May 9, 2004
Acts: 14:21-27 + Revelation 21:1-5 + John 13:31-33,34,35
From the identity of Jesus and what it means in last week’s readings, we are led this week to consider our identity and what it means.
The “glorification” Jesus speaks of and anticipates in John’s Gospel chapter after chapter is that moment, that experience, when His oneness with God is unmistakable. It means that his presence can no longer be misunderstood nor seen as anything other than the presence of God. The death and resurrection of Jesus is his glorification. For those who recognize the meaning of his death and resurrection, the love of God is revealed. What seems to the unbeliever to be a scandal, a disappointment, the destruction of a human life, and the end of all hopeis really the moment of Glory.
All that Jesus had is given to the community. It was the heart of his final prayer in that upper room, and it was his mission, a mission he fulfilled. The love of the Son is revealed as the very essence of divine life, which is being poured out nto the community. All that Jesus had was love, and he gave it all. What the Father had given him was what he gave to his disciples. When he proclaimed that He and the Father were one, it was LOVE that they shared. What the Son provided was the mutual indwelling love of God. What Jesus gave was his flesh, his body, his blood, his will so that the Love of God would have a dwelling place, be accessible, be available, be ours.
Once we understand this, the commandment to “Love one another” is not simply as a moral mandate. It becomes an expression of the belief that the very life of the community, in love for one another, is the further outgrowth of the divine revelation we have received through the Son. One follows the other. “Love one another as I have loved you.” Means that the dymanic of love between us is the same mutual love found between God and Jesus, His Son. If Jesus says: “The Father and I are one.” as we heard in last week’s Gospel, then our love for one another puts us in the same relationship. If Jesus is the sign of God’s presence, then our love for one another is the same sign, and by our surrender to that love, to that presence, to that relationship, we too are “glorified”, and others will see and find what we have seen and found in Jesus. This kind of love is new to the world, and this kind of love makes the world new.
It is a love that means opening doors we may have closed against others. It is a love that means we will respond to appeals that cry out for our help, to forgive oversights or mistakes that someone may have made. This is a love that means opening our eyes to facts that we might otherise overlook: that the poor in the world belong to our family; that those who live in despair might be saved by our care for them; that peace can come to the world through our efforts.
That vision of a new heaven and a new earth we just heard about remains in the future only because we have failed to live it in the present. The resurrection of Jesus makes all things new, not just for him, but for us all. The glorification for which he longed is already accomplished. It is now and it is within our power to fashion a world, a country, a neighborhood, a family where there is genuine love for one another and sincere concern for the well-being of all.
We have been raised with Jesus, and no power on earth can really conquer us. We have received the Spirit he promised. We have the gifts it takes to set this world on fire with love. It is no longer the gifts of the Spirit for which we wait, now it is the fruits of those gifts that remain to be manifest: LOVE, JOY, PEACE, PATIENCE, GOODNESS, FRIENDLINESS, FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS AND SELF CONTROL. As we look toward Pentecost, it must not be simply a matter of what gifts we receive, but rather of how those gifts are manifest in our lives, because in Jesus Christ, we and the Father are one.