Tuesday • 4/6/2021
Easter Week 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 103; Isaiah 30:18–21; Acts 2:36–41(42–47); John 14:15–31 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Pascha Nostrum(“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

In the ancient church, Easter was considered to be the most desirable day to receive baptism. Candidates had been told that baptism would introduce them to an adventurous and arduous life—a new existence of knowing God and being known by him. And so, the days right after baptism became a time for learning how to live out the baptized life. It was a season for instruction on the basics of the Christian life. 

Humility. It so happens that our Gospel readings for the next two weeks (John 14–17) present Jesus’s most thorough teaching about the essence of the Christian life.. The hallmark of that life is a loving humility, a picture of which Jesus paints by washing the disciples’ feet in John 13. He closes the section in John 17, by praying what is called his High Priestly Prayer to fortify them for such a life. Between those chapters, in John 14–16, Jesus outlines what life will look like for his followers after his death, resurrection, and ascension, and before his final return in glory.

Commandment keeping. Jesus tells us that if we love him, we will keep his commandments (John 14:15). In these chapters in particular he emphasizes that we are to love one another (John 13:34–35; 15:12,17). Elsewhere, Jesus commands us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the imprisoned (Matthew 25:35). And he tells us, directly or through his apostles, to purify our hearts, live chastely, pray without ceasing, renounce idolatry, give proportionately and generously, expose error, and flee temptation (Matthew 5:8; 1 Timothy 5:2; Hebrews 13:4; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Matthew 23:23; 2 Corinthians 8–9; Ephesians 5:11; 1 Corinthians 6:18; 2 Timothy 2:22). However, this is not a cafeteria menu. It’s a full diet. All of it is necessary for health and well-being. Without any of it, we die. 

Mutual indwelling. Jesus also tells us we are not left to our own devices in these endeavors. We do not keep the commandments by our own devices, through our own resources. We do not pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. We enjoy the onboard presence of the fullness of God. 

Jesus tells his disciples he is going away after this night, but that he is only doing so in order that he may return to them in another way—in the way of the Spirit. To this point, the Holy Spirit has been present “alongside” Jesus’s disciples, because the Spirit that came to “abide” upon Jesus at his baptism (John 1:32) has been working through Jesus: “You know [the Spirit of Truth], because he abides alongside (“para”) you… (John 14:17, my translation). But in the future, when Jesus has departed bodily, the Spirit of Truth will enable Jesus himself to be not just “alongside” them, but “in” them: “and he will be in you” (John 14:17, my translation). Thus, says, Jesus, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you” (John 14:19b). In fact, both the Father and the Son will take up residence in the disciples when the Spirit comes to them: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. (John 14:23). 

Christian thinkers refer to a “coinherence”—a mutual indwelling—within the life of the persons of the Trinity: the Father dwelling in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, the Son dwelling in the Father and in the Spirit, the Spirit dwelling in the Father and in the Son. A divine, shared, mutually deferential life of love. We will come to share in that same life: “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). 

The love that Jesus calls forth from us is his own love within us, and flowing out from us. 

And so … peace, not anxiety. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27). The result is that the physical absence of Jesus will create, not anxiety and distress, but peace and contentment. Not discouragement, but encouragement. Not cowardice, but courageousness. A great day is yet to come when, as John later writes, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (John 3:2). Though that day is “not yet,” there is nonetheless peace for us in the “now,” because the Spirit of the resurrected Jesus already lives within us. 

Collect for Tuesday in Holy Week. O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that we, who have been raised with him, may abide in his presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be dominion and praise for ever and ever. Amen.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Icon of the Holy Trinity, Andrew Rublev, 1425. Adaptation by Sayaka Kamakari. Used with permission.