Being Holy So We Can Be Holy

John 17:19- For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

As I was looking over the Scripture for today I was struck by the passage quoted above. Jesus is praying to God just hours before his death. He is saying he is being sanctified for us- those who come along later than the apostles. It brought me up short. So I went to the Greek concordance to see what the word meant.

hagiazo:
Sanctify- the Greek word can be defined this way:

1. to render or acknowledge, or to be venerable or hallow
2. to separate from profane things and dedicate to God
1. consecrate things to God
2. dedicate people to God
3. to purify
1. to cleanse externally
2. to purify by expiation: free from the guilt of sin
3. to purify internally by renewing of the soul

Jesus becomes clean so we may be clean.
~~~~Yep!
Jesus is dedicated to God so we may be dedicated to God.
~~~~Yep!
Jesus is pure so we may become pure.
~~~~Yep!
Jesus is holy so we may become holy.
~~~~Yep!

We beomce clean so others may become clean?
~~~~Uh....
We become dedicated to God so others may become dedicated to God?
~~~~Well....
We become pure so others may become pure?
~~~~Let's wait a minute...
We become holy so others may become holy?
~~~~Say, isn't that Jesus' job?

Yes, and tell me again... Who IS Jesus' body on earth today?

But we can't do it alone or with our own power. We know that. Which may be why we balk at these ideas. We are sure that if we dedicate ourselves to that, we will fail- and therefore fail Jesus who is going to get pretty upset with us. Or so we think.

Jesus' prayer today- what we call The High Priestly Prayer- reminds us that it isn't on our shoulders alone. We are in this with him who has already done it so we can do it. If he can do it for us, we can do it for others. When the Power from on High arrives, well,, who knows. We might even be able to do these things and more.