Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter

posted in: Easter, Homilies | 0

Today's readings [display_podcast]

 

I love it when engaged couples pick this reading for their weddings.  Not just because it’s sentimental, all talking about love and everything.  I like it because of the way it talks about love.  Because it would be easy enough to say that if we just love each other a little more, everything will be fine.

 

But Jesus reminds us that this is not how love works.  And that sentiment is not at all what he had in mind when he said “Remain in my love.”  The word “remain” here is a translation of the Greek word meno, which is a word that connotes an abiding presence, a rootedness at one’s core.  “Remain” is too passive a word, kind of like sitting around and doing nothing, all covered with the love of God.  I think the better translation would be “live and breathe always in my love.” 

 

And that’s what Jesus goes on to say.  “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”  So this remaining in Jesus’ love involves keeping his commandments.  Do you remember what those commandments were?  Well, they revolve around love.  In Matthew’s Gospel, when the scholar of the law asks which of the commandments was the greatest, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.  The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Matthew 22:37-39)

 

Putting God and neighbor first in the same way as Jesus did for us is what this kind of love entails.  And note carefully that the way Jesus put us first was by laying down his life on the cross.  Remaining in Jesus’ love, the command he gives us today, involves loving others in a sacrificial way, putting aside our own interests and ambitions at times, dying to self, so that we can give life to others. 

 

But this is not to make ourselves martyrs or even grumpy Christians.  This love leads to true joy, because in many ways it takes away the worry of having to think about ourselves.  “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.”  And so it is with great joy that we remain in Christ’s love; loving others as he has loved us – sacrificially and unconditionally.  And with this great love, as the Psalmist says, we “Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.”