Secular reason, all by itself, cannot give us a basis for “sacrifice, redemption, and forgiveness,” as Paul Kalanithi concluded in his final months.

Putting the Johannine words of Jesus together with Jewish eschatology and Old Testament strands of thought about divine-human marriage, temple, and priestly clothing, we find connections to most elements of thinking about Paul’s union with Christ.

just as the recognizability of the Word in history is bound to the humanity of Jesus, so the recognizability of Jesus in the world is bound to the visible community insofar as it is constituted by turning and returning to the foundational and sustaining act of Christ.