In the spring of 1988, a young man active in the anti-apartheid
movement named Sfiso was showing me around his black
township. Eight rifle-wielding members of the South African
army leapt from an armored personnel carrier and ordered us to
the military tower. In the interrogation room, an officer threatened
to put Sfiso back into prison, where for ten months he had
been held in a cold cell and tortured. Sfiso reached calmly into
his back pocket and took out his small New Testament. Holding
it up to the officer’s face, he declared, “Sir, I am a Christian.”
Silence descended as the arrogance of evil met the quiet power
of the gospel.

Sfiso’s action was the most courageous I had ever witnessed.
He told me afterward that he was not against white
people but against injustice. Sfiso and his colleagues in the freedom
struggle were working for a unity based on their belief that
every human being is a beloved child of God—from the most
exploited laborer to the cruelest perpetrator of racist violence.

Jesus makes visible God. The disciples’ relationship with
him allow them to know God. Now, as Jesus faces death, he
prays that his disciples “may be one, as we [Jesus and God]
are one.” A few verses later, he prays, “I ask not only on behalf
of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me
through their word, that they may all be one” (17:20-21). Unity
is on Jesus’ mind in his final hours on earth—for his friends and
for those of us who follow in the path of discipleship after them.

As Sfiso taught me almost three decades ago, such unity
requires extravagant mercy and costly forgiveness. This is part
of the price for those who “have kept [God’s] word” (17:6)—and
for those of us still striving to do so.