Letter writing is increasingly a lost art. In our modern world of phones and computers, we use texts and emails, or don’t use words at all, substituting them for pictures and emojis. Those of us old enough to remember the days when the letter formed a major part of our communication would have learned a set of protocols, particularly with regard to how we ended a letter. ‘Yours sincerely’ if the person was named, ‘yours faithfully’ if the addressee was unnamed (‘Dear Sir/Madam’). These in themselves are effectively shorthand: go back further in time, and the sign-off was often far more florid. If you enjoy a good Victorian novel, you’ll often find sign-offs like: ‘Believe me, sir, that I remain humbly and affectionately yours…’ – or somesuch!
In our consumer world, where possession is considered an absolute, we are uncomfortable with images of ownership. What does it mean when we tell someone we are ‘theirs’ – even in a letter? It is good to remind ourselves that scripture takes a far more positive view. As we see in today’s passage, the idea of mutual dependence is rooted in the very personhood of God himself. The Father and the Son belong to each other, as Jesus prays: (v10) ‘All I have is yours, and all you have is mine.’ You could say that every communication between them is ‘yours faithfully’.
One of the great blessings of following Jesus is that we, too, are drawn into this community of mutual dependence, invited to be ‘faithfully yours’. This is an ongoing privilege: Jesus prays for his friends, noting to his Father that ‘they were yours’ (v6), and also that ‘they are yours’ (v9). We can abide continually and eternally in this divine community of love; an abiding which brings glory to Jesus (v10).
What is our response to this extraordinary invitation? To believe in Jesus and his mission (v8) and to obey the word of God (v6). Believe and obey – not out of coercion or fear, but in hope and love.
And what Jesus declares is what can declare also. All we have is God’s; and amazingly, all God has is ours: ‘praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.’ (Ephesians 1:3)
May the Lord grant us all grace to be ‘faithfully and sincerely his’ today – believing, obeying and abiding. And may that divine life flow out through us and into the lives of those we love and those we meet, that we may be ‘faithfully theirs’ too, for Jesus’ glory. Amen.