How do we do it?
LasT sunday we heard from Jesus what character of His followers will identify them as His disciples: Their love for others as Jesus Himself has loved them. The sixth sunday of Easter (John 14:23-29) details how this new commandment of Christ-like love is doable. It must be in the context of His word and as the concretization of his promised peace, inasmuch as it will be done in the power of the Holy spirit.
Keeping Jesus’ word
CAN one really love others unconditionally, even one’s enemies? What seems functional in the world is the elimination of the others as different and opposite. To follow Jesus in his out-of-this-world kind of love, one needs to be within His wavelengths. This means taking His word very seriously, like sheep responding to the shepherd’s voice, relying on it without hesitation (John 10:27). When one must still weigh Jesus’ word or select what to accept from Him, then one does not yet have that love for Him as to keep his word.
Keeping his word is not simply a matter of trusting Him. It means believing in God, the
Father who sent Him, for the reason that the word of Jesus is not just His but the word of the one who sent Him. He is not here on His own; He was sent and speaks only what the one who sent Him wants Him to say, so that His word is His Father’s. When one keeps the word of Jesus, one becomes part already of the world of the Father and of the one He sent. And they come to such a person who keeps the word of Jesus, dwelling in Him and taking Him into their communion of life and love.
In peace by the Holy Spirit
THE risen Jesus does not only entrust a new commandment to His disciples, He gives them the inseparable peace as the world never can give. This peace is not merely the absence of bloody conflicts, it is the unity and harmony in a person’s relationships, the wholeness that underlies well-being, the state where nothing essential is lacking. It is the triumph of His love, a gift from Him, because He has given humankind the love that is the foundation of this peace, and there is nothing greater than His kind of love. He has shown us the way, setting the standard: He is our peace (Ephesians 2:14).
In this peace from Jesus, one is not troubled nor is one afraid as one would be with the peace the world gives. One is filled with joy at the going away of Jesus to return to His Father. His return to the glory of God is the triumph of love; it is the peace of heaven in all eternity. It is what is reflected in our peace here on Earth as given us by Jesus. In our life of love for one another as Jesus has loved us, in our keeping His word, we have His gift of peace wherein He and the Father come and dwell with us. This peace therefore is our communion of love with God and with one another.
We justifiably doubt our ability to live in peace and to love as Jesus did. That is why the evangelist records the repeated assurances from Jesus regarding the assistance to us the Holy Spirit will provide. He is the Advocate, the Paraclete, the one we can always call upon, the greatest gift to us by the Father and the Son. He is the divine power in our hearts as we return with Jesus in reconciliation into the fellowship of God. He is the divine guarantee that we are not just on our own, but that God is now truly with us and in us. This Advocate will be the one to teach us everything related to God’s plan for us, reminding us what Jesus has told us in our own encounters with the Gospel. The Holy Spirit will literally be the creative Spirit of the Father and the Son in us, the divine life in our community of faith, in whose power we move and have our Christian being.
Alálaong bagá, how is the risen Lord real in our lives and in our community today? Jesus is risen and glorious in our life of love in imitation of Him, hence in our attentiveness and fidelity to His word and in our pursuit of His gift of peace to us. How is this possible for all of us? In the power of the Holy Spirit, our Advocate, we live according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.