The disciples had much
reason for their hearts to be troubled.
They were at table with their Teacher.
He had just taken off his garments, knelt down and washed their
feet. He had taken a morsel of bread,
dipped it, and handed it to Judas Iscariot, declared that Judas would betray him,
and told him to go quickly and do what he needed to do. And then follows this speech. “Do not let your hearts be troubled!” How exactly?
They didn’t know exactly what was coming but they must have at least
sensed that all was not well. Their
teacher would declare himself the Way, and then walk the Way of the Cross. He’d declare himself the Truth, and then be
questioned by Pilate as to what Truth is, and answer not with words but with
the act of letting himself pierced. He’d
declare himself the Life, and then lay his down.
“Do not
let your hearts be troubled!” It’s less
an impossible command than it is a daring prayer. “Would that your hearts be calm when the sea around
them rages!” But, the disciples will
consent to a time of trouble for their hearts.
Love opens double gates on suffering, and seeing the Passion of the
Master they love, who has called them friends, will trouble their hearts.
But not
forever. For what they don’t understand
is the Love which he has for them. They’re
incapable of understanding a Love so bold, so fierce, so daring; a powerful
love which consents to suffer for them; a driving love which refuses to be
separated, to be parted, which is stronger than death, which returns Jesus from
the tomb and brings him back to them.
Can any of us dare to believe ourselves so beloved? They’re too scared to even imagine it. Their lives have been turned around in all
kinds of amazing ways by this miracle-working sage they’ve come to love, and
they’re scared stiff of losing him. They
can’t understand what we must, that
Christ can never be lost. What we have
the Good News of resurrection to teach us, and the gift of the Spirit to repeat
and repeat in our ears: that if he goes away, it’s not to abandon us, but to prepare
a place for us. To ready heaven to
acclaim us with great fanfare as we enter to the place prepared for us, to
enjoy the communion with the Father that the first disciples enjoyed with the
Son on earth.
We’ll
only fully encounter our belovedness in heaven, in that place Jesus has gone to
prepare for us. But we taste it here on
earth. We’re on pilgrimage from our
Father’s first embrace in baptism to His final lasting embrace in heaven. Walking in Christ’s footsteps, we can’t
imagine that pilgrimage could be easy.
But, as St. Catherine of Sienna once said, “the whole way to heaven is
holy, for He is the Way.” We don’t walk
this way alone. God leads us along this
way, because in Christ God has walked it for us. Through the work of the Spirit, disciples can
come to understand that in Christ’s Passion and Resurrection lies a sure and
certain testimony to the embrace at the end of the Way. In the Spirit, we are never alone as we walk
it.
There is
a Way to be walked, because sin separates us from God: others’ sin, our sin; we
feel distance, we feel abandoned. Sin
clogs up our ears so we can’t hear the Spirit’s constant tender murmuring of
love, of presence, of accompaniment. The
feeling of distance is entirely on our part, it’s an ingrained insensitivity to
God, who surrounds us like the air we breathe.
But our throats are constricted.
We can’t breathe Him in and abide in Him and have Him abide in us as
fully as powerfully as intimately as we dream of. At least not if we dare to dream as big as we
ought. But, it’s to enlarge our airways
and unclog our ears that Christ walked that way of divine love.
Philip
dares to make an outlandish request. He’s
got that much down at least. “Show us
the Father.” It’s a request that
receives an astounding response: Jesus tells him that he’s already complied:
whoever has seen Jesus has seen the
Father.
We dare
to make an outlandish request here in this Eucharist: that the Spirit would
descend and ordinary bread and wine might show us Jesus, might feed us with
Jesus. And then we’re sent out, to
glorify the Lord with our lives. What daring
requests will we hear in the coming week?
Who needs to see the Father in the Christ in each of us? Someone does.
Jesus promises his church, we will do greater works than His. In Acts we see seven men devote themselves to
feeding the hungry. In that, they showed
the world Jesus, who satisfies the hungry heart with gift of finest wheat.
No-one
can discover their belovedness until they encounter another’s love. No-one can dare to believe in the love of God
of which we speak and sing unless presented human love, no matter how frail and
fallible that might be. To take our
frail and fallible hearts, still troubled, though we know God has not abandoned
us, and let them be tested in the furnace of risk, of living lives of
extravagant grace… that’s to do a greater work.
That’s to show the world Jesus, and in showing him, discover him holding
us, loving us, walking with us, on the Way hallowed by his feet, to the place
prepared for us.
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