6 Easter C 2025
John 14:23-29
Gospel texts about love
No matter how wonderful LOVE is
Are hard to make concrete
Hard to bring them down to earth;)
Love…Yes…of course…Love
I know…I know…
Maybe it’s the strange/confusing times we are in
(and then again maybe times are always confusing)
Or what’s happening in my personal life
Not sure
But Love it is
You all remember BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO?
Do you remember how on the VHS tapes
There was this sticker that read
“PLEASE BE KIND, REWIND”
Kind or Not
We have to REWIND the Gospel of John
To appreciate…to really FEEL today’s Gospel
We need to re-visit the scene
As always in the Easter season
WE HEAR first ABOUT JESUS APPEARING TO HIS DISCIPLES
AFTER THE RESURRECTION
Easter Stories
-first TO MM
-then, TO THOSE IN THE UPPER ROOM
-and TO THOMAS
-and then ON THE BEACH WHERE THEY SHARED A BREAKFAST AFTER A BIG HAUL OF FISH
And LAST SUNDAY
began the REWIND
-last week “love one another”
And today
We have clicked STOP on the night before Jesus died
Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet
He is doing his best to prepare them to make it through to the other side of the cross.
This scene, it's gestures and it's tone, are tender, and weighty, and urging.
We are eavesdropping on Jesus saying Good-bye
To his bewildered/confused, disciples
His final night conversation
His Farewell
Since today’s gospel reading starts with
“Jesus answered him”
Let’s rewind just a bit more to grab the question
That Jesus is answering.
Jesus is talking about the LOVE
The love between Jesus and the Father
The love through him to the disciples
Love love love
and Jesus follows this with a promise
to reveal himself to them…to show up…to both go-away and NOT go-away
Imagine how confusing that was!
So…Judas…not the Iscariot/not the betrayer…has asked a question.
He wants to know HOW
He wants details of Jesus’ befuddling promise
Which is where today’s text begins.
Perhaps Judas/not the Iscariot,
had imagined spectacular lightning flashes…
filling the sky from east to west…
But not so…The answer Jesus gives to Judas’ question
is LOVE
This is how Jesus returns.
LOVE…is how he will reveal himself
LOVE…is Where to find him
LOVE…is The clue to his presence
We’ve set the context…
this is not a chat about first love, or romantic love, or sentimental love
This is…to use a Gospel WORD…ABIDING Love
SO let’s look at a few verses:
Jesus answered him,
Those who love me will keep my word
THIS IS NOT A CONDITIONAL STATEMENT.
THEY JUST WILL…THAT’S WHAT THE LOVE OF GOD DOES WHEN IT GRABS US
(pause)
And my father will love them,
THAT’S WHAT THE FATHER DOES,
HE CAN’T HELP IT…HE JUST CAN’T DO OTHERWISE
And WE will come to them and make our home with them.
TENDER, TENDER, TENDER
‘make our home’ or DWELL or ABIDE
“I have said these things to you while I am still with you.
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
Whom the Father will send in my name,
Will teach you everything,
And remind you of all that I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you,
My peace I give you.
In chapter 1 of John’s Gospel
The first disciples asked where Jesus was staying
“Where do you abide/dwell/make your home”
Now in chapter 23 they have their answer
Jesus is abiding/dwelling with them
You are my home!?!?!
Jesus did go away
But in that going away
The church is not marked by ABSENCE
But by the presence of an abiding/dwelling God
It is the sending of the paraclete that facilitates this move from Absence to Presence
PARACLETE is a strange word
The Tradition chooses not to translate the Word directly
Because, to do so would stifle it's meaning…
it would turn a word with many facets (advocate, intercessor, helper, guide, counselor)
…into something flat and undynamic.
And so the Greek is kept---Paraclete
The presence of the paraclete points to…expresses…
all the ways that the Church knows/feels/senses the Holy Spirit.
Remembering the question Judas has asked
The paraclete is Jesus’ answer
This is connective tissue…it is the HOW of communion
It announces that believers do not simply wait for the ‘final day’
When there is a dwelling place with God…
(“In my fathers house there are many rooms…”)
But communion is enjoyed now
The spirit continues the presence of the resurrected Christ in the community
Judas asks how
Jesus answers “Through my love…in YOU”
Through YOU, Judas
The YOU is plural
Through all of you…my disciples
As most of you know
I have been spending about half my time in Florida with my Dad since January
It has been…continues to be…
An UPPER ROOM experience
A Long, deep, revelatory but QUIET farewell discourse
A painful grief…but not without a hoped for gift.
I feel certain that Everyone here knows something of this
Everyone here has found themselves looking deeply into an abiding Love
Up close and personal
Because our God
…refuses to love from a distance
Our God instead dwells in and among us
And insists that it is the only way
The only way to be human
To flourish as a human being
The only way to know God
Even though…and maybe because it COSTS
it costs in loss and grief
It seems to me that
As vague and repetitive as this love business may sound
We disciples/followers of Jesus
WE JUST NEED
Over and over again
To be grounded in that love
To KNOW and REMEMBER that it is sooooooo worth it
This …perhaps repetitive…re-grounding
That we re-visit today, in that Upper Room
Has caused an ask and a challenge
Why IS it easier to be open to this mystery at these weighty moments in life?
I don’t know but I’d like to get better at seeking it, noticing it, welcoming it
I want it to help me FLOURISH…every day
Remembering that the YOU is plural
That the question and the answer are for all of us
a body…that abiding love of God continues:
…in this place, every Sunday
…and Non-Sunday’s
…and at home
…and about town
Right here
Right now
Refusing to love from a distance
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