Sunday Scripture Readings

Printer-friendly versionSend to friend FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, MAY 9 Acts 14:21-27; Psalm 145; Revelation 21:1-5; John 13:31-33, 34-35 OUR GOOD NEWS: We are called to a mutual ministry of love, made possible by God’s empowering love (grace). Today’s Gospel describes events at the Last Supper. By dismissing Judas from table fellowship, Jesus deliberately set in motion a process culminating in His own death and Resurrection. So inevitable was this fate that He immediately spoke of it as an accomplished fact (past tense — Jesus "is glorified," "has been glorified"). Judas had gone out into the darkness of night; inside, the brilliant light of Divine Glory filled the room ("glorify" appears five times in the first sentence). Jesus received glory because of His total commitment to the Father’s will, fully expressed in His being raised up on the cross. But even this act of unreserved self-giving cannot add anything to God. "God is glorified" suggests divine self-glorification, come to fullest expression in the crucifixion. All is grace; everything redounds finally and exclusively to the glory of the Father. What appears as needless repetition in the first sentence really expresses marvelous intimacy and mutuality, as well as paradox. Death on the cross is glorification because it resulted in resurrection and exaltation. Jesus’ own glorification only serves further to glorify the Father. Repetition also highlights the content in the second half of today’s Gospel. Jesus promulgated his "New Commandment" through a threefold exhortation "to love one another." It really was new when compared with Old Testament formulations and their reinterpretation in Mark, Matthew and Luke. Elsewhere we are commanded to love God as well as neighbor. The Jesus in John’s Gospel realistically recognized that because we cannot see God we cannot directly return love to Him. Love for the Father can only be expressed in love of all our brothers and sisters. A second element of newness concerns the norm and standard — no longer a healthy self-love ("as yourself") but the more demanding personal example of Jesus ("as I have loved you"). Finally, this commandment is new by reason of the object. "Your neighbor" has been replaced by "one another." Such reformulation gives us no permission to hate our enemies; rather, it insists on the absolute necessity of love within the whole Christian community. This is the bottom line "by which all will know that you (really) are My disciples." John’s Gospel and three Letters thus realistically make radical and concrete the traditional biblical love commandment. Clearly, Jesus commands what, from a human point of view, can only remain an impossible ideal. Who, for example, are harder to love than those closest to us? Those so different from us? For by divine will the Church includes the widest possible spectrum of personalities and temperaments. But Jesus not only commands, He also enables. "Love one another as I love you" doesn’t merely set an example; it empowers our response. What is implied here has been made explicit elsewhere — for example, in Jesus’ allegory of vine and branches. Yes, we can obey the new commandment; we can love because we are and have been overwhelmed with divine love.

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