5th Sunday of Easter [C]


FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER [C]


We’re in the Upper Room, as the thirteenth chapter of John’s Gospel begins to unfold. Judas has been sent on his way, and now we have Jesus making an announcement. Evidently, he’s going to be “glorified,” and in the process God will likewise be glorified (13:31-32). From our perspective, it doesn’t seem to add up. Judas is preparing to turn Jesus over to the Jewish authorities. If anything, the Lord is about to be “victimized,” not glorified. It would appear that he’s seriously misreading the situation. 


But then again, perhaps not. A drama is being set into motion. We’re well on our way to seeing a “verbalized” love being transfigured into a “demonstrated” love. So when Jesus tells them that they need to have love for one another (13:34), it will be their way of proving something: namely, that they belong to this Lord of Love. You practice love because you are in communion with the Lord of Love. What does this entail? You’re ministering to the people around you, tending to their needs. You want their needs to be satisfied. 


Some needs rank higher than others. Consider the case of Paul and Barnabas. Their mission into Gentile territory can be described as a labor of love (see Acts 14:21-28). They are tending to a particular need; we could call it the Ultimate Need. When you introduce somebody to the Lord of Love, it means that you are tending to a need that derives from within the soul itself. It could be said that you are doing them THE favor of all favors. You are putting them into position so that something positive can happen to them: they can become essentially “brand new.” They are coming into contact with the One who “makes all things new” (Rev. 21:5). 


In its Latin form, the word “new” appears as “novus.” When the Chevy II was renamed the “Nova” back in 1968, this was Chevrolet attempting to break new ground. The hope was that an old model could be passed off as new; hence the choice of “Nova.”  The campaign worked, at least for a while. The Nova was a “muscle car.” Sales would trend upward through the late sixties into the early seventies. And yet, gasoline prices began rising sharply as the early seventies gave way to the mid and late seventies. A “gas-guzzler” like the Nova would no longer have a place on the market. The line was subsequently dropped. 


Given the popularity of the name, the Nova was brought back in the mid-1980’s. But the updated Nova never did catch on. It was billed as the “New Nova.”  Nevertheless, new did not translate as “improved.”  Collectors are attracted to Nova’s from the early seventies. The Nova’s from the 1980’s have faded into oblivion. Does “new” always signify “better?”  Where the Nova is concerned, no. On the other hand, a relationship with Jesus Christ makes you both new and also improved. You’re becoming the “best version of yourself” (as the author Matthew Kelly would put it). By committing to Christ, you are uniting yourself to the Lord of Love. His love has been revealed as a demonstrated love. It’s also a love that brings transformation—a transformation that you will appreciate, not a transformation that you will regret. 

 

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