Fifth Sunday of Easter

 

Greater Works than Jesus' Miracles

In today's gospel from John (14:1-12), Jesus boldly proclaims: "Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father." After turning water into wine, feeding thousands from five loaves and two fish, healing lepers, the deaf, the blind, the lame, and even after raising the dead, the Apostles must have been thinking this is another one of his exaggeration parables, But it wasn't.

These great miracles of Jesus were signs of the Kingdom, but they were not the Kingdom. The signs announced the arrival of the Kingdom, which wasn't a place but a person: Jesus. Jesus, in saying he was the Way was proclaiming that all those miracles, all those signs, were pointing to him because "heaven" isn't a place, it's an existence of persons, the Holy Trinity, of which Jesus is the Way.

How then are we, who are left behind, hugging ourselves in fear, able to do greater works than Jesus? Because what Jesus leaves with us is the peace of God's spirit, which is the essence of holiness, or completion. We no longer need to see God's face and live because, through the Holy Spirit, we live as the face of God through Christ to the world. Following Christ means becoming Christ through our baptism and sacramental life of the Church. The "greater works," then, are the works of the Spirit. Raising the dead may be impressive, and a sign of the divine, but through Christ, we offer eternal life, and resurrection rather than resuscitation; Lazarus eventually died for good.

St. Thomas Aquinas suggests wrote in his commentary on John

"...for the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of heaven and earth. For the justification of the wicked, considered in itself, continues forever...But the heavens and the earth will pass away..."

We don't need to "go to heaven" to see God's face; we have a divine mission to become the face of God through Christ's Way as we walk together as church.