Three Promises of Jesus

Homily for the 6^th Sunday of Easter – John 14:15-21 – Three Promises of Jesus

This Sunday's Gospel comes from the middle of the Farewell Speech of Jesus at the Last Supper.  And in it, he makes three extremely consoling promises to his disciples and to us. And I think these promises are something we all need to hear and hang on to these days. 

The first promise is one of protection: I will send you another Advocate to be with you always. Jesus is the first Advocate, but he would soon be going away.  The new Advocate, the Holy Spirit, would remain with the disciples, with us, and never depart.  The actual word for Advocate used in the original Greek language of the Gospel is parakletos, which is usually translated as paraclete.  You’ve probably heard that word before in Catholic hymns and prayers to the Holy Spirit.  

But it might surprise you to find out that Paraclete was not a religious or biblical word whatsoever.  Jesus chose a legal title to describe the Holy Spirit’s action in our lives. A paraclete in ancient Greek law was a defense attorney, a public defender. In other words, the promised Holy Spirit is someone who is on our side, who stand up for us and accompanies us, using all of his expertise to safely get us through trials and tribulations. So, let’s keep in mind that as we go through so many new and unusual trials and tribulations these days, we are not alone, we are not defenseless. The Paraclete is at our side willing and able to go through the ups and downs with us, providing counsel and leading the way.

The second promise that Jesus makes is one of companionship: “I will not leave you orphans, I will come back to you.” Remember, he is talking to the disciples on the night before he died and he is saying that he will return to them at Easter. But God’s Word is alive and ever-present and so he is talking to us right now as well.  An orphan is someone who feels the void of desolation, of bring alone, without the company of the ones who love him or her most.  That’s how some of us feel in these days of social isolation and sadly, it is more than an emotion for others. There are those among us who are truly unable to be physically present with the ones they love.

Jesus is reminding us that he, the Risen Lord, has come back to us and remains with us in the Holy Eucharist. He is really and truly ever-present to us in the Blessed Sacrament reserved in our tabernacles and, in a certain sense, you can say he is waiting there for us there to claim his promise and be reunited with him. Our parish church is open from 10AM to 4PM seven days a week and we can go to him for peace, strength and consolation in these trying times. Are we scheduling intentional time to go there and be with our Beloved Brother and Lord who has come back to be with us?

The third promise in today’s Gospel is one of an intimate personal relationship. Jesus says, “Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” If we think of the special relationships we have in our lives, we will see that truly revealing ourselves to one another is at the very heart of any relationship worth having and keeping. The more we get to know one another in honesty and mutual openness, the deeper and stronger our relationship becomes. The way this happens between us and Jesus, the way he keeps his promise of personally revealing himself to us, is by prayer and meditative reading of the Gospels.

Keep in mind that prayer is really nothing more than taking time to be alone with Jesus in conversation as we would do with a spouse or with one of our friends. Speaking our own words from the heart, we reveal to him what is inside of us, who we are, who we want to be, what we desire, what we are afraid of…and he in turn speaks to our hearts and tells us about himself.

This is where the living Word of the Gospels come into play. In the pages of the Gospel we find the real Jesus. We see how he felt. We observe how we behaved. We listen to what he says. We get to know his mind and his heart. But just as we plan and make time to be alone with the one we love so we need to do the same for our relationship with Jesus. And we need to carry out our prayer and meditation in an atmosphere of silence so that we can hear him gently whispering to the ears of our heart.

You know, the beautiful thing about a divine relationship is that all three Persons of the Trinity are involved in it.  When we live in love with Christ it includes living in love with God the Father, And, this love that so intimately unites the Father and the Son with us is the special work of the Holy Spirit.  We started off this reflection by pondering the Holy Spirit and we are ending it with Him as well. And this is exactly as it should be as we begin to draw near to the end of the Easter Season and prepare to celebrate the Holy Spirit’s Great Arrival on the Solemnity of Pentecost. 

Let’s make a resolution right now to pray the Pentecost Novena this year with special confidence and devotion.  Let's ask for the grace to open wide the doors of our hearts to the power and presence of this Spirit of the Living God, the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Comforter who is our defense, our companion and our strength in these difficult times.