Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
It can sometimes seem as though Jesus is far removed from our 21st-Century lives in Dayton, Ohio. His life and ministry on earth is certainly removed from us by many centuries. He lived in a time when the world was very different, and he lived and worked in a much different cultural context. I find that my own sense of being far removed from the historical figure of Jesus sometimes has the danger of allowing me to make excuses for myself: in particular it allows me to pick and choose the ways that I am willing to follow him. I find myself sometimes asking how Jesus expects me to follow him when he is so far away from my life. This in turn can make me less passionate about my faith and less certain of my role as a Christian in the world around me. The scriptures for today speak to these concerns and show that this way of thinking is mistaken. They remind us that Jesus remains very close to us, in many different ways but in particular through the operation of the Holy Spirit.
In the gospel passage, Jesus tells his disciples that he will be leaving them in order to return to the Father. The passage suggests that the disciples are shocked and saddened by this. It must have been hard for the disciples to say goodbye to Jesus. They may have wondered what was going to happen next, for Jesus and for them. Was Jesus really leaving them? Was this the end of the new life that they had only just begun to live, and the end of the joy and happiness that they thought that they had found?
Jesus seems to recognize that his disciples need to hear some words of encouragement. He tells them that it is a good thing that he is going away. Unless he goes away, the disciples will not receive the Advocate, the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ message about the importance of the Spirit connects up with the example of Paul in the first reading. Paul did not know Jesus during Jesus’ earthly life. He became a follower of Jesus only after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. Yet he remained dedicated to Jesus and worked to spread the gospel throughout the known world. Paul had a conversion experience in which he saw a vision of Jesus. Despite this it is fair to say that he was sustained in his faith through the work of the Holy Spirit. Paul was willing to face danger, persecution, imprisonment, and even death for the sake of Jesus and his teachings. His witness and courage displays the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Jesus’ followers both then and now.
It seems that the role of the Spirit is one of the things that we can grasp onto today in response to the scripture readings. Each of us finds oneself living as a Christian in a world where Christian belief is sometimes viewed as strange, and we may feel at times that Jesus’ witness is two thousand years in the past. Yet Jesus did not leave us alone. Jesus is present to us in our Christian worship, especially the sacrifice of the mass; he is present to us in our interaction with other human beings; and he is present to us through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Today we can pray to the Holy Spirit to ask for the kind of courage that Paul and Silas had. With the Spirit’s guidance and encouragement we can confront the challenges, both great and small, of living out our faith each day. Let us also pray that, with the Spirit’s help, we will find new ways to serve God and to witness to God’s presence in our lives.
-Joel Schickel