RBWords

     The stream-of-consciousness quality of the Farewell Discourse at the Last Supper can be an exercise in puzzlement at times.  If you and I find it so, we are in good company because scripture scholars have had the same puzzlement as well.  But we do get instances of an overarching theme that is central to our faith.  That theme is simple but has great consequences:  Jesus is the One sent by God.  If we believe in him, then all that he did and taught is central to our lives.  It would make no sense to believe in the Holy Spirit (Advocate/Paraclete) if we eliminate Jesus from the picture.  The Holy Spirit is the continuation of Jesus' life and ministry in US!  By the time the Gospel According to John was composed, St. Paul had already elaborated this in his teaching on the Christian community as "the Body of Christ."  

     I find it helpful at almost any point in the Gospel According to John to return to the "Prologue" to find my bearings.  "And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth....From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace, because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God.  The only Son, God, who is at the Father's side, has revealed him."  In the midst of the "coming from" and "returning to" language, along with relationship language of Jesus with the Father, the words of the Prologue can be a way of keeping this gospel portrait together in faith, heart and mind.  AMEN