6th Sunday of Easter 2020

Jesus and the disciples at the Last Supper

Gustave Doré / Public domain

Our reflection this Sunday is from St. John's Gospel chapter 14. It begins with verse 15:

Jesus said to his disciples:
‘If you love me you will keep my commandments.’

If we are familiar with St. John’s Gospel, we would realise that Jesus only gave one commandment in chapter 13, verse 35:

I give you a new commandment:
love one another;
just as I have loved you,
you also must love one another.

He would repeat this commandment in chapter 15. So it is interesting that Jesus asks the Twelve to keep his commandments when, according to St. John’s Gospel, there is only one commandment that He has given explicitly. Yet, I believe that there were many more instructions that Jesus gave that could be considered commandments. St. John wrote the following at the end of his Gospel in chapter 21 verse 25:

There were many other things that Jesus did; if all were written down, the world itself, I suppose, would not hold all the books that would have to be written.

If the Gospel does not contain all that Jesus taught, then there would be other instructions or commandments. The most important and significant commandment would probably be the new commandment of love.

Returning to this Sunday’s Gospel, we read in verse 16 and 17:

I shall ask the Father,
and he will give you another Advocate
to be with you for ever,
that Spirit of truth
whom the world can never receive
since it neither sees nor knows him;
but you know him,
because he is with you, he is in you.

The word Advocate is the English word we use to translate the Greek παράκλητον from which we get the word Paraclete.  Paraclete refers to someone who is called to help another. A lawyer is called to help by representing his or her client in court. That is why the the lawyer is also called an advocate. The significant thing here is that Jesus says that the Father will give another Advocate. This means that there is already an Advocate present. From the context of what Jesus is saying, it is not difficult to see that Jesus is that Advocate. Jesus Himself pleads for his disciples. Jesus pleaded with the Father that we might be saved from our sins. His plea is the act of loving obedience when He allowed Himself to be crucified. This second Advocate from the Father will be with the disciples forever. He is the “Spirit of truth,” meaning that there are no deceptions. For St. John, “the world can never receive” this Spirit of truth because it is not aligned with God; it can neither see nor know him. For us who are aligned with God and Jesus, we will know the Spirit of truth because he is with us and in us.

The following verses, 18 to 20, reads:

I will not leave you orphans;
I will come back to you.
In a short time the world will no longer see me;
but you will see me,
because I live and you will live.
On that day
you will understand that I am in my Father
and you in me and I in you.

Jesus had informed his disciples at the beginning of chapter 14 (what we read last Sunday) that he was going away. Here, he assures them that he is not abandoning them. After His Passion, he will depart the world and He would not be with His disciples. Even though the world cannot see Him, the disciples will see Jesus when He resurrects. On Easter evening, we read that Jesus greeted his disciples with peace, or in Hebrew: Shalom. The word does not only mean the absence of conflict or war. It is used to express well-being: wishing that one’s life is whole and complete. For Jesus who has conquered death, that word shalom conveys the meaning of being fully alive. Thus, as his disciples, we will have life to the full. After the greeting, He gives the Holy Spirit to forgive sins. We know that only God can forgive sins. For Jesus to be able to grant that authority, it means that he is truly “in the Father.” St. Thomas, when he sees Jesus alive for the first time after the crucifixion, expresses this more explicitly when he utters the words, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28)

The last verse today is verse 21:

Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them
will be one who loves me;
and anybody who loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I shall love him and show myself to him.

Again, Jesus refers to His commandments, in the plural. In verse 15, Jesus addresses His disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” The disciples who were with Jesus would, with the help of the Paraclete, be able to remember all that Jesus taught (see Jn 14:26). In verse 21, the subject changes from the second person plural to an indefinite pronoun. Anyone who receives and keeps the commandments Jesus gives, that person loves Jesus. Through the Paraclete, that person is connected to Jesus. The Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, will enable that person to receive Jesus's commandments even though he or she had not been with Jesus like the disciples. Earlier, I mentioned that the Gospel of John does not contain all that Jesus did. This same Spirit of truth will also teach anyone all that Jesus had taught to anyone. The person would not have to rely solely on the recorded Gospel which does not contain all that Jesus had said and taught. As Catholics, we believe that the Holy Spirit preserves all that Jesus taught in the Church. The Holy Spirit will not allow the Church to fall into error with regard to Jesus’s teaching.

Why do we need another Advocate? As believers, we are tasked to continue the work that Jesus has left us. At our baptism, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit was given to us. As such, we are connected to Jesus, and our task is bringing the Good News to everyone. We fulfil our task first by keeping the most significant commandment: love one another; just as I have loved you, you also must love one another. (Jn 13:34) How do we discern the way Jesus loved us? From the Gospels, we already see the love of Jesus when he died on the cross. Is that the only occasion that Jesus loved us? Here is where the Advocate is needed. Without the help of the Holy Spirit, we would not be able to discern the love of Jesus in the events of our lives.

What is our response to Jesus’s love? We reciprocate. We do that by receiving and keeping His commandments. Have we been really keeping His commandments? Perhaps, in our frustration with not being able to come to the sacraments, we think, "What’s the use of obeying commandments when we are not receiving the sacraments?” This is one of the moments when we forget that it is God who loved us first. Jesus first loved us by emptying Himself. (see Phil 2:6-11) If we accept that love and wish to reciprocate, Jesus Himself gives us the way to do so: If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Let us continue to pray in this difficult time that we remember that obeying Jesus is merely the means of reciprocating the love Jesus has already given and is still giving us.