Godhead, dancing

Monday of the

Fifth Week of Easter

May 11th

READING: John 14: 21-26

‘They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’ Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ Jesus answered him, ‘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. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

~~~

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

REFLECTION

Jesus is beginning to home in on that third dimension (no words quite suffice for Trinitarian mystery) of Godhead. I mentioned Rudolf Schnackenburg last time, pointing out that Jesus has just delivered the core of John’s theology: “See me = see the Father.” John now pushes the point further, as Jesus heads to the Cross (John 13:33).

John records the emphasis Jesus places on love. Love is the outworking of the encounter with God (even to the Cross). Love is a sinew writhing through the fourth gospel, but John is a masterful artisan: early references to love in John’s gospel-account have emphasized the love of the Father for the Son (John 3:35, 5:20), and the problematical “giving” of the Son as embodiment of God’s love for the world (John 3:16).[1] Now, in a complex rondeau, Jesus emphasizes the interconnectedness of obedience, tenacity (“keep”), and love.

And, plonk, into the midst of that call to obedience, tenacity, love, Jesus places the coming Spirit. We’re being told something important here. Jesus the Son is all we can or will see of God the Creator, for “no one can look on God and live” (Exodus 33:20). Hang on, though. I can’t see Jesus. Yet I’m not “orphaned” (John 14:18), for though Jesus is now beyond sight we can know him. We can know the Son only as revealed in scripture,[2] when read as sacred, and through the vivifying (life-giving) presence of the Advocate-Comforter-Spirit (Paraclete).

As we now journey closer to Pentecost it’s worth getting this right. The “coming” but “already here” Spirit is not here to make us giggle and laugh, or as I found in one church I had, crawl and bark for Jesus. The Spirit is not tame entertainment, but is operating “in the name of” Jesus, re-presenting Jesus, enabling Jesus to present-still, to “make a home with us,” in time and place far from that of first century Palestine. The Spirit comes to be Jesus with us, within us, to make known all of Jesus, all we need of Jesus. Word, sacrament, fellowship (even in a time of lock-down). Through the Spirit we can experience Jesus and can even be Jesus-bearers in our time and space.

This isn’t rational, nor should it be. This is the love-dance of God for us. We don’t need to get this (except in so far as we “get” Jesus, by the energy of the Spirit, and therefore “get” God and all that God wishes us to get). We don’t need to get this, but to be immersed in it, as if into a lover’s arms, and let go of all else.

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[1] The problematical aspect of “giving a son” gets tied up in the complexities of atonement theology, which we may just set aside for a while.

[2] John was probably, bravely, understanding his work to be a part of that process; see John 21:25.