FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Jesus Won’t Leave Us In Darkness

Today’s Gospel reading begins after Jesus has washed his disciples' feet and revealed that one of them will betray him. It ends with, “So, after receiving the morsel, he [Judas] immediately went out; and it was night.” The darkness of betrayal, denial, and death lay ahead for Jesus. But Jesus says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified.”  In the darkness of this night and the following day, Jesus is glorified.  He is glorified in his love and obedience to the Father and out of love for us.  A limitless love.  A love that gives all. A love for which he suffers torture and an agonizing death. 

“As I have loved you, you should also love one another.”  It is God who first loves us. Jesus shows us love in a tangible, human way.  His life on earth taught and demonstrated how to love “to the end.” Even death could not defeat that love.  The disciples, strengthened by the Resurrection and the Holy Spirit, take that love out to the world.  The love from Jesus they felt and witnessed enabled them to preach the good news despite the hardships they would endure as they followed the command to “love one another.” In today’s first reading, Paul and Barnabas return from their first missionary journey, strengthening others, despite having endured beatings and stonings.  Paul witnesses such love through his own suffering, fasting, and praying. 

The early church knew the price of living Christianity – death, mourning, wailing, and pain. Today, in many parts of the world, Christians still pay this price every day in living their faith.  Some face death, beatings, and loss of their crops and churches. Many are shunned by family or community, or face torture and prison for being Christian. Where does their courage come from?

Pope St. John Paul tells us we are “an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.”  Jesus defeated death, and He is with us. “His dwelling is with the human race,” we hear in today’s second reading. “He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God will always be with them as their God.” He dwells with us in the Eucharist, wipes away our tears, and makes us new again in the Sacrament of Confession.  He is present in the smallest, unseen acts of giving and receiving love in our ordinary days. We will be known as his disciples, as that kind of love changes us, strengthens us, and gives us courage.   

To love others as God has loved us will lead us through our times of suffering.  We do not come to the Resurrection without Gethsemane and Good Friday.  But Jesus is there already; he will not leave us in the darkness, but he  “will make all things new.”  

–Nora O’Brien

Send Us Forth are reflections written by St. Matthew parishioners and friends.