Word to the Wise
Saturday, May 18, 2019 - 4th Week of Easter - Sat
[Acts 13:44-52 and John 14:7-14]"The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it." [John]
Although the discourse(s) at the Last Supper are sometimes repetitive and tangled in the way the evangelist, John, has reported them, there is one clear thing that stands out. Jesus is preparing the disciples for what is going to happen to him and to them. He tells them what what is going to happen HAS TO happen for his mission to be completed and for their mission to get started. The disciples will be empowered to do what Jesus did: they are to reveal Jesus as the one whom God has sent and call people to faith. That is what is meant by the "works" of God. As we will see when next Monday's excerpt appears. the disciples (and us now) will be enabled by "the Advocate," who will be given after Jesus is "glorified."
If some of the discourses are difficult to penetrate, we can take comfort in the fact that the disciples themselves struggled to understand what Jesus was telling them. We have the benefit and perspective of centuries of reflection, but we ourselves must come to Jesus in faith and proclaim that faith. The Last Supper discourses must be read in the light of the previous chapters of the Gospel According to John, and then that gospel must be read in the light of the rest of the New Testament. St. Jerome, the patron saint of scripture scholars, reminds us that "ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ." AMEN