First UMC
Show and Tell from John’s Gospel
John 14:23-29 NRSV
One commentator summed the passage up this way:
“I am leaving. I am not REALLY leaving. Love each other.”
This passage is a foreshadowing of what is to come:
—Thursday, May 26th—Ascension of Jesus Christ
—Sunday, June 5th—Pentecost
—John 20:19-22
19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
Craig Barnes, President of Princeton Theological Seminary, said, “Jesus was the very autobiography of God.”
Even while Jesus prepares eternal dwellings with the Father, he and the Father will continue to dwell with his disciples in the present.
Rev. Dr. Alyce McKenzie, professor at Perkins School of Theology says,
“Abide and its cognates show up forty times in John's Gospel. Abide signifies to stay, to remain, to dwell, to lodge, to last, to persist, and/or to continue.”
“Love and action are as inseparable as Jesus and the Father.
To love God is to love Jesus.
To love Jesus is to follow him.
To follow him is to do as he commanded.
To do as he commanded is to love one another as Jesus loved us.
Therefore, to love God, we must love one another.
The Companion (which means literally, one with whom we break bread) helps us do it.”
—Pulpit Fiction (Revs. Eric Fistler and Robb McCoy)