May 17, 2009 Sixth Sunday of Easter Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48; 1 Jn. 4:7-10; Jn. 15:9-17 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   Readings: http://www.usccb.org/nab/051709.shtml                ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________     “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. REMAIN IN MY LOVE.”   It is the love that Jesus showed to others that offers us a glimpse of God’s love. Jesus’ love embraced all the people he met, those who accepted him and those who did not. Because of his intimate union with God, it was divine love that Jesus offered to others, to those who were easy to love and those who were not. His entire life revealed God’s universal, unselfish, merciful love.   Jesus’ self-emptying love points back to the self-emptying love of God and forward to the kind of self-emptying love expected of us. We are to love one another in the way he loved us.   Jesus emphasises the relationship between disciples and himself as that of vine and branches, and as friendship. This sets Jesus’ ministry apart from the norm of the day where the teacher and the student maintain a professional distance.   Jesus has walked and talked with these people. He has heard the petty squabbles - and seen the jostling for position. He knows the strengths of these people - and also their weaknesses. He knows too that all too soon, they will betray him - deny him and desert him. And yet, he does not withdraw his choice of them as friends. In fact, he confirms it - reminding them that, unlike the custom of the day where the disciple chose the rabbi - he had chosen them.   Jesus saw beyond the failures - past and future - and commissioned them to be his witnesses - to bear fruit that will last. It must have seemed a charged moment - and, even when it all seemed to have collapsed, the essence of it survived and gave Jesus a way to remind them that they were called to be witnesses to his resurrection and to proclaim the good news of God’s forgiveness.   In our lives there are genuine religious, ethnic and political differences that separate and even alienate us from others. Today’s readings clearly insist that we love these others as Jesus has loved us. This is the radical challenge facing us today. We cannot merely rest secure in our belief that “God is love.” Easter calls us to live out this conviction in a world that is so burdened with conflict and strife.   The joy of those who abide in Christ's love is a continual feast. They are to show their love to him by keeping his commandments. Christ's love to us should direct us to love each other.     <<   Previous: Fifth Sunday of Easter  | Next: Ascension of the Lord >>     Go Back to SERMONS (Year B)