Jesus said that no one comes to the Father except through Him
Take some time to imagine what it must have been like for those first apostles and disciples to hear Jesus’ words in the Scripture readings on the fifth Sunday of Easter, only for His return to not come quickly. The expectation was that Jesus died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and would come back quickly to take all the faithful to Himself. When people in that early community began to die, the early followers of Jesus had to reformulate their understanding and their interpretation of Jesus’ words. They either had to decide that He wasn’t going to fulfill His promise, or their understanding of His words was mistaken.
Even now, 2,000 years later, we are still trying to understand what Jesus meant when He said, “I am going to prepare a place for you, and I will come back and take you to myself.” If we were to be honest, most people wouldn’t want Jesus to come back today, in this very moment. It has been many generations since the time that Jesus was physically present on the Earth. We’ve grown accustomed to watching people be born, live a full life and then die of natural causes. The urgency of the moment and the coming of the kingdom of God are always somewhere in the future, not affecting us very much. In the midst of this Easter season, how can we take these well-known Scripture stories and let the word of God lead and guide us?
For many generations, we have been trying to decide whether Jesus was the way, the truth and the life, or if He lived culturally for His time and the way He called us to live is simply not applicable in our current situation. The further we get from Jesus’ physical presence on the Earth, the more we might believe that His teachings are outdated. I know that’s not what we want to admit, but doesn’t it seem to be the truth?
The struggle is the same, but the form it takes is different. When the early Church was confronted with the problem of a certain group of widows being neglected, those who were already accepted reacted the same way we do today. These widows should be just like us, or else they won’t be part of the community. It is so important that the early leadership in the Church called everyone together and reoriented that community to the way of life that Jesus led. The decision was made to set aside some folks to take care of that group’s needs rather than to pretend they weren’t part of the community. The apostles already had plenty to do, so a separate group of people was selected to take care of the needs of those who had been ostracized. The truth that Jesus spoke that all are one continued because of the wisdom and inspiration of that early community. But how are we doing with that same question?
If we were to stand in front of a mirror and surround ourselves with a core group of people in our lives, there would be some who would not be included in that inner circle. Now think of the church communities or other social groupings that we belong to and notice how certain kinds of people are excluded, either because of a conscious choice or because we don’t think the way Jesus thought.
Easter is a time for us to resurrect some things about living that might have died. How has Jesus’ vision that all might be one died in our families, in the Church and in our world? What can we do to help resurrect that dream and purpose of God? Will we do anything about that to change the reality in which we live?
