Sixth Sunday of Easter: 5-1-16
Peace be with You,
My friends, last week we heard Jesus tell us that to be His disciple means living a life that loves as He loves. We also noted that though we will fall short of the perfect love lived by Christ, it is the continual striving to live a life that ever more perfectly incarnates the love of Christ that is the true mark of Christian discipleship.
Today, Jesus tells us that, ’those who love Him, will keep His word.’ These are similar to words repeated by Jesus in the gospel of John in the text between last Sunday’s gospel and today’s gospel readings. Thus, it should be understood that “keeping His word,” here, means living His command to love (which encapsulates all of the commands of God). Now, we may be tempted to read these words as coercive, however, we would be wrong to do so. Remember, Jesus has come to undo the fall of Adam. Adam said “no” to God’s command, which in essence was a “no” to a life of perfect communion with God. Therefore, we must read Jesus’ command not as restrictive, but as liberating and life-giving! For, what is the effect of adhering to the command? Jesus tells us: “my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” My friends, living the command to love brings us into the life of God! This is why the Son was Incarnated, so that we might be re-admitted to right relationship with God!
This right relationship is maintained and nourished by the presence of the Holy Spirit, Whose presence is promised to those who live the command to love. It is this Spirit that breathes freedom into our lives, as we see in today’s first reading from Acts. There, when the question of the Jewish requirement of circumcision came up, the Apostles write, ‘It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities…” Notice, the Apostles do not brush away all moral discipline as unnecessary, rather, they maintain and affirm those truths that are needed in order to maintain right relationship with God. For, it is only within this relationship that we live lives of the freedom worthy of the sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father.
Your servant in Christ,
Tony
Tony Crescio is the founder of FRESHImage Ministries. He holds an MTS from the University of Notre Dame and is currently a PhD candidate in Christian Theology at Saint Louis University. His research focuses on the intersection between moral and sacramental theology. His dissertation is entitled, Presencing the Divine: Augustine, the Eucharist and the Ethics of Exemplarity.
Tony’s academic publications can be found here.