Sixth Sunday of Easter

Keeping Our Word

Jesus’ farewell address has the curious phrase “Whoever loves me will keep my word”.  We all understand how to keep our word, but how is it that Jesus is asking us to keep his word.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Word, in Greek, the Logos, of God.  The Son in the Trinity is the Word of God; the son proceeds from the Father as God’s Word, his expression of perfect love for all creation.  Just as words that come from us reveal ourselves to the world, so the Word (Jesus) proceeded from God the Father as a revelation of God’s true nature.

Keeping Jesus’ word is nurturing God’s promise of salvation that Jesus’ life embodied as a sign of grace, God’s great love for His creation in general and humanity in particular. The world can know God most intimately through Jesus the Christ, though God reveals Himself in many other ways and to many other peoples; however, it is our faith that tells us God’s preeminent and perfect revelation of Himself is through Jesus.

The second part of today’s gospel anticipates the gift of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.  Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as The Advocate, or someone who acts on another’s behalf.  The Spirit, then, is the means by which we can keep Jesus’ word to us and God’s Word to humanity.  Jesus’ reference to peace in declaring “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.”  The world gives us a peace that can only be temporary; the peace of Christ is an eternal peace, but it isn’t a peace that leaves us in a type of protective spiritual bubble that inoculates us from the difficulties of life.  The Reverend A.J. Muste, a famous American clergyman who preached peace said "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."  

 We stand upon the foundation of peace that allows us to face the world in all its chaos and turmoil, because keeping Christ’s peace means venturing into a violent and broken world with Good News when all around us is falling apart.  William Blakes’s famous line from “The Second Coming” “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” is the bad news of the peace the world gives.  The peace of Christ is the center that holds for eternity and extends out into the world and draws everyone in like foundlings drawn from a storm into a warm, protective loving home. Alleluia, Christ is risen!