Next Sunday is the sixth Sunday of Easter.
This is the last Sunday before we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord.
I would like to give you some thoughts on Jesus’ words to us in the Gospel that may be read in many churches next Sunday.
It is a reading from John 14:23-29. The scene is Jesus visiting with his disciples at the Last Supper, the day before he is captured, crucified and killed.
I am so touched by the fact that as Jesus is aware that some are wanting to do away with him soon, his thoughts and concerns are not for himself but for his followers.
He says to them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.” Jesus is sharing with his friends that he is leaving soon as he says, “I am going away and I will come back to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the father, for the father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.”
What great concern Jesus has for us. He tries to prepare us for what is to come. I am guessing that the disciples did not totally understand what Jesus was conveying to them but they had come to trust Jesus and his words.
I am guessing that we all have had times when we tried to explain to family and friends, a truth that would be important to them but they may not have understood at the time. I recently attended a wake and funeral in which the person had been aware that she was close to death.
Before she died she wrote her own obituary and she tried to prepare her family for a time when she would not be with them.
I am sure they heard her words but the effect of those words are now sinking into their new reality without her physical presence. She tried doing what Jesus did for his disciples.
I see this as a good lesson for me. Is there something here for you?
