Sixth Sunday of Easter

Last Sunday the Gospel reading concerned Jesus telling his disciples that those who followed in his footsteps would find a new way to view God that was different to that which was taught by the Jewish faith, from which they were beginning to extricate themselves.  In fact the Jesus view of God was different to all other visions of God. 

Jesus was able to show them a God who loved them as his children and who wished to be identified as their father.  God through Jesus’ revelation was not a cold dispassionate God but one that cared deeply for all his children.  In fact Jesus said that anyone who followed his example would find Jesus to be the Way the Truth and the Life. 

Jesus showed a dimension of God that other religions and Judaism in particular did not understand as they searched for God.  So when he is forced to leave them to join his Father, he encourages them to see God as Father to allow them to still be in contact with the rabbi that they so much loved.

God is a slippery being for humans to comprehend.  God as the creator and judge is different and remote from God’s creatures.  Paul, in the reading from Acts, reminds us that the unknown God is only to be discovered by seeing God as Father through the life of Jesus the Son. 

The Greek poet, referenced by Paul in his address before the Areopagpus, is Epimenides in his poem "Cretica," which says (in part)

"They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one

The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!

But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest forever,

For in thee we live and move and have our being."

The last line was added by another Greek poet, Aratus.

It's interesting to note that "Epimenides' Paradox" is a classic in the study of logic. Epimenides was a Cretan who made one immortal statement:

'All Cretans are liars”.

Paul sees that the Greeks were searching for the God who was only to be found in Jesus.  So, he proclaims that without the revelation of God as Father, as expressed by the love of God in Jesus, then there will always be a void in the human search for fulfilment and meaning.

The Gospel reading helps to fill in that void.  Jesus' words address the shape of the early church’s community's life after the events of Jesus' death and are intimately connected to the earlier part of his farewell conversation with his disciples.  

This statement from Rudolf Bultmann, the very important biblical scholar, helps to place this section of the conversation in its appropriate context:

"The question therefore is this: what is this love, which is (to be) directed to Jesus (when he is gone)?  And this question, too, …  Can the disciples still love him, when he has gone?  Can the second generation love him, without having had a personal relationship with him?"

"Can the disciples still love him, when he has gone?"  

Our Gospel reading this morning answers, “Yes”, to this question, but it may be a “Yes” that surprised even Jesus' first disciples.  The disciples can still love Jesus, but neither by clinging to a cherished memory of him nor by retreating into their private experience of him.  Rather, they can continue to love Jesus by doing his works and by keeping his commandments.  That is, when they move outside of their own private experience of Jesus, when they live what Jesus has taught them and demonstrated in his own life, then they will find themselves once again in his love.

Next Thursday is the festival of The Ascension, on which the church celebrates and remembers that Jesus left this world to be with his Father, where he acts as the intercessor our us.  In some countries Thursday is a public holiday. Along with the birth, death and resurrection, the Ascension is one of the four pillars of our faith.

Jesus' teachings to the disciples here about love, give direction to the continuation of his own life into the life of his followers.  Jesus lived out God's love of him by keeping God's commandments, by making God known to the world, by offering God's promise of salvation to the world, by loving fully, even to the extent of laying down his life.  

Jesus' union with God was not a private, mystical union, in which their love for one another was only self-beneficial.  It was not for the glory of God and Jesus alone with no eye to the life of God's creation.  On the contrary, the love between God and Jesus was a public love, first revealed to the world in Jesus as the Son of God and repeatedly revealed in Jesus' words and works throughout his ministry.  

The glorification of God and Jesus in Jesus' works was for the sake of those to whom Jesus came to so that they might believe and come to share in the love of God and Jesus.  That they might understand that faith in the Christ was different to other faiths.  The love that the Father had for Jesus and for us demands that we love one another as Christ first loved us.

A Christian's union with the Father and Jesus is possible after Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension, but like the union of the Father and Jesus, it is not a private, mystical union of the believer with his or her God.  Jesus' words consistently point to the communal nature of union and relationship with him after the end of his earthly ministry.  

The promises of Jesus’ divine presence are promises made to the community, not to the individual.  All of the personal pronouns in these verses are second person plural, not singular.  The “you” in the text is a communal “you”, not an individual one.  Jesus does not promise the Spirit, or his own return, or the home making of the Father and Jesus to individuals, but to a community who lives in love.  

The Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are inseparably interconnected with one another, as the promise of the Father sending the Holy Spirit in response to Jesus' request shows, and they come together to those who love, to those who mirror the divine communion in their human communion with one another.  When we meet together as the body of Christ, Jesus is made present with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus' disciples follow his own model of love, then, it is possible for relationship with Jesus to extend beyond the first generation of believers.  

Relationship with Jesus does not depend on physical presence, but on the presence of the love of God that comes from the Father in the life of the community. 

The love for God is present whenever those who love Jesus keep his commandments, when they continue to live out the love that Jesus showed in his own life and death.

 Since in the farewell conversation with his disciples, Jesus speaks of the time after his death, the readers of the Gospel are placed in the same situation as the disciples.  That means that we must also discover what it means to have relationship with Jesus in his absence.  

The insistence of these verses on love as the sign of fidelity to Jesus and the way to communion with the Father, Jesus and the Spirit suggests that the believing community in any generation, including ours, will enter into relationship with Jesus only when we take on and live the love of Jesus as expressed in his life, death and resurrection.

As Paul said,

“God is not far from each of us!

Christ is risen! Alleluia!