One of the false claims of secular culture is that Jesus was merely a great teacher who said insightful things about human life but never claimed to be divine. On the contrary, throughout the Gospels, Jesus clearly and unambiguously presents himself as divine, as he does in the Gospel reading for this Sunday. He states: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:19). If a mere human were to say that, we would consider the statement blasphemous. Only Jesus, who is God Incarnate, can make such a claim.
The Gospel passage for today was a key element of the development of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. One way to try to conceptualize the mystery of the Holy Trinity is to start with the premise that God is infinite love. Love, by its very nature, requires a love dynamic. In God, there is the Father, who is the One Who Loves. His love is received and reciprocated by the Son, who is the Beloved. The love that exists between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Trinity is an eternal exchange of infinite love, which is not bound by time, but takes place in the eternal timeless now of God’s infinite nature.
The Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, became Incarnate, taking on a human nature, coming among us as Jesus Christ. Jesus, therefore, is the visible face of the Holy Trinity for humanity. On the one hand, the Holy Trinity is the deepest mystery, which defies human understanding. On the other hand, God became one of us so that we could encounter him face to face.
In the Gospel passage for this Sunday, Jesus says: "I am the way and the truth and the life" (John 14:6). This is another statement that would be preposterous and blasphemous unless spoken by God Himself. Jesus is the Truth, because he is God, who is the Truth himself. God is the Creator. The world exist only because God has brought it into being and because he sustains it. Our entire existence is contingent on God and is meaningless without union with God.
Jesus is also the Life. True life exists in God alone. True life is the eternal love dynamic that is the Holy Trinity. Outside of that love dynamic, we have mere existence; we are not truly alive. But that is exactly why Jesus came among us. He became one of us to atone for our sins upon the Cross and thereby open the way for us to be able to enter into the eternal love dynamic of the Holy Trinity. When we are baptized into Christ and live out our lives in the Church he established, the gate is open for us to enter into the inner life of the Holy Trinity. Through Christ, who is the Way, the true and only way, we become partakers of the inner life of God, which is infinite, unending, all-encompassing love.
Throughout the Old Testament, we see a bridal image used for the relationship between God and Israel. Israel is depicted as the bride or wife of God, who in turn is depicted as the divine bridegroom or husband. In the New Testament, the concept of Israel is transferred to the Church. In New Testament theology, Israel is no longer thought of as a specific nation or land, but as the body of believers who have embraced the Good News of Christ. Furthermore, Christ is depicted as the divine bridegroom. The new bridal image is now between Christ and the Church, the new Israel.
In the Gospel passage for today, Jesus says: "In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be." (John 14:2-3)
These words of Jesus use the metaphor of Israelite wedding customs. In Middle Eastern society at the time of Jesus, and to some extent even now today, families lived in large compounds. When a young man and a young woman were to be married, an engagement feast was held at the bride's family's home. The groom then would go back to his family's home and build a section where he could welcome his wife and the children who would start coming into the world. In the Gospel passage, Jesus speaks in the persona of the bridegroom, who will go to Heaven to prepare a place for his bride, the Church. We see the culmination of this image in the final work of St. John the Evangelist, the Book of Revelation, which ends with the marriage of Christ and the Church.
Our mission as disciples is to invite the whole world into this most intimate union with God. We should not rest until we have proclaimed to Good News of Christ to every person on the planet. If we truly love our fellow human beings, we will want everyone to experience the true Life that only comes through union with Christ.
As we proclaim Christ to the world, we must always guard against hypocrisy. We must practice what we preach, or else, far from converting others, we might end up driving them away from Christ. Having said that, the First Reading for this Sunday shows that Christ can bring good even out of our human failures. In the passage from The Acts of the Apostles, we see that the early Church is composed of Greek and Hebrew members. But the Greek widows are starting to be discriminated against by those distributing food and other necessary items, in favor of the Hebrew widows.
The division could have torn the community apart. But instead, the Holy Spirit used this moment of dysfunction in the human side of the Church to bestow another great gift upon the faithful. The solution to the problem was the creation of the diaconate, whose ministry would revolve around helping those in need in the community. Thus, God answered a moment of human brokenness with abundant grace. Of course, God's willingness to bring good out of our failures does not mean that we should be okay with failing. We must always seek to do our best, with God's grace. But we should always pray, as my wife, Julie, likes to put it, that God may bring triumphs out of tragedies.
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The readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Cycle A, are:
Acts 6:1-7
Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19
1 Peter 2:4-9
John 14:1-12
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: Saint Mary of the Presentation Catholic Church (Geneva, Indiana) - stained glass, Behold I Stand at the Door and Knock, detail from Wikimedia Commons.
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