5th Sunday of Easter 2023
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still, and trust in me…” If I had a fiver for every Requiem Mass and every funeral service in which I have known John 14:1-6, the first part of today’s Gospel, to be chosen as a reading, I would be rich.
Why is that passage so popular at a time of bereavement? It is because it offers hope and comfort beyond many other readings, beginning by speaking to the heart.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Inevitably, hearts are troubled by a death, especially the death of a loved one. Part of you has been torn away, creating a deep wound which will ease with the passage of time, but of which you will aways bear the scar. Hearts are hurt, minds are distressed: what healing can there be? How can Jesus’ instruction not to be troubled become in any sense real?
A clue can be found in that very word “heart”. The Latin word for heart is “cor” from which we derive the English word “courage”. To encourage someone is literally “to put heart into” them, and this is what Jesus sets out to do.
Firstly, He encourages us to trust. That isn’t easy for the bereaved: the foundations of their trust may have been shaken by their loss. Yet Jesus invites us to trust, and sets out the reasons for that trust. “There are many rooms in my Father’s house” He tells us. I suspect, and the teaching of the Church reinforces this, not merely that there is plenty of room for everybody, but that there is room for all sorts of people: the good, the bad, and even the ugly.
All of Our Lord’s teaching and ministry point to that conclusion. He was always the friend of the poor, of children—who, he said, have first claim on the Kingdom of Heaven—and of sinners. Indeed, I imagine that the pokiest rooms, at the back of the house, are reserved for those self-righteous people who are most confident of their claim, and who have gone around bashing us lesser mortals over the head with the Bible.
Jesus then insists that He is going to prepare a place, “so that, where I am, you may be too”. His resurrection validated that promise: He did indeed return to take His disciples with Him.
At this point, Thomas butts in—good old practical, rational Thomas, who always wants things fully explained, who demands demonstrations, but who, once they are given, is content. “Hang on!” he interrupts. “Where are you going? How do we get there? What are you talking about?”
“That’s easy,” replies Jesus. “Look at me. I am how you get there. My whole life gives you a pattern, and my blood will open the way. And no one can come to the Father except through me.”
What does Jesus mean by that? Some would argue that only by a specific knowledge of and commitment to Jesus can people come to the Father, but that is not borne out by His words elsewhere. The parable of the sheep and the goats reported in Matthew’s Gospel implies that many people will be pleasantly surprised to discover that they have been serving Jesus without ever recognising Him, and that they will have a place with Him, whilst others who have claimed to know Him, but who have failed to serve Him in the poor, will receive a very unpleasant shock. Everyone who comes to the Father does so through Jesus, because the shedding of His blood has opened the way for them, whether they realise it or not.
There is, then, immense comfort in Jesus’ words, and Thomas is, apparently, happy. Not so Philip: he still wants more. “Lord, let us see the Father, and then we shall be satisfied.” No you won’t, Philip. You are human, and humans are never satisfied: that is both our strength and our weakness. We always want to know more, and so, through the centuries, we have pushed back the frontiers of knowledge. That is a good thing, and yet it leaves us permanently frustrated: there is always more to know.
You may be familiar with St. Augustine’s dictum “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee”. In this life, we shall always be dissatisfied, always questioning; and so, as Jesus goes on to promise, we shall do the works that He has done; but only when we enter those many rooms, and dwell with the Father, shall we be truly content.
