‘fellowship’ or ‘communion’ (both translate from the Greek Koinonia) that we can enjoy with God and one another now that’s full of joy, true affection and common unity.

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The Disciple Jesus Loved

The twelve disciples were a kind of prototype of ordinary people called into an extraordinary fellowship with Jesus. John and his brother James were fishermen who along with others joined Jesus’ happy band.

They ate with Jesus, walked the beach with him, joked about, and then listened intently as Jesus told them things that bound this band of brothers even closer together. Jesus became a presence in their lives that set them alight every day. John felt this koinonia with Jesus so personally that he later referred to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. It’s not that he was more loved by Jesus than anyone else - it just felt like that to him, this life of fellowship with God and his friends.

Three Decades Later

The year is A.D. 65. Over thirty years have passed since Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension from the Mount of Olives. John has been without the physical presence of Jesus for over three decades. But this is the year he writes his gospel and his three letters.

In his first letter, John writes to people who never got to walk the beaches of Galilee with Jesus, they never ate a meal of fish with him around an open fire, nor did they have Jesus turn up at their family gatherings, or hear him tell his down-to-earth parables. John writes to them … (1 John 1:3-4)

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled …

John is referring to his life with Jesus 30 years before … none of the people he was writing to were there, many had not even been born … we certainly weren’t.

… that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.

The optimum word John uses here is “fellowship”. That seemed to be the issue: the disciple whom Jesus loved had enjoyed a fellowship (koinonia, sweet communion) with Jesus – he had heard him, seen him and held him – surely John and the other disciples had an intimate connection with Jesus that someone 30 years later could never expect to have in this life?

But then John catches their resignation by surprise. He tells them that they too can experience the full joy of koinonia with Jesus! Yes, even decades after Christ’s return to the Father. He tells them that when they (that is, the believers who never saw or touched Jesus) have fellowship with us (that’s John) that in truth their fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus!.

John is telling us that we’re at no disadvantage. When we place ourselves where we can experience sweet communion with others, it’s as satisfying and transforming a depth of companionship with Jesus, as we would know if we had time travelled to A.D. 31, and sat around a fire on a mountainside with a handful of others and engaged in koinonia with Jesus, just as John, James, Peter and Andrew had done.

The Genius of God

It could be in a lounge room, in a café, or on a beach. We might be talking about a good movie or painting a fence together – I have learned that in this koinonia I am in fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus.

This is the communion where Christ is truly present; and each time I leave these moments of community, I depart full of joy, and knowing that I am the disciple whom Jesus loved.

This koinonia, this sweet communion is the high purpose for the whole human family, the great privilege of every person. The journey is the destination. That café time where we laughed out loud, where we cared deeply for one another: this is the telos.

Isn’t it just like the relational God to open the way to communion with him through such an available natural means. Jesus has already included us in his relationship and union with his Father - there are no spiritual requirements to meet, they are all met in him. Now we have this sweet communion with God to enjoy in fellowship with one another whether we know it or not (and even more rich when we do know it).

It’s the genius of God that the attraction, the magnet, the divine pull of the real presence of Jesus is found where humans engage in affectionate community. God has made us to long for one another. And by being pulled into this koinonia, we put on display the very love found in the Trinity, and we discover the high purpose of God for the whole human family.

Just the other day, I saw a grandmother holding her baby granddaughter. She was standing in a restaurant in the Mall. I watched her eyes as she looked at that baby. I saw the love and the joy, the tenderness and the commitment. I saw the hopes, the dreams, the desires. I saw the laughter. I thought to myself. “Does all of that originate with that grandmother? Is she the one who creates that love, that joy, that tenderness, that commitment? Does it have its origin in her heart? Is that a mere human event, a mere human love? No, that is the great dance of Trinity at work within us, present, not absent.”

There is only one circle of love in this universe, only one circle of life and fellowship and passion and tenderness and commitment. And that circle has been opened in Jesus Christ, and the human race, including that grandmother and that baby, have been taken into it. There is far more going on in her life than she ever imagined. More than likely, she is clueless about what is happening. More than likely, she thinks that it is all just human. But it is not “just human.” It is the fellowship, the joy, the life, the love of the Father, Son and Spirit being played out in her and in her relationship with her granddaughter.

C. Baxter Kruger. The Great Dance: The Christian Vision Revisited.