When we sit with the Gospel of Saint John, we know we are in the company of a mystic – a spiritual master. The role of the spiritual master is to help us to see that what we always believed in the most childlike innocence of our hearts to be true, is true. John’s Gospel dances to the music of the presence and the words of Jesus. Words that are music in the ears of the rejected. A presence that is a silver setting in the heart of a slum. There are no straight lines in this dance. The music spirals. His words tumble over each other, retreat, then forge ahead, so that we can savour what was only tasted before. His Gospel is a river in spate with many tributaries. As each flow and feeling moves away, it mysteriously returns. Everything in One.
John’s Gospel is a feast. It has all the flavour of a first kiss, of the times when we were sure that we could touch the sky if we stood on our toes and stretched. When Jesus looks up to heaven and prays, He is simply enjoying heaven from His place on Earth. He sees, hears, smells, touches and tastes the earth as creation sustained and transfigured by its source and its destiny. He calls the One who does all this, ‘Abba, Father’. He stands within God’s creative love. He stretches out His hand to the supplier of seed. This seed must be received so that it can be nurtured and grow. The Father is on the lookout for fertile ground. He sends Jesus to lure those he finds at prayer and calls them to engage in the tumultuous affairs of the Earth.
But there’s more. The Fathers’ heart is revealed as love without regret. His Beloved Son whispers this love into the ears of those whom the Father has sent to Him. This new community has not happened by chance. Those who come to Jesus have already felt this love. All that has happened is that when the words pour forth from the mouth of Jesus, they are received as a love letter confirming all that they had already known. They know who has sent Jesus. They welcome Him and join Him in bringing Love to birth on the earth.
But will the glue that holds them together vanish when Jesus returns to His Abba? If they lose Him, will they lose it all? Without His light, will the darkness overtake them? The lure of violence, aggression and separation is strong. So Jesus teaches his disciples to exercise vigilance in their struggle for community. None have even been lost, except the one whose character was to be lost. But even this tragedy fits into the larger plans of the Fathers’ heart, plans that can only be discerned by a deeper understanding of the Sacred Texts of Scripture.
The disciples of Jesus are to become the Body of Christ in the world where the body of Jesus is no longer visible. When they are faithful, Jesus’ joy floods their lives and remains full for those who continue the Father’s mission to the world. This prayer of Jesus might be misread as a passionate plea for His disciples to be creative and to bring life giving love in a world that prefers darkness and death. Perhaps it is time that we answered His prayer for community with a more convincing AMEN! But consider this. Jesus always knew that his Father answered Him because He spoke Sacred words from God’s Heart, and not human words in Gods ear. The prayer of Jesus is not just plea. It is revelation!
Perhaps the intensity of this prayer for us, His disciples, was because he was less certain about us. But we have nothing to lose in this work of building community in an age of Holocaust. To be more creative,
more compassionate and more courageous is the only way to go!
