Acts 17:1-15 Ps. 66: 1-8
1 Peter 2:1-10 John 14:1-14
1 Peter 2:1-10 John 14:1-14
When the most important person and mentor of one's life leaves, what does one need? One needs direction, honesty, and an assurance that there is greater life than the death of the loved one. And what if we've have gotten location and identity by being with someone so important? What if our life has been poignantly defined by living in proximity with the most important person in our lives? Our personal neighborhoods change when our loved one is gone. How can a home be a home when the one who made it seem like home is suddenly gone? When someone important dies, one can believe that significant resources for living have been lost. How do we access the inheritance of the loved one whom we've lost?
How did the writer of John's Gospel, writing decades after Jesus, present Jesus? Jesus was presented as one who prepared his disciples for his eventual absence. And by logical extension, the first readers of the Gospel of John were to know that the preparation for the absence of Jesus of Nazareth pertained to their lives as well. And by further extension, you and I can find insights on how we can live today without having seen, walked, or talked with Jesus of Nazareth.
The Gospel writers believed that they could write about Jesus in such a manner that he could be known as the exemplary person on whom one's life could be modeled. In short, Jesus was the way; he was the one who provided the direction for how to live best in the way love, peace, joy, and justice. Probably the most important gift that any of us has had are exemplary mentors who have provided us with living examples of how to live well. Jesus is the way, because he was the exemplary person who has given us a direction of excellence into which we can continuously grow.
Further, we need to know what is true. Truth has many nuances. It cannot be reduced to scientific laws or logical arguments. The truth of Jesus has to do with the aspect of living honestly with oneself. Jesus was honest to God, honest to himself, honest to his friends, and honest to the world in which he lived. How do we live in the truth of Jesus? By honestly discovering ourselves to be children of God and from this discovery, live with this distinction in such a way as to invite this same insight for others. We should strive to be able to say, "If you have seen us, you have seen something of the likeness of God and Christ." If we can attain to honesty about our heavenly parentage, the likeness and image of God on our lives, then we emulate the truth of Jesus.
When the life of Jesus ended upon the cross, did that mean the end of the kind of qualitative life of Jesus was gone? No, Jesus promised the continuance of abundant life, resurrection life, even the life of the Holy Spirit. The early followers of Jesus lived with the sense of the continued presence of the Risen Christ. This continued presence was the abundant life which Jesus provided for his disciples, for the early Christians and for us today.
When Jesus died, did the disciples lose their home? Where are we going to live after Jesus is gone? Wherever Jesus went, he created a home for his disciples. Sometimes we like to reduce the words of Jesus to funeral services and speak of eternal life in some heavenly dwelling. When he was on earth, Jesus told them that the Son of Man had no place to lay his head. He was an itinerant and nomadic Jesus in his ministry. He had no home, but he found many homes with many friends. What Jesus taught us about God is that God is an itinerant and homing God, one who indwells the lives of all. Jesus presented God as a homing God; one who would be pleased to dwell in the lives of all. This is a connection of creation theology with incarnational theology. The likeness and image of God dwells within creation and especially within people. Jesus is the one who taught us to bring our God-identity to the surface to become manifest in our words and our deeds.
In his farewell to his disciples, Jesus was saying, just as I have found the likeness of God my parent within myself, so too can you find this same resource within yourselves.
Today, we live in the same promises of the farewell discourse of Jesus. We have the example of direction for our lives; we have his honest to God living, we have access to the abundant life within seeming ordinary life, we don't need to worry about a home because God has made a home within us, and finally, we can live off the continuing inheritance of the image of God upon our lives which can be known as the rising Holy Spirit.
As we always live in the grief of having lost Jesus of Nazareth, we live in hope and joy of the continuity of the values of the life of Jesus today. Amen.
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