Seventh Sunday of Easter

 

Seventh Sunday of Easter

John 17,20-26

Rev. Nel ML

 

This past Thursday was the feast of the Ascension of Jesus when we celebrate the victorious ascension of Jesus to God. On this feast we celebrate that Jesus resisted and defeated the power of this world not with violence but with a cross, love, and solidarity. Today, we celebrate the seventh Sunday of Easter, a special Sunday in Easter season because this is a bridge between the ascension of Jesus and the coming day of Pentecost. So, today some of us might be feeling a void because Jesus is gone!

 

Jesus is gone but not without first recreating and commissioning us to continue with the proclamation of the kingdom of God. During the past few weeks, the risen Jesus has been in our midst reminding us that we are a community of life, love, service, reconciliation, and restoration in the world. As our first Advocate, Jesus has been at our side to comfort, counsel, and prepare us for the trials in the world, and he has promised us the coming of another Advocate, the Holy Spirit. Also, in a calm voice Jesus has left us these words, “Peace I leave with you. Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

 

This Sunday, between Ascension and Pentecost, gives us an opportunity to continue celebrating the victorious ascension of Jesus, to gather all his teachings, and reflect on our mission in this world. Today’s Gospel lesson of oneness helps us in this reflection.

 

We read the last section of chapter 17 of John's Gospel, which tells us of Jesus’ prayer for his disciples just before he was arrested and handed over to the cross. His prayer is a plea for his community because he knows the system is against justice and the proclaimers of justice, so he prays to God, “Holy Father, protect them… the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world…” (17,11). The crown of this prayer is a plea for his community to become one just as Jesus and his father are one. Jesus prays that his disciples may embody God’s desire to reconcile all creation into one great community and to overcome all divisions created by human ambition for power and domination.  Jesus prays not only for his first community but for the great community throughout the ages and centuries, “I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.” Jesus adds that the basis of this oneness is Jesus’ and God’s oneness, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” The key words here are “all be one…  so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (17,20-21).

 

Dear sisters and brothers, we humans are diverse, and in this diversity, we have created inequalities; however, as disciples of Jesus we are called upon to overcome these inequalities and shape our rich diversity into a community of oneness, a community—not an institution—where justice reigns, where we build bonds of love, security, and solidarity. When we are all one, we become a space in which the love of God is expressed; we participate in the new creation initiated in Jesus’ resurrection, and we walk towards the fullness of reconciliation of all things in God.

 

Dear sisters and brothers, while we wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, let us reaffirm ourselves as a community whose basis is God’s love and God’s desire to see us living in oneness.  In the midst of this chaotic and broken world, may we continue living and proclaiming God’s great dream that we all be one. Amen.