UNITY THROUGH THE PRESENCE OF THE ABIDING CHRIST WITH US
In life, so many things troubled us and make life uncomfortable for us, yet the abiding presence of Christ strengthens us on our journey through life. It is our faith in God and Christ that makes us go through daily life situations with a sense of tranquillity and peace.
Therefore, the Christian life in the Church is Christocentric and it is only through the abiding presence of the risen Christ among us that our unity can be guaranteed. A unifying Christian living is the best living testimony Christianity and Christians can bear to the Resurrected Christ.
This testimony must and should be based on Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life and also on communal living. The readings of this Sunday challenge us to be cordial Christians living in a community of harmony, peace, love, understanding and sharing.
CHRIST’S WELFARE SPEECH AND LAST TESTAMENT
In Africa, particularly in the Idoma culture which I belong, respecting or fulfilling the last words of a dying or departing person is the best honour you can do to immortalize that person.
The Gospel of today treats the farewell speech or request of Jesus to his disciples: Do not let your hearts be troubled…. Believe in God, believe also in me.…. I am the way, and the truth, and the life…. “
OUR THEME
Today’s readings tell us how the early Church accepted the challenge of keeping Jesus’ memory alive by remaining a dynamic Christian community, bearing witness to Christ through their unity, fidelity in worship and spirit of loving, humble service. Today’s Gospel introduces Jesus as the Way to God, the Truth to be accepted, and the Life to be shared and lived.
FIRST READING: ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 6:1-7
In the first reading of the Acts of the Apostles 6:1-7, the early Christian community came under a serious existential threat that could break, shatter and destroy their testimony. A human rift or rancour between the home–based-Jews and the Hellenistic Greeks who are foreign-based Jews who embraced the new life in Christ.
The spiritually snobbish Aramaic-speaking Jews looked down on the foreign Jews. This contempt affected the daily distribution of alms and there was a complaint that the widows of the Greek-speaking Jews were being–possibly deliberately—neglected.
Humanly speaking any perceived act of injustice bordering on food and material things can destroy a nascent bond of a heterogenic group. Thanks to the presence and influence of the Holy Spirit the apostles knew that, and they urgently, communally and responsibly addressed it head-on without delaying, taking a side or trivializing the issue.
Hence, the first reading gave a clear-cut formula for community life and living when there is conflict- engaging in meaningful, honest and fruitful dialogue and not playing hanky-panky with issues, curbing favours or acting in fear of a party of conflict; an inevitable.
SECOND READING: 1 PETER 2:4-9
In 1 Peter 2:4-9, the second reading of today, St. Peter sets before us the nature and the function of the early Christian Church. Christ is the Keystone and every Christian is a member-stone integrated into Him. The glory of the Church is Christ´s call from darkness to his glorious light to shine for all men and women through an authentic and concrete Christian witness.
Finally, the Church should and must function as a privileged beacon of light in the world, a model of obedience to God and Christ´s word and will and an instrument of willing and dedicated service to God´s purposes and humanity.
In all, Peter praises Christians, both Gentile and Jewish, as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and God’s people.”
THE GOSPEL: JOHN 14:1-12
The gospel of John 14:1-12 begins with Jesus in anticipation of the chaos that will come to his disciples after he was gone physically from this world and offers them a deep basis for inner peace to stubbornly hold onto trust in God because He: Christ was going to prepare a place for them in the Father’s house. Of course, this abiding place in the Father´s house is a place or state of blessedness, peace, tranquillity, hope, joy, love, safety and security.
However, there is a condition for entering this place which he clarified with Thomas and Philip, and perhaps the rest disciples as well. It must be through him: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
1. He: Christ is the Way, the only standard means, medium or direction that connects us to the Father´s house of peace, harmony, hope, joy and safety.
2. He: Christ is the Truth, the only embodiment of objective or absolute truth that enlightens us to find peace, harmony, joy and assurances in life. Explicitly and implicitly, the whole truth and nothing but the truth resides in Christ and there is no relative or contextual truth in living the Christian life.
3. He: Christ is the Life, this implies that any Christian beliefs, teachings, practices, spirituality, doctrines, ideologies or rules that do not lead to life through Christ Jesus are not of God. That is every way, truth and knowledge of the Christian faith and life must and should be the life path.
Jesus´ word in today’s gospel is one of farewell to his disciples before his passion and death. However, contextually, it fits into the experience of the post-resurrection community awaiting the Holy Spirit. Hence, it is appropriate for our liturgical celebration of Eastertide in anticipation of the feasts of Ascension and Pentecost.
FOUR POINTS OF THE GOSPEL
There are four points of the Gospel we need to appropriate and make our own are:
1. The assurance of an everlasting presence of God with us, a consoling God who is capable of feeling with us and who gave an eternal security of being with him.
2. The clear-cut formula to Christian living: Jesus- the Way, the Truth and the Life! It is only by this means we can get to God. No more no less.
3. The promise of greater works of Charity, Mercy and Grace in His Name. In this way, He and the Father with the Holy Spirit will live and manifest in us.
4. Without Christ as the way that leads us to God, the truth we must know to free us and the life we should live and share with others all. The Christian life and church will be an erroneous ground for all human endeavours.
The biggest lesson for us as Christian communities, marriages and families of priestly life, religious life, parochial life and group and societal life, matrimonial life and familial life is that conflicts are bound to emerge among us anytime, anywhere and anyhow.
However, when they do arise, they must be urgently, communally and truthfully confronted in the spirit of the early Christian community under the guidance of the Risen Christ and the Holy Spirit. And not with our human sense of logic or influence as bishops, superiors, priests or religious leaders, parents or dominant spouse relying on our authority, power or one-sided party of the conflict to take a partial decision that deepens rancour, division and hatred among us or the conflicting parties. This is because without a Christian life centric on Christ: our division will be endless and testimony worthless.
It is a Sunday we should pray for the grace that the constant presence and the guidance of Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life and even more the promise of a greater work through the Holy Spirit will guide us.
OUR PRAYER
Lord Jesus Christ: the Way, the Truth and the Life, in the chaos of our human life, interrelationship, and communal life you are the Clarity that guides, enlightens, and empowers peace, harmony, hope, joy, love and safety. Help us to have recourse to you always and never to give up in spites of the odds, abuses, discrimination, injustice and evil that seem to strive in the world and Christendom and may we help to resolve all inevitable conflict of life, family, community, society and church with honesty that heals. Amen
