This week, we continue to hear from what we call the “Farewell Discourse” in John’s Gospel, the last words spoken by Jesus to his disciples, and we pick up exactly where we left off. If you remember, we talked last time about how Jesus, as he is about to leave this world, focuses on reassuring his disciples, strengthening them and showing them his love. And we talked about the very comforting thing he does to tell the disciples that he is going to prepare a room for them in the Father’s house, and how this gives to all of us, in time of grief and loss, the hope of eternal life spent with God and all those whom we love. I think that most of us can agree that this is the biggest promise of all. But the question now is: after that, what else could we hope for? What could Jesus do or say to even more reassure his disciples, strengthen them and show them his love? Well, this is what we find out when we continue reading the passage. To the promise of eternal life, Jesus adds another promise: I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth (…)
The promises Jesus makes for his disciples aren’t for another life only, when we, at last “rest from our labors” as we are reminded in the burial rites. Too often, churches have sort of confined Christian hope for another life. This is essential of course, but if we look closer at the Gospel we realize that it’s not the whole truth. In our Gospel today, we see that Jesus wants to bring comfort, strength and love to his disciples in this life, in the here and now. And this is the role of the Holy Spirit. Jesus describes the Spirit as an “advocate”. An advocate is someone who stands by you and who helps you through a difficult time, generally when you are accused of something, whether you did it or not. Ideally, the advocate is always on your side, literally and figuratively, and you can rely on them, they defend you, encourage you, see you through your hardship. This is a very concrete image of what the Spirit does for us. It’s probably hard for us to picture who the Holy Spirit is, but I think we can all understand what it is to have an advocate. Personally, I really love this idea that the Advocate is there no matter what, no matter if we are guilty or not because I think that this is what real friends do as well. They support you when you have to face the consequences of your bad choices, good friends don’t let you down because you made some mistakes. It does not mean they don’t tell you the truth. And actually Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. If we have the Spirit on our side, not only we will be comforted, strengthened and loved but we will also know the truth about ourselves and about God and we will find the way. There are so many people these days wishing they had a star or an angel to guide them, but Jesus promises much more than that, he says that the Spirit of God will be with us, and even more so: in us. Jesus says: You know Him because He abides in you, and He will be in you. Moreover the presence of the Spirit reveals the presence of the Father and the on going presence of Jesus even though we cannot see him in the flesh anymore.
So indeed this is very comforting and very encouraging. There is a condition though, and actually Jesus says plainly that not everybody will be able to receive the Spirit, and that not everybody will be able to see him after he has left the flesh. Not everybody will know that he lives. As you can imagine though, it has nothing to do with any kind of discrimination. But Jesus says plainly that to be able to receive the Spirit we have to love him and to obey his commandments. Actually loving Jesus and obeying his commandments is the same thing because his commandment is a commandment to love. Our willingness to love is the key to experience the Spirit and the risen Christ. Now, of course, it can seem paradoxical to order to love. One would say that if there is something we cannot force on someone, it’s love. Yet to understand what love is, we have to look at Jesus who, before commanding his disciples to love, showed them what love is about throughout all his ministry. Jesus showed to the disciples that loving was to reach out to all people, especially those who are disliked and on the margins, to bring them comfort and hope, food and healing, to teach them about God and help them grow in their faith. It’s about forgiving and enduring misunderstandings and rejection and not getting discouraged. And so in the Gospel, love is something that we feel (Think about the way Jesus looked at the rich young man and loved him in Mark 10, or the way he had pity on the crowds), but love is also hard work. We think that love should be natural, spontaneous, yet the feeling of love is often the result of all that we have invested in a relationship. And I think it’s something that can be on our minds on Mother’s Day. I think that most mothers realize how much love is hard work, repetitive work, unseen and unacknowledged work. It’s not so much about how you feel about your children, rather it’s about what you do for them. Love can be disappointing too. This past week, I was listening to an interview of a woman who wrote a book to all the women who, like her, realized that motherhood wasn’t at all what they expected it to be because it was so much work and it was so draining. I think it can be true for all of us when we try to love. It takes so much energy. For most of us, when we hear that the only thing Jesus commands us is to love, we may first think at first that it is very easy only to realize later how hard it is to love truly, to love in real life, whether it is the selfish child, the sick partner or the mean neighbor. It’s not about feelings and good intentions only. It’s a self–giving love, the church used to call it “self-sacrificing love” but we don’t use this expression very much anymore because it is not that popular, as you can imagine. And yet, sometimes love very much feels like a sacrifice. The woman who was interviewed actually said that she had sacrificed so much of her life in motherhood that she felt that she had lost herself and at some point, she wished she has never given birth. She said that, had she known how demanding it all was, she wouldn’t have had a child. And you know, I thought it was really hard to hear but in the meantime her brutal honesty can also be helpful for a lot of us who, giving our best efforts, making our life’s goal to obey Jesus’s commandment, can also sometimes feel done with helping, listening, forgiving and doing all the hard work of love – washing dishes included.
But then, what’s our hope? Well, Jesus says, he does not leave us alone. He is sending us an advocate, someone who stands by our side. You know so many believers today think that God is there to help them accomplish something, realize their dreams or, as we talked about earlier, God will help them get through hardships. And they aren’t always wrong to believe that. But if we really listen to Jesus’s work, we’ll understand that the Spirit is here to help us do the hard work of love. And it starts right within us. God makes a dwelling in us to help us love with God’s love. Sarah Young puts those words in Jesus’s mouth which seem to me very enlightening: “Learn to relate to others through my love rather than yours. Your human love is ever so limited, full of flaws and manipulation. My loving Presence, which always enfolds you, is always available to bless others as well as you. Instead of trying harder to help people through your own paltry supplies, become aware of my unlimited supply, which is accessible to you continually (…) Many of my precious children have fallen prey to burnout (…) Countless interactions with needy people have drained them (…) they are like wounded soldiers needing R&R. Take time to rest in the love-light of my presence” (From: “Jesus calling”)
We’ll talk more about that on Trinity Sunday, but what Jesus teaches his disciples is how much love is a movement from God to us and then to others and back to God and so on. We don’t have to do it all on our own and we actually cannot do it all on our own. God is the love inside of us that teaches us how to love and give us strength to love and we are also in a community so we can love together, give love, strength and encouragement and also receive love and strength and encouragement. We cannot love without receiving God’s love and God’s care and receive love and care from our fellows Christians. Love is this perfect loop between you and God and our community, and it can only work if everyone is in.