The sacred call to walk in love
Easter 7B | John 17:6-19
On Thursday, we celebrated the Ascension of Jesus—one of the seven principal feasts of the church—and the one in which we say goodbye to the physical Jesus. It is a fascinating feast, celebrated forty days after Easter Day.
One of the things Jesus says on his way out is to wait for a special thing that’s coming soon. Be on the lookout for it.
Spoilers: It’s the Holy Spirit. That’s for next week.
But for this week, we’ve skipped ahead in the gospel of John to chapter 17. And what we’ve skipped over is worth noting. For one, he talks a little bit about that special thing, calling it the Advocate. [Which is a great name.]
But the other thing Jesus goes into is the trouble with the world. Specifically that the world around them won’t be keen on them because it’s not too keen on Jesus. After all, he’s preparing to be crucified in about 18 hours.
So our reading today has a real tension in it. A tension about the world that exists and the world as God dreams it to be. And this plays out for humanity as a choice between going along with cultural priorities or with Jesus’s…
The full text may be found here.
For a limited time, you may find the audio here.