6th Sunday of Easter, Year C
How do you deal with depression, sadness, trials, persecution, worries and difficulties in life? What brings you calm and tranquility in those moments? Where do you find solace? In today’s gospel reading, which is part of Jesus’s farewell speech to His disciples, Jesus gives us the answer to these questions. It was time for Jesus to go back to His Father so He wanted to prepare His disciples before His Ascension into heaven. Jesus was preparing them because He knew that His disciples were going to be sad, worried, scared of what will happen to them after He is gone and will certainly be depressed as they have moved from the sadness of His crucifixion to the joy of His resurrection then now back to sadness because of His coming departure from them. Jesus’s disciples were worried about what will happen next in their lives after Jesus is gone. They are worried about how they going to survive without Him or His love and presence in their lives.
In this discourse, Jesus gives them the solution to their worries and concerns by teaching them about the importance of love as their solace when He leaves them by saying “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.” With these words, Jesus also reminds His disciples that they have nothing to worry about and that all they have to do is to love Him by keeping and obeying His words which are the words of His Father and the commandments. Do you love God? If you answered ‘yes’ ask yourself if you keep and obey His words and the commandments of God? Do not forget that Love here involves sacrifice, which means to sacrifice doing God’s will instead of our will so as to keep His words and obey His commandments.
Jesus continues that since keeping Christ’s words and obeying God’s commandments will not be easy to achieve, He promises His disciples the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom His Father will send in His name to them, to teach them everything they need to know by its gifts to them and to remind them of all that He had told them. Jesus promises them the Holy Spirit who will lead, guide and protect them to keep His word and obey God’s commandments in their times of trouble and worry. Jesus lastly assures His disciples of the peace He would grant them, a peace the world cannot give and that comes from His love that will make their hearts be untroubled and unafraid.
My dear brothers and sisters, no matter what you are going through or experiencing in life today, Jesus is always the answer and is always there at your side. Today He assures us of His continual presence and assistance in the gospel reading by reminding us and His disciples that no matter what we go through or face in life, we will be victorious if we continue to love Him by keeping and obeying His words which is the word of His Father, by utilizing the gifts of the Holy Spirit we have received and by focusing on His peace granted to us. Amen!
