Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter
Have you ever played the “guess how much I love you” game with a child? I remember the loving competition when my children were young, each of us trying to outdo the other in declaring our love. “I love you more than I can say”, “well, I love you more than the whole world,” “ I love you bigger than the sky!” As I seem to recall, they were usually stumped when I would finally say, “I loved you before you were even born.”
Today’s gospel reading (John 17: 20-26) reminded me of just this sort of loving exchange when Jesus in his prayer acknowledges his Father’s love for him, “...you loved me before the foundation of the world.” What a deep, strong, loving relationship that is presented to us through the Father and the son. God loved Jesus even before the foundation of the world.
And the exciting thing about it is that Jesus wants us, his disciples, to be a part of that relational love. In the beginning of the gospel passage Jesus makes it clear that he is praying not only for the first disciples that were with him during his earthly ministry, but also “for those who will believe in me through your word,” which two thousand years later includes us! In his prayer, he then expresses his desire for us to be one with him and the Father, “as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.” As his prayer continues, Jesus then declares us as a gift to him and shares his wish for us to be where his is. Isn’t that a true love relationship? To want to be with the one that you love?
This love is also seen in today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles (22: 30; 23: 6-11) as Jesus appears to Paul and encourages him as he is being persecuted for preaching about Jesus. “The Lord stood by him and said, ‘take courage.’” Just as a true friend, loving parent or sibling would do, Jesus “stood by him” and offered encouragement.
So here we are given two reminders of Jesus’ love for us and desire to be in such a close relationship with us. Just as God the Father loved Jesus “before the foundation of the world,” so, too, has God loved us, and that love continues. We are invited to enter into the relationship of the trinity, as in a loving parent-child relationship with the breath of the spirit to always be with us even when we’re apart. An awesome invitation.
This past Sunday we celebrated the Feast of the Ascension in which Jesus is taken up to heaven after promising his disciples that he will send the Spirit to be with them. This Sunday we celebrate the coming of that same Holy Spirit in Pentecost, and the following Sunday we celebrate the Holy Trinity. What a rich time in the liturgical calendar to be reminded of and find hope in God’s amazing, relational love for us.
So let us praise God with the psalmist as in today’s psalm, “therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices, my body, too, abides in confidence; because you will not abandon my soul to the nether world, nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.” (Psalm 16: 9-10)
-Eileen Miller