6th Easter
John 14: 1-31
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Trust in the power that
leads you to the Fatherly Ground of the World and to me. In my Father’s house,
there are many rooms. If it were not so, how could I have said to you, ‘I go
there to prepare a place for you’? And
when I have gone and prepared a place for you, I will come again and take you
up into the realm of my being and working, so that where I work, you also may
work. And you know the way where I am going.”
Then Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you
are going. How can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I myself am the Way—the Truth— and the
Life. No one finds his way to the Father but through me. If you had really
known my Being, you would have recognized my Father as well. From now on you do
know him and have seen Him.”
Then Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father; that
would satisfy our deepest yearning.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long and yet
you do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can
you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Does your heart’s voice not tell you that I am
in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my
own. But the Father, who lives eternally in me, continues to do his works in
them. Build your faith on the power of my Being that lets you know: I in the
Father, the Father in me. Or at least learn to trust through looking at the
works themselves that have arisen.
Truly, truly I say to you, whoever trusts in my Being
will also do the works that I do --and greater deeds will he do, because I go
to the Father. Whatever you ask for in unity with me, I will do it, so that the
deeds of the Father may be revealed in the working of the Son. When you turn to
me in prayer in the power of my name, I will be the Creating One in all your
works. If you truly love me, you will share in my spiritual goals. And I will
ask the Father and He will send to you another Counselor, who will stand by you
forever, even the Spirit of Truth. The earthly world cannot receive this
Counselor, for it cannot perceive his working and does not recognize him. But
you know him, for he will live with you and will work in you.
I will not leave you desolate—I will come to you. Yet a
little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I
live, you will live also. On that day, you will truly know what it means that I
am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you.
Whoever bears my spiritual goals within himself, and
brings them to revelation in his working, is one who truly loves me. And
whoever truly loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will
reveal myself to him.”
Then Judas, (not the Iscariot) said, “But Lord, how is it
that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the people who are in the world?
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Jesus replied, “Whoever truly loves me reveals my Spirit,
and my Father will love him and we will come to him and prepare with him a
dwelling in the everlasting [an eternal dwelling]. Whoever does not love me
cannot reveal my Spirit. And the spirit power of the word that you hear is not
from me; it is the speaking of the Father who sent me.
These things I have spoken to you while I am still with
you. But the health-bringing Spirit, the Counselor whom the Father will send in
my name, he will teach you everything and will bring to your remembrance all
that I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Not as the
world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled nor let them be
afraid.
You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and yet I am
coming to you’. If you loved me you would have rejoiced, because I am going to
the Father, for the Father is greater than I am.
I have told you now before it happens, so that when it
happens you may find trust. I no longer have much to say to you, for soon the
ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me.
But I act in accordance with the Father’s purpose, as it
was entrusted to me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Do the
same. Arise, let us be on our way.
6th Easter
May 21, 2017
John 14: 1-31
Plants germinate, sprout and grow. They blossom and set
seed. They die. And from the seed new life grows.
Our souls are living beings; they grow and change. They expand
and contract and transform. It is a question whether they die with the body, or
rise to another kind of life after the body dies.
Christ lived, died and rose again so that we, too, could
continue to live after the body dies. It is our living connection with him, our
living within His eternally living Being, that enables us to live after we die.
It is His life in our souls that enables us to continue to grow and change and
transform here on earth. It is our conscious connection with Him that is the
seed that enables us to die and yet to rise into life after death. Through His eternally
renewing life, we live after we die, and into new lives.
