20150501 JESUS IS THE WAY TO THE FATHER

20150501 JESUS IS THE WAY TO THE FATHER

Readings at Mass

First reading

Acts 13:26-33 ©

Paul stood up in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia, held up a hand for silence and began to speak:

  ‘My brothers, sons of Abraham’s race, and all you who fear God, this message of salvation is meant for you. What the people of Jerusalem and their rulers did, though they did not realise it, was in fact to fulfil the prophecies read on every sabbath. Though they found nothing to justify his death, they condemned him and asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had carried out everything that scripture foretells about him they took him down from the tree and buried him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had accompanied him from Galilee to Jerusalem: and it is these same companions of his who are now his witnesses before our people.

  ‘We have come here to tell you the Good News. It was to our ancestors that God made the promise but it is to us, their children, that he has fulfilled it, by raising Jesus from the dead. As scripture says in the second psalm: You are my son: today I have become your father.’

Psalm

Psalm 2:6-11 ©

You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.

or

Alleluia!

‘It is I who have set up my king

  on Zion, my holy mountain.’

I will announce the decree of the Lord:

The Lord said to me: ‘You are my Son.

  It is I who have begotten you this day.

You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.

or

Alleluia!

‘Ask and I shall bequeath you the nations,

  put the ends of the earth in your possession.

With a rod of iron you will break them,

  shatter them like a potter’s jar.’

You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.

or

Alleluia!

Now, O kings, understand,

  take warning, rulers of the earth;

serve the Lord with awe

  and trembling, pay him your homage.

You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.

or

Alleluia!

Gospel Acclamation

Col3:1

Alleluia, alleluia!

Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ,

you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is,

sitting at God’s right hand.

Alleluia!

Or

Jn14:6

Alleluia, alleluia!

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, says the Lord;

No one can come to the Father except through me.

Alleluia!

Gospel

John 14:1-6 ©

Jesus said to his disciples:

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.

Trust in God still, and trust in me.

There are many rooms in my Father’s house;

if there were not, I should have told you.

I am going now to prepare a place for you,

and after I have gone and prepared you a place,

I shall return to take you with me;

so that where I am

you may be too.

You know the way to the place where I am going.’

Thomas said, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus said:

‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.

No one can come to the Father except through me.’

JESUS IS THE WAY TO THE FATHER

SCRIPTURE READINGS: ACTS 13:26-33; JOHN 14:1-6.

The context of Jesus’ last farewell discourse is the Last Supper.  At this last meal with His disciples, Jesus prepared them for His departure.  We can feel with the disciples their pain and anxiety of losing someone they loved after having been with Jesus so intimately for three years.  But this sadness was augmented by the fact that they did not know where Jesus was going. Thomas asked, “Lord, we do not know where you are going”?   In other words, the cause of our anxiety and fear is because of our failure to know our origin and destiny.

Of course, Jesus knew His origin and destiny.  He knew that He had come from the Father.  That is why at the beginning of John Chapter 13, the evangelist prefaced the washing of feet with the statement that Jesus knew that the hour had come for Him to return to the Father. Incidentally, yesterday marked the mid-way of the Easter Season.  The change of emphasis in the Liturgy is noted from the fact that the gospel reading from John, Chapter 1-12, which is the Book of Signs, is now taken from the Book of Glory (Chapter 13-20).  In other words, the Church is preparing us for Jesus’ triumphant entry into heaven, His return to the Father on the Feast of the Ascension.

Within this context, we can understand why the liturgy would often choose this text for a funeral service.  This is because unless we know our origin and destiny we will experience a bereavement that is out of proportion to the event.  For if union with the Father is the goal of Jesus, so too, for us to return to our heavenly Father should be the goal of every Christian.  Consequently, when our loved ones depart from us, we should not hold on to them because they are actually returning to where they truly belong, which is in the bosom of the Father.  This is what Jesus was implying when He said, “There are many rooms in my Father’s house; if there were not, I should have told you.”  Yes our final destiny, like that of Jesus’, is to be embraced by the Father.

Once we realize this, then we know that the Christian end time is nothing else but to return to God.  Thus, when Jesus spoke about going somewhere, what He meant was that He was going to His Father.  This is because He is the Son.  This explains why Jesus is the Good News, as St Paul proclaimed in the first reading.  “We have come here to tell you the Good News. It was to our ancestors that God made the promise but it is to us, their children, that he has fulfilled it, by raising Jesus from the dead.”  Only in the light of the resurrection is Jesus’ sonship clearly manifested, as the first reading citing from Psalm 1 says, “You are my son: today I have become your father.”  Heaven therefore is to be in God and with God.  In sharing the sonship of Jesus, we share the life of God, which we call ‘heaven’.  So Jesus was returning to be reunited with God.  It was not so much a question of Him going to a place.

Yet, His going, in the words of Jesus, was in order to prepare a place for us.  Why was His going a preparation for us?  This is because Jesus had to show the way to the Father.  Thus, Thomas asked the second part of the question, “How can we know the way?”  What, then, is the way to the Father?  Indeed, Jesus says, “No one can come to the Father except through me.”  To speak of Jesus as the Way means that we must recognize Him as the incarnation of the Father’s love and mercy.  It also entails that we walk the path He had trodden as the way to life.  There is no other way to come to the heart of the Father, regardless whether we are Christians or otherwise.  There is only one way to God, which is the way of selfless service unto death.  So long as we think of ourselves and our own needs before others, we can never find life.  So in this sense, Jesus is the Way to the Father.

However, Jesus is more than someone who shows the way.  To come to the Father, we need to walk with Jesus.  That is why He also said in the same breath, “I shall return to take you with me; so that where I am you may be too.”  In other words, we must not only follow Jesus but we must walk with Him along the way.  Only by walking with Jesus, can we find Him to be the embodiment of truth and life.

But this is not enough.  To speak of Jesus as the Way to the Father is to realize that ultimately, walking the way is only possible with Jesus in us, and not just with us.  For this reason when Jesus spoke of preparing a place for us, He was speaking of His return in a new way, that is, in the Holy Spirit, where He becomes present in us.  It is ultimately through the presence of the Risen Lord in us that we are enabled to walk the way confidently with Jesus.

Hence, from now until the Feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost, the liturgy will invite us to contemplate more and more the significance of Jesus’ ascension into heaven and the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives in this journey to the Father.  Unless we are more conscious of His Spirit in us, we will not be able to find the strength to come to the Father.

Written by The Most Rev William Goh

Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore

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