The Consolation

Gospel: John 16: 5-11

The disciples are overcome with grief.  Jesus has been unjustly executed, and they have some guilt regarding this death.  One of their band betrayed him, another denied him three times, and the rest abandoned him to this cruel fate.  The trauma of all these events magnifies the grief they feel, all of which are perfectly natural and understandable responses to trauma and death that human beings experience each and every day.  

However, Jesus promises to send them the Consoler, the Holy Spirit who will help them overcome this grief.  Over time they will come to see and realize many things.  Jesus is physically absent from them, but his Spirit moves among them, enabling them to carry out the works of mercy and loving kindness he performed while on earth.  Eventually, their sorrow will turn into joy, knowing that Jesus lives among us in word, sacrament, and the presence of others.  

In our own grief we experience with the loss of loved ones we too can find consolation in the Spirit and in the ongoing presence of Jesus in the world.  Grief can seem like a slab of concrete that crushes us.  But like a little tiny tree shoot in the crack of the concrete, over time it grows above the concrete and breaks that concrete to be a strong tree.  The concrete, the grief, will always be there, but it no longer dominates our life.  This is what the Spirit enables us to do with the consolation she brings to our lives.

The Danger is Real

Gospel: John 15: 26-16: 4

Today's Gospel portion describes the very real life setting of the original audience.  Christians were being expelled from the synagogue rolls throughout the region.  This took place after the failed revolt against the Roman Empire in which Christians did not participate.  Once removed from synagogue rosters, they lacked the legal protection afforded to the Jewish community exempting them from required cult of the Roman Emperor.  Christians now were required to offer worship and tribute to Caesar as a god.

Christians refused to do so and consequently faced a number of punishments for this crime, including execution.  Such punishments began right around the time the Gospel of John was composed.  What is described here is historical and real.  So, too is the consolation the Gospel writer offers.  The presence of the Holy Spirit confirms us in truth and provides us with peace and consolation to face such punishments with the same serenity and acceptance as Jesus did in his arrest, trial, and execution.

Christians of today are out of practice in refusing to give honors to emperors.  Since the time of official recognition as the state religion of empire, the currying of favor with empires has been all too popular with Christians, even to the point of mocking other Christians like Oscar Romero who would stand opposed to the earthly powers.  They are content with golden statuary and feigned piety of the showman.  The authentic Christian follows the way of the Lord Jesus, led by the Holy Spirit of truth and consolation. 

How to Love

Gospel: John 14: 15-21

Throughout the Gospels, and particularly in today's portion, Jesus says again and again that the way to eternal life is through obeying his commandments.  His commandments are the commandments of love: love God, love neighbor, love one another as I have loved you.  On the one hand, this list of commandments is much simpler than the 612 commandments in the Law.  On the other hand, we might well wonder what love looks like.  How are we to carry it out in our lives?

We get an answer today from the first reading.  Philip, one of the first followers of Jesus, is going about from town to town healing paralytics and cripples, while also freeing those gripped by their demons.  Philip is going about doing the very things Jesus did in his life while on earth: healing people, liberating them from their demons, and feeding them at table.  The entire Acts of the Apostles is an attempt to show how the first Christians attempted to live as Jesus did, following the Way of Love.

In our own life we must be about these same things in order to follow the commandments of love and the example Jesus gave us.  We must be about healing people, liberating them from their demons, and feeding people at table.  Church life is not about liturgy committee meetings or athletic leagues or even maintaining buildings.  It is about this work of Jesus and his first followers: the works of mercy, the works of healing, liberating, and feeding, the way of Love.