Read­ing Time: 3 minutes

Introduction

While some events are self-explan­at­ory, oth­ers need to be inter­preted. Again, some­times, the mean­ing por­trayed by some events are not what people under­stand. For instance, the dis­ciples to Emmaus under­stood Jesus’ mis­sion from their own per­spect­ive. That is, they under­stood Jesus’ mis­sion to be that of a polit­ic­al war­ri­or. Hear them “…we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. Not only this, but it is now the third day since these things happened” (Luke 24:21). Because Jesus could not ful­fil their dis­or­i­ented expect­a­tions, they were dis­ap­poin­ted and were going back in anger. Jesus appeared in their midst and reminded them that his mis­sion was anoth­er as proph­esied by the proph­ets. The same thing is applic­able to his resur­rec­tion. People inter­pret it dif­fer­ently accord­ing to their wish. No doubt, Jesus died for the sake of human­ity, but what does this mean? We have tried to explain this by under­lin­ing the fruits of the resur­rec­tion in the past four Sundays. With and through the resur­rec­tion of Jesus, Chris­ti­ans are bound to be in com­mu­nion or fel­low­ship with one anoth­er and with the entire people.

Another Paraclete

“I shall ask the Fath­er, and he will give you anoth­er Paraclete to be with you forever….” (John 14:16). Con­tinu­ing, Jesus spe­cifies that this anoth­er Paraclete is the spir­it of truth, to be rejec­ted by the world because it is ignor­ant of it. The Greek term parak­le­tos has many mean­ings. The term paraclete as used above is a trans­lit­er­a­tion of the Greek parak­le­tos. Parak­le­tos has vari­ous sig­ni­fic­ances in Eng­lish. For instance, it is an advoc­ate, inter­cessor, coun­sel­lor, pro­tect­or, sup­port, and com­fort­er. Each of these terms por­trays the role of the Holy Spir­it. That is the Holy Spir­it advoc­ates, inter­cedes, coun­sels, pro­tects, sup­ports, and com­forts. There­fore, the Holy Spir­it is an Advoc­ate, an Inter­cessor, a Coun­sel­lor, Pro­tect­or, Sup­port­er, and Com­fort­er. No won­der Jesus insisted on send­ing the Holy Spir­it to the disciples. 

Conclusion

The cent­ral mes­sage of this Sunday’s read­ings is on the spir­itu­al stand­ing of Chris­ti­ans. It is the Holy Spir­it that assures per­fect spir­itu­al­ity. To receive this gift and be equipped with this spir­it, we must accept the mes­sage like the Samar­it­ans and prove our love for God by keep­ing to his instruc­tions. Our search and desire for God should be self­less. We seek God not because of what Albert Ein­stein said. Accord­ing to him, “the desire for guid­ance, love, and sup­port prompts men to form the social or mor­al con­cep­tion of God. This is the God of Provid­ence, who pro­tects, dis­poses of, rewards, and pun­ishes; the God who, accord­ing to the lim­its of the believ­er­’s out­look, loves and cher­ishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even of life itself; the com­fort­er in sor­row and unsat­is­fied long­ing; he who pre­serves the souls of the dead. This is the social or mor­al con­cep­tion of God.” Jesus observed that the world will reject the spir­it of truth which he will ask the Fath­er to send. Let us not be among those who reject the source of wis­dom, enlight­en­ment, suc­cess, and spir­itu­al and phys­ic­al well-being. We must let the whole world know that God is faith­ful (cf. Second Read­ing) and he nev­er tires of Fath­er­ing and Moth­er­ing those who love and obey him. God com­forts us to make us com­fort­ers, not to make us com­fort­able (J. H. Jowett). Learn to com­fort oth­ers so you can be com­for­ted. Not­with­stand­ing your many prob­lems, God nev­er leaves his chil­dren orphans. Do your part and leave the rest to God. Have a ful­filled week. Sha­lom! 

          

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 6^th Sunday of Pascha is found in The Word of Life, vol. I, pages 263–272. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
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