Fifth Sunday of Easter (C)
New Jerusalem

Fifth Sunday of Easter (C)
New Jerusalem

by Father Charles Irvin, M.Div, J.D.

Throughout this season leading up to Pentecost, we turn to the Acts of the Apostles for insight into the history of the early Church. This helps us in understanding the nature of the Church today. As we listen to the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear of the disciples' travels from one city to another. The nature of the early Church was to take Christ's Message to the rest of the world, reaching people with a New Message, a New Way, a New Vision of what God wants us to see. We find a word of encouragement to those who are followers of this New Way. We must not expect this New Way to be without Difficulty, Problems or Trials. If we accept this way of Christ, we must accept the process of Struggle and Problems, even though He also promises great Peace and Wholeness. That's so important to hear, especially for those of us who are Church Leaders. We find there can be Problems in the way people hear the Message. There are Problems in those who carry It. We must expect those Difficulties, because they are part of the process. It's like friction being created against that which is opposite to the Message. And yet, out of this Tension comes a lot of Energy. There is also Great Power residing within the disciples as they are able to effectively convey this Message.

John envisions a New Jerusalem, "a holy city coming down from Heaven". John says this city is as beautiful as a bride prepared to meet her husband. That's a wonderful image of the work of the Church. The Church, like the New City, is seeking to build community. God dwells in this New City. God is with His people, and they are with Him. There is Union and Partnership between God and His people. Union is at the heart of the New Jerusalem. The presence of God is so powerful because it "wipes away the tears from our eyes". It tells us that someday there will be no more Death; someday there will be no more Pain or Struggle. Ultimately, we are moving toward a place where Struggle is over. At the same time, God tells us that while we are in the process of Struggle, He is with us. Nothing seems stronger than the description of a Church where the Spirit dwells in each Member of the Community. In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of His Kingdom and about the Church. He gives us a New Commandment: to love one another. If we look at the Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament, we discover that this is not a new idea. But Leviticus makes it clear that one of the most important facets of the Law is to love our Brothers and Sisters. We are to love one another as we love ourselves. Much of the Old Testament is based on Justice. The command to love our Brothers and Sisters as we love ourselves is based on the common sense that we should treat others as we wish to be treated. Logic also tells us that if we treat people in a certain way, chances are that this is the way we will end up being treated. In the Old Testament, the motive for being a loving person has a lot to do with taking care of ourselves.

When we get to the New Testament and to Jesus, we find the same Command to love, but it's a new way of loving one another. The Church that God calls us to establish is founded on Spirit that empowers us to love. This new way of loving is given to us through Jesus' actions. Jesus gave Himself for those He loved. Jesus' Love is Self-sacrificing, complete forgetfulness of self. Jesus was following the Will of His Father. Jesus was willing to die for those He loved. That will not be the case for most of us - not the literal Death of Crucifixion. Something in our lives does, however, need to be Crucified. Something needs to die if we are to live a Selfless Life. It has something to do with the Ego. We understand this new way of loving as a way to offer Spirit and Life to people when things are not going according to the way we think they ought to go. Jesus submitted to a Plan that demanded a great deal of Him. In my daily life, I know that if I don't submit to the Plan demanded of me, I'm miserable. I'm Angry, and I have a lot of Tension inside of me. Things aren't going the way I think they ought to go. People don't act in the way I think they should act. They don't respond the way I think they should. Those are the times I find it most Difficult to be a vehicle for the Spirit that brings New Life to people. Those are the times I find it most Difficult to love. This New Commandment that Jesus asks us to embrace as we love one another invites us to give ourselves over to something that is bigger than we are. The Self-Sacrificing part is that we are trusting in a Plan that is bigger than our own wants and needs. The ability to do this lies in our willingness to be used by God and to be vehicles of bringing Life to people. If we act in this way, we are not resistant to God's Plan.

In the Gospel passage from John, we also find an image of the Glory of God, the Doxa {Doxa (δόξα) is a Greek word which Hebrew Scholars rendered for the Hebrew word for "glory" (kabot) and this usage continues today}. The Glory of God is His Presence, His Spirit within the world. When Jesus says He is about to be Glorified as He goes to His Death, He is showing us that the Best Spirit, the most Glorious Spirit within a Human Being, is the ability to submit. That's what makes us so very Powerful - an ability to submit to something beyond us. Being able to submit enables us to be used by God. When we are used by God to be an Instrument of Life and Love in the community, then God is Glorified in us. We reveal the Doxa that is in us. The Glory of God is that He wants to Heal us. He wants to wipe away all of our tears. He wants to Comfort us. God seems to have limited Himself to working through us in a Mysterious Way. Grace, the Spirit of God moving in the world, needs vehicles. We are all called to be Instruments of God's Grace, Love, and Glory to the world. The challenge is to obtain our cooperation. There's no way we can be effective unless we freely cooperate in this work. Our challenge is to see Church in a new and different way. One of the greatest disappointments to me as a Catholic Priest is the Division between Denominations. Nothing seems more foreign to me than that we would build Fences between religious groups. That must be a great Pain in the Heart of our God when He sees those He calls ONE, separated in this way. We need to break down the barriers of Prejudice and Misunderstanding. We are all doing the work of the Father - bringing Life and Spirit to people. When we are doing that, we are part of one family. We need to overcome the Division.

We can at times perceive the Church as a limitation, and this also concerns me. At times we can view the Church as something that robs us of Freedom: "If I submit to the Church, it will ask me to do all of those things I don't really think are important". Or: "The Church makes me stop doing all the things that are really fun or pleasurable". Nothing could be further from this view than the image we find in the Church today. The Church is a Life-Giver, a Spirit-Infuser. It's a way of imagining the world so that we find meaning and purpose in everything. A person truly touched by the Church possesses an Inner Balance. The challenge that the Church places before us is full of Life and Freedom. It is full of Freedom from everything that would Destroy us. One of the most touching images in the New Testament is that Jesus came to give us not only Life, but to Free us from Evil. In the Book of Revelation, we find an image of "a new heavens and a new earth". Revelation also reveals to us that "the sea is no longer" Now the Sea was considered by the people at this time as the place of Evil, as the Underworld. It was the place where Demons resided.

The New Jerusalem is Free of Evil . The Church is trying to Free people from those things that would Rob them of Life. Those things that Rob people of Life constitute the essence of Evil. Our challenge during the Easter Season is to dwell on the Gifts of the Father. He sent His Son to Die for us so that we might be Free and possess more Life. In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that all Burdens will be light. We need to Trust and Believe in the process of the Church drawing us into Transformation. This process of Transformation continues to draw us anew into an awareness of God's Presence. Through that Presence, we are drawn to a ministry of a God Who is there for each and every one of us.

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