The Sixth Sunday of Easter C: May 13, 2007

Acts 15:1-2, 22-29
Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23
John 14:23-29

Dear Jesus,

Sometimes, in the night, when I am anxious, I wonder if I believe. I toss and turn and feel emotion churning in the very pit of my stomach. In those times, nothing seems to be working out as it should for someone who is walking with you. When someone I love dies, I grieve and wonder if I will ever know consolation. I stare at the yawning grave as the casket is lowered, my vision blurred by the tears. Should someone I love betray me, my grief is the same as at a time of death. How could friend do such a thing to a friend? Shouldn’t friendship be forever, rooted in you as it is? If my health should fail, what would I do then since I have only known good health? I’ve tended friends in their illness and kept vigil with the dying. But how will I deal with these realities in my own life? Do I believe? Why am I anxious?

There cannot have been a more angst-ridden atmosphere than that in the Upper Room on that night before you died. That’s where we are again on this Sixth Sunday of Easter. You are the teacher to the end. Your students struggle to take in the message. You are the potter. Can they allow themselves to be the clay? You are molding them, preparing them for a reality that they cannot imagine – life without your visible presence. Knowing them as you do, even as you speak you know that the lesson is beyond them. It will take the Advocate, the Spirit, to empower them, to enable them to hear and believe.

Were these lessons you tried to teach me in those early days? I remember how I longed for baptism, that wonderful moment that would transform reality as I would be transformed, called by name, and identified with you. As I came out of the Waters, I wanted what St. Paul said to be true for me – to live would be you. I don’t think I thought about dying being gain. After all, I was young then and naïve. I couldn’t imagine sickness or suffering. How could there be betrayal. Life in you would shield me from all such dire realities that others experience. That is what I thought then. Walking with you in the brightness of the wonder that is you would banish the shadows where terror lurked. Walking with you in the new life of Baptism would be like living in the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Now.

You are the gentle teacher. You know that I loved you. As does any lover, I saw our relationship being my life and my support, lived in an Eden of bliss and forever young. You did say it was about love and that the Father would love me because I loved you and wanted to live in union with you. I would be drawn into the community of life that is God having the likeness in which I was created perfected. You would hold me out of harm’s way.

That was then. So long ago. Untested. Untried. Now there are sleepless nights. Now there is tossing and restless turning. I have cried in the night and wondered, forgetting that you were betrayed with a kiss. You wept at a friend’s death. And you cried out in terror as the darkness enveloped you and you felt abandoned by the One who had sent you. So many signs. So much I missed.

A man chided me once. Or was it pity I heard in his voice. He laughed at my faith even as he said it would be nice to believe in you. But that was out of the question. Why? Because, he said, the Messiah should bring about the Messianic Kingdom of peace and justice and light. If that had followed from you, he said he would believe. But look at the world. Look at the suffering. Look at every age after you and we see as much famine, war, disease, and death as before you.

Didn’t that kingdom begin in your resurrection? When all those who come to faith in you form community that is the Church, isn’t that the Messianic Kingdom? When that community assembles around the Table and renews your dying and rising in the action of Eucharist, when the Bread is broken and the Cup shared, isn’t that the Messianic Kingdom realized? The action doesn’t end there – ever. There is always a sending to be what the Eucharist empowers – your presence to a wounded world.

In my sleepless nights, what am I forgetting? As I toss and turn and want to cry out, I wonder if I will survive. And should I survive, what then? Do these signs of failure, betrayal, and death forebode a void that will envelop me in final defeat?

I hear you speak now with firm gentleness. Peace. I give you peace! Do not let your heart be troubled. Believing isn’t easy and has little to do with feeling. If I believe, I must trust you and your word. This peace has little to do with the absence of war and hostility. Certainly that absence will one day be part of abiding peace. This peace ought not be destroyed by betrayal. Certainly reconciliation will be part of the peace you give.

Help me again to remember what the peace you give in a way the world does not give, to remember what is that peace. Remind me that you have assured me, and all who accept your peace, that nothing will separate us from the love of God that comes to us through Christ Jesus. That doesn’t mean we won’t know suffering. That doesn’t mean we won’t encounter death. That doesn’t mean we will not know betrayal. But we will, in the end, when all else fails, know the love of God forever.

You said all this before you died to bolster the courage of your disciples as they watched you die. You say this now to your newly baptized so that they will not be discouraged should they experience trial as they begin to journey with you on the Way. You say it to me and others like me who are seasoned travelers who may know success but may taste failure as well. Even in the darkest night, God is there and we are loved with the same love God has for you.

That is the truth, isn’t it? Is that what you want me to remember and believe? Come, Advocate. Come, Holy Spirit and help my unbelief.

Sincerely,

Didymus