The Good News for the Day, April 24, 2024
Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Easter (281)
Jesus said this with spirit, “Anybody who believes in me believes not just in me, but in the One who sent me, too. And whoever sees me really sees the One who sent me.
I have come into the world as a radiant light—so that everyone who believes in me might not stay in the dark.
If anyone hears my words but does not observe them, I don’t condemn that person—because I have not come to condemn the world but to save it.
Whoever does reject me—who does not accept my words—has some thing already to judge him – the word [logos] that I spoke. That word will condemn him in the end, because I did not speak on my own accord. The Father who has sent me charged me with what to say and say in public.
I know that this guidance means permanent, boundless life. Whatever I say, I am saying what the Father told me to say.” (John 12)
It is – and remains – so hard to appreciate and then convey how Jesus feels at one with both ourselves and the father –THE human being who is everyone. If our faith were perfect, we would see the artistry, creativity, and mystery of God in everyone, and you and I would appreciate the real presence of God embodied in the world around us.
Jesus has said this.
When someone denies the “lovability” of God in themselves and their neighbors, we are judging ourselves, condemning ourselves in this denial of God’s love. The word – of which Jesus speaks – is the wholesale spirit of his address to you and me. His “word” is that the kingdom of heaven is at hand if you choose to accept it, that you and everyone else lives and moves and has our being because of love, and that every life is a possible sacrificial transformation from a raw unopened but seed into a fruitful tree.
Jesus calls this a commandment – but I call it a guidance. Jesus understands that what he has to say is a gift offered which people can refuse and suffer consequences. This gift is the opportunity and challenge to live a life in harmony and courage with one another.
The more we serve one another with helpfulness, respect, laughter and listening, the more we have this life of harmony with our entire world and universe. We are at peace. We find and are given joy. And our life becomes a permanent, steady unity within ourselves – unafraid of the storms that critics might crash against us, strong in our consistency, peaceful in our disagreements, and generous, forgiving, and humble in who I am and stay. But
jorisheise 