Readings:
- Acts 15:1-2, 22-29
Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8 Response: “O God, let all the nations praise you!” - Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23
- John 14:23-29
Reflections on the Gospel Reading
In today’s Gospel we are once again listening to Jesus’ farewell discourse at the last supper, this time from chapter 14 of John’s Gospel. Although the dramatic setting of the gospel reading is the last supper, the liturgical setting finds us baptized Christians listening to the words of the crucified and risen Jesus as we gather at the table of the Lord. (See Dodd 1968, 403.)
There are many themes in this short passage. For example, one could comment on the promised Paraclete or Advocate who is identified with the Holy Spirit. The Greek “paraclete” and the Latin cognate “advocate” refer to someone who is called to one’s side such as a lawyer in a trial or a family member in a time of death or disaster. The Paraclete will abide with Jesus’ disciples, act as a counselor in their conflict with “the world,” and console them in time of persecution.
One could also comment on Jesus’ gift of his peace. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.” This is Jesus’ third gift to his disciples, following upon the two gifts in chapter 13: his example of service (foot washing) and his example of love (new commandment). The three gifts are intimately connected and exemplified in Jesus’ immanent departure and return to the Father.
However, today I want to reflect on Jesus’ saying: “I am going away and I will come back to you.” How did the first readers of John’s Gospel understand Jesus’ return, and how should we understand it after all these years?
Part of our difficulty in understanding this gospel passage is that most of us presume only one chronology for the post Easter events, even though each gospel writer adopted a distinct chronology to get across his own theological interpretation of the events. Most of us implicitly follow the chronology that Luke uses in the first chapters of his Acts of the Apostles. According to that chronology, after his resurrection Jesus appeared several times during a forty-day period and then ascended to heaven. We go on to presume that he will be gone from us until his second coming at the end of time. As a result, we tend to be very skeptical when we hear that someone has had a vision of Jesus.
This is not what John’s Jesus meant when he said, “I am going away and I will come back to you.” For John the upward movement of Jesus’ glorification reached its highest point when Jesus was lifted up on the cross. Jesus’ death was the moment of his ascension and return to the Father. All the subsequent appearances in John’s Gospel are descents from heaven, and there is no terminal point for those appearances.
Thus, members of John’s community were not skeptical when they heard accounts of appearances of Jesus. Scholars like Bruce Malina, Richard Rohrbaugh, and John Pilch think that it was routine for John’s community to experience the presence of Jesus in their eucharistic celebrations through an altered state of consciousness. This seems strange to us technological Americans, but it is not at all foreign to the experience of the vast majority of human beings throughout the centuries or even today. They are accustomed to experiencing the divine or the transcendent in altered states of consciousness, not just as individuals but also in groups.
As long as eyewitnesses to the ministry and words of Jesus were living, their witness could make the presence of the risen Lord almost palpable. A crisis occurred in the Jesus movement when the last of these eyewitnesses died, especially the Disciple whom Jesus loved who was so central to John’s community. How would the risen Lord continue to be among them? In today’s gospel passage Jesus gives two assurances to the bereaved community.
First, it is true that Jesus will leave them to dwell with the Father. However, rather than bringing them to dwell with him and the Father at some uncertain place or point in time, he promises to relocate God’s earthly temple from Jerusalem to the human heart. “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14.23 NRSV translation) This is the present, not the Parousia.
Second, he promises that the Paraclete (aka Advocate, Counselor, Holy Spirit) will be sent to “remind you of all that I told you.” This will make it possible for Christians to encounter the living words of Jesus even after all the eyewitnesses are dead.
The Second Vatican Council captured the spirit of today’s reading by declaring that to accomplish the great work of celebrating the paschal mystery Christ continues to be present to his Church.
Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass . . . By His power He is present in the sacraments . . . He is present in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy Scriptures are read in the church. He is present, finally, when the Church prays and sings, for He promised: 'Where two or three are gathered together for my sake, there am I in the midst of them.' (Mt 18:20) (Constitution on the Liturgy, n. 7)
Many of us twenty-first century Christians would like to experience the presence of Jesus, especially when we gather for worship. If he is present in all these ways, we ask, why can’t we experience him? What must we do for this to happen? In today’s reading Jesus gives us some advice on how to prepare for such an experience.
First of all, we must believe. That means we must suspend our incredulity, trade skepticism for trust. If we are not open to the possibility of experiencing Jesus it is unlikely to happen. Note that in the last words of today’s reading Jesus stresses the importance of belief. “I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.”
Then, we must pray for the gift of vision. In the last supper discourse, just before today’s passage, Jesus says, “I will do whatever you ask in my name . . . .” (John 14.13)
We must love Jesus and keep his word. We must be joined to those who worship with us in a common bond of loyalty to Jesus and a common commitment to carry out his command of love for each other and for the world.
Finally, we must be attentive to Jesus’ words. In John’s Gospel Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice.” (John 10.27) We must recognize his voice in and through the Scriptures, especially the gospel readings.
The role of liturgical ministers is crucial here. Tasteful decorations, leadership in song, appropriate liturgical actions, confident proclamation of sacred texts, and inspired preaching can lead to our being “caught up” into the liturgical action.
To sum up, if we believe in Jesus, pray for the gift of vision, love Jesus and one another, and listen to his word, there is no reason why we cannot, at least on occasion, enter into an altered state of consciousness in which we become aware of who is always present in the depth of our existence and experience Jesus’ living presence when we gather for worship.
In preparing these reflections, in addition to the biblical texts, I consulted the following works:
Abbott 1966 – Walter M. Abbott, S.J., General Editor, The Documents of Vatican II (New York: The America Press, 1966), pp. 140-141.
Brown 1970 – Raymond E. Brown, S.S., The Gospel according to John (xiii-xxi), Volume 29A of the Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1970), pp. 637-657.
Dodd 1968 – C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press, 1968 [originally published 1953]), pp. 403-409.
Fuller 1984 – Reginald H. Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary. The Word of God for the Church Today (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1984), pp. 434-436.
Malina & Rohrbaugh 1998 – Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), pp. 228-233.
Mitchell 2004 – Joan Mitchell, CSJ, Sunday by Sunday, 6th Sunday of Easter, May 16, 2004, Vol. 13, No. 37, pp. 1-3.
Moloney 1998 – Francis J. Moloney, S.D.B. The Gospel of John. Sacra Pagina Series, Volume 4, A Michael Glazier Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1998), pp. 391-416.
Pilch 1997 – John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Sunday by Sunday, Cycle C. A Liturgical Press Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1997), pp. 82-84.
Thanks, Matthew Cahill for billhunt.net