6th Sunday after Easter

6th Sunday of Easter

Imagine you are an apostle in today’s gospel-reading. Imagine being in the presence of someone who you thought had left you - Jesus: who, in fact you thought was dead and gone. But there he was – back with you. Imagine the joy that you would feel; the relief that he was in fact still here with you.

To comfort you; to guide you; to support you; to love you as his child and for you to love him as your father, or teacher, or master.

Not only that, but in coming back to you, he had forgiven your faults; your major faults – like running away and leaving him to the mob – leaving him to be tortured, unfairly tried and then crucified while you scurried away and hid somewhere safe.

Imagine if you can the huge sense of relief and joy you would have sitting there in his presence.

And then – and then imagine the roller-coaster of emotions, the depths to which you would plummet when Jesus started to talk about going away and leaving you – yet again – but this time for good. Keep in mind that your faith may not be at its strongest peak at this time. You are still feeling around and trying to get a good firm grip on things, especially on your cracked relationship.

Remember – you have gone from firmly and truly believing in him and his message from God and helping him to spread this message to the people – that message of love for all; loving others as yourself; loving others as he in fact loved you. Going from this to wondering what the heck was going on; where in fact it had all gone wrong and how come you had ended up having to flee for your life – and what was going to happen next

That is a huge shift in faith and belief and understanding and comfort.

But here you are now and everything is better. Here he is back with you. Comforting you with his presence and with his messages of support and coming to make his home with you – whatever that meant exactly. You are picking up some of what he is saying and other bits and pieces are confusing.

The Holy Spirit will come and teach you everything and will remind you of what Jesus has already said to you. Well, that is good.

He has given you a gift of peace – peace of mind and of heart and of soul and of spirit. But… But – then he starts to talk again of going away and that if you really loved him you would or should be happy about this.

How are you feeling so far? Happy? Sad? Confused? Comforted? Afraid? Trying to remember where it was that you ran to last time because you may need that hidey-hole again and quite soon?

Think it through and put yourself in their position. Put yourself in Jesus presence during this exchange. This is real. The apostles are real people with real feelings, faults and failings – the same as you and me.

There is the need for constant reassurance from Jesus. Reassurance that everything will be alright. And reassurance and re-emphasis as to what he expected of them.

And that applies as much to us today as it did to the apostles then.

We are like the apostles. We receive the message – with joy and wonder and for the most part we are strong in our faith and belief while here with our friends and church-family. But what are we like when the challenges come our way? What do we do when life hits us and knocks us down? What do we do when we need to show in practical terms what we believe; when we need to live our faith in actions and behaviours? And when these things actually mean having to change or interrupt our normal daily lives? Where are we then?

We can be like the apostles and seek to hide away and only come out when we think it is safe. We can accept messages and actions that we know are wrong because to challenge them would risk – what? Something – ridicule or attention or notice. Or may require effort and engagement and disruption.

The apostles were people like you and me. They were frightened and confused; at times lost and afraid. But they like us, received the gift of the Holy Spirit and this gave them wisdom, knowledge, judgement, courage, understanding, love and respect for God the same gifts we received from the Holy Spirit at our Confirmation. This same Holy Spirit that we can encounter time and time again at our Eucharist or Reconciliation as a recharge or retune or re-energiser. How often do we take up this opportunity?

It is easy to get lost. It is easy to run away. It is harder to ask for help and maybe harder still to ask to come back home and to be forgiven. Jesus said to us, “Peace I leave you, my own peace I give to you”. We need never to feel lost or alone or frightened. We always need to know and accept that his instructions to the apostles apply equally to us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid”.

 We are like the apostles. We have received the message of God and so should rejoice in this. We know that he has not left us and that he will be with us forever and at every stage of our lives. That should give us a huge sense of peace and joy. Let us not hide away but live our lives in such a way as to shine the message of the resurrection in all we do and say. Christ is alive and has made his home in each and every one of us.