SUNDAY REFLECTIONS - FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Readings: Acts 6: 1-7; 1 Peter 2: 2: 4-9; John 14: 1-12 (Rev. Dr. Francis Perry Azah) In today’s Gospel account, Jesus gives several assurances and places us in the proper setting. In it, we find Jesus at the Last Supper giving His final thoughts to His apostles just before He was about to suffer and die. He was saying goodbye to them, and they were confused and upset. Having told them He was going away in the previous Chapter of John 13: 33-38, Peter said, “Lord, where are you going?” and Jesus replied, as we heard in John Chapter 14, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still, and trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s house… I am going now to prepare a place for you…” Then Thomas piped up with, “How can we know the way?” Jesus’ reply was "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you know me, you know my Father too. From this moment, you know him and have seen him.” That is the big clue, and it tells us that we are asking the wrong question when we ask, “How do we get to God? How do we find God?” The truth is that God finds us! In Christ, He is among us, searching for us, calling us to Himself all the days of our lives. To receive Christ is to receive the Father. To receive Christ, one must be moved by His Spirit. But do we know exactly who has received Him or precisely how they have received Him? There are many mansions in the Father’s house, which means there is room for anyone. God decides who abides there; we don’t.

In the Gospel Philip also asked Jesus to be able to see the Father and Jesus responded, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? To have seen me is to have seen the Father.” (John 14:9) If Jesus were to ask that question of us today, I think we would all answer that we do know something of Jesus but we don’t know him very well. That is why we worry. If we knew Jesus better, we would not focus on problems and difficulties but focus on Jesus instead. “Have I been with you all this time, and you still do not know me?” “Have I been with you all this time in the Mass and sacraments and the Word of God in the Bible, and you still do not know me?” “Have I been with you all this time in the faith of your community, and when you pray to me, and you still do not know me?” “Have I been with you all this time, and when you look back over your life, you can see that I sent you help when you needed it, and you still do not know me?”

If we had more of Jesus in our lives, we would have less fear, worries, and anxieties. Nevertheless, we would still have problems. God never promised that we would not have problems. Jesus himself had a big problem; he was sentenced to death as a common criminal. But Jesus rose on the third day and Jesus will help us rise above our difficulties also because as the second reading stated Jesus is the “living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God” (1 Pet 2:4) If we try to live without Jesus, life will not go practically as well for us as when we have Jesus at the center of our lives. We can overcome problems better with Jesus in our lives than without Jesus.

For us, Jesus is the way, right now, today; he is not out there, waiting to be our reward at the end of life; rather, he is our way to God right now. To accept him as the way, the truth, and the life is to receive a taste of heaven here and now. To follow Jesus through the ups and downs of human life is to share in his journey through his passion, death, and resurrection. And to go his way is to share even now his joy and peace in the Father’s presence. Our human journey with Christ is to be marked by the same service to God and neighbor that marked his own. Taking our human life in this world seriously commits us to do the same life-giving works that Jesus did. And surprisingly, Jesus assures us that whoever has faith in him will do the works that he has done, and far greater than these. Can that be true? Yes, we do the works he did, and far greater than these. These are works of Christian love and service in our families, neighborhood, Church community, our country, and all over the world. Jesus was confined to the Holy Land, yet his followers have become wonder workers as they make him known and loved throughout the world. The only reason we can do the works of Jesus as we journey through life is that he works through and in us, just as he worked and lived with the apostles. In Jesus, God becomes as close to us as ever; in Jesus, God’s forgiveness is as never-ending as that shown in the Scriptures. What Jesus asks of us is that we try our best to live our Christian life day after day, ever thanking him for the gift of Christ and the Christian faith, and of being a good model to our brothers and sisters. As we continue our faith journey following Jesus, who is The Way, The Truth, and The Life, let us put our trust and faith in him. All these must be done in humility. Let us always have that union with Christ, who is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. May our lives be modeled on that of Christ so that we can become people of water and towel in washing and drying the feet of our neighbors. Know that Jesus is the way that leads to the Father and also the door to heaven, all truths are found in him because he is the truth, and he is the only one who can give us life eternal. In him we live and have our being, and it is only in him that we can have life eternal.