The truth
of Jesus is understood not by observing or studying it from the outside, with
an objective and impersonal gaze, but by allowing ourselves to be involved in
its event and in its experience. Happy Sunday!
DOCTRINE
AND FAITH
(Acts
15:1-2.22-29; Ps 66 (67); Rev 21:10-14.22-23; Jn 14:23-29: Sixth Sunday of
Easter; 25th May, 2025)
In these
Sundays of Easter Time, we are brought back, by the Gospel of John, to the
events that immediately precede the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus.
The liturgy seems to want to lead us not only into the Cenacle, but into our
own life, to the heart of our fears, hconfusion, and disbelief. If it is true
that we believe in the risen Jesus, however, we so often experience his absence
and the anguish that this distance causes in our lives. This is the atmosphere
of the fourteenth chapter of which we read some verses today. Two traits
characterize the spiritual climate of the discourses of the Supper; It is worth
dwelling briefly on them.
The first
feature is that these discourses are set in the context of a Supper, which
becomes the symbol of a profound communion between Jesus and his disciples. The
environment is intimate, interpersonal. We are thus reminded of a crucial
dynamic of the Christian experience: the truth of Jesus is understood not by
observing or studying it from the outside, with an objective and impersonal
gaze, but by allowing ourselves to be involved in its event and in its
experience. We know the truth if we are willing to let our life be introduced
into a path, into a journey that leads us to know the mystery from within. It
lets us know the truth, in the original sense of being able to savour it, enjoy
it.
The second
feature is the overall climate of these texts. It is marked by what John calls
the disturbance of the disciples. The chapter opens with a strong invitation
from Jesus: "Do not let your hearts be troubled" (v. 1). Towards the
end, in the passage we hear this Sunday, Jesus forcefully repeats: "Do not
let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (v. 27). Several reasons
contribute to creating disturbance and fear; in fact, the disturbances and
fears that threaten our human experience and our faith are reflected in them.
What we are most interested in observing is how Jesus reacts to the
disturbance, the way in which he invites the disciples to overcome it. First of
all, there is an appeal to faith: "Have faith in God, have faith also in me"
(v. 1). These words resonate at the opening of the chapter.
Then, in our
verses, the call to faith is followed by the invitation to remain in love.
Faith and love are the foundations of the Easter experience. In an intertwining
that is never divisible: faith leads to love and love nourishes faith. In John
14, many promises of Jesus resound concerning the future of the disciples: the
possibility of carrying out the works of Jesus and indeed of carrying out
greater ones; the gift of praying in the name of Jesus, certain of being heard
and answered; the promise of the Spirit as another Paraclete who will remain
with us forever; the promise of being able to welcome and remain permanently in
the love of Jesus by virtue of his word that protects us if we in turn know how
to protect it. The culminating promise, however, is the one we hear this
Sunday: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love
him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (v. 23). Here we
really hear something surprising: the chapter opens with Jesus' promise to go
and prepare a dwelling for us with his Father, but then the discourse ends by
reversing the image: it will be he who makes our life a dwelling capable of
hosting God's visit. "We will come to him and make our home with
him." We are the ones who become God's place! Jesus prepares a place for
us by making us the place, the dwelling of Trinitarian love, the temple of his
glory.
Describing
the future Jerusalem, the Book of Revelation tells us that "it has no need
of the sun or of the moon, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is
the Lamb" (Rev 21:23). We must await this future fulfillment, but
savouring the way in which it is already beginning to be fulfilled in us. Our
personal existence, that of our communities, is already the dwelling place of
God, in which that light can dwell that offers us the possibility of seeing and
judging the things of all time in a new way. We understand then how vain,
foolish and senseless it is to base our faith and our salvation on external
signs, such as the circumcision that the Acts tell us about (cf. Acts 15:1), or
other signs that we continue to invent in our times, or on human works, such as
the works of the Law. Jesus' Easter gives us much more, an incomparably more
beautiful and fascinating good: to remain in his love and to allow his love to
remain in us, until we become the dwelling place of God.
The liturgy
of this Sunday does not make us read this chapter to the end. Therefore, we do
not listen to the last word of Jesus: "Rise, let us go from here" (v.
31). A paradoxical word, because in fact no one gets up and Jesus continues his
speech. What meaning does this invitation have then? Perhaps we can interpret
it as an exhortation to get up (a verb of resurrection!) to emerge from our
fears and disturbances, from our anguish and resentment... We can and must get
up: while remaining in the world, we dwell elsewhere, in that love of Jesus
that manifests itself mysteriously in the secret of our life.
+ John I Okoye
