The writer of John seems to be kind of a master of mystery.

They invite us to dive into the mystical reality of God’s love -right from the opening words of the book:

In the beginning

there was the Word.

And the Word was in God’s presence,

And the Word was God.

The Word was present to God

from the beginning.

Through the Word all things came into being.

And apart from the Word nothing came into being.

In the Word was life

and that life was humanity’s light –

A Light that shines in the darkness,

A light that the darkness has never overtaken.

 

The Word was coming into the world – was in the world –

and though the world was made through the Word,

 the world didn’t recognize it.

Though the Word came to its own realm,

The Word’s own people didn’t accept it.

Yet any who did accept the Word,

 who believed in the power of the Word,

Were empowered to become children of God –

Children born not of natural descent

Nor urge of flesh

Nor human will –

But born of God.

And the Word became flesh

and stayed for a while among us;

We saw the Word’s glory – the favor and position a parent gives an only child –

Filled with grace,

filled with truth.

What a beautiful piece of writing…

…and what a mysterious piece of writing…

In the beginning was the Word.

And the Word was in God’s presence,

And the Word was God.

The Word was present to God from the beginning.

Through the Word all things came into being.

And apart from the Word nothing came into being.

 

This is a mysterious overlapping of identity and presence. The Word is. The Word is in God’s presence. The Word is God. God is in the Word’s presence. The Word is all things.

How are we to wrap our heads around this depiction of the nature of God’s love?

It is cyclical, overlapping, and a bit disorienting. It’s more descriptive than definitive. It’s more poetry than logic.

Perhaps when we can’t wrap our heads around something – we might instead receive it as an invitation to open our hearts.

What does it mean or look like to open our hearts? Sometimes that practice feels like just as much of a mystery! Yet, we do not have to unravel this mystery on our own. Clues to what opening our hearts to God’s manifest love looks like comes to us in the form of Jesus.

This text from John 1 is one that we often read on Christmas Eve as part of the lessons and carols that usher in the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Of the Word made flesh. Of Emmanuel, God with us.

Which, to be honest, is also mysterious – yet Jesus spends his life modeling what that mystery looks like in human form and action…

Jesus teaches – offering wisdom through lessons like the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus offers compassion and healing through presence and prayer. Jesus advocates for justice on behalf of those on the margins – think: let the one without sin cast the first stone. Jesus fosters community – gathering disciples around him to share life, encouraging them to practice community care by modeling how to be generous and to trust the generosity of community to offer reciprocal care. Jesus inspires imaginations through storytelling; offering figures of speech and sometimes cryptic parables that reveal the presence of the Holy. And much more! So much more that the book of John ends with this: Jesus did many other things as well. If all of them were recorded, I imagine the world itself wouldn’t have enough room for the scrolls that would be written.

All of this was how Jesus lived and modeled how to live God’s love into the world so that he was both a living vessel of that love and an invitation for others to join in the flow of that love by choosing to be living love as well. And, he knew that he would not always be with his followers in person. He took seriously the work of preparing them for how to live love even after he was no longer among them. Which brings us to the scripture we heard today from John 14; this text is part of what is known as Jesus’ Farewell Discourse.

The Farewell Discourse includes the chapters in John that are Jesus’ final teachings to his disciples before his death. Teachings that were shared with them as they gathered together in an upper room to celebrate Passover one last time. The teachings he offers include actions and words. He displays disarming love by washing his disciples feet and then goes on to offer affirmations of belovedness and encouragement to continue the practices they have learned with him even after he is no longer with them in person. Jesus also offers this revelation: that, in his absence, the Spirit would come and be present with them, in them, to help carry on the work of love in the world.

If you love me and obey the command I give you, I will ask the One who sent me to give you another Paraclete, another Helper to be with you always— the Spirit of truth..[who will] remain with you and will be within you.

Upon first glance it may seem like this is a conditional arrangement – if you love me and obey my command, then I will ask God to send you the Spirit. Yet this is not the way Jesus has modeled love in his living. Love, as modeled by Jesus, is a generous outpouring of presence, not something to be bargained with. As one commentator I read this week put it: This is not a transactional statement. Rather, it is a reflection on love itself. Authentic love is not passive; it is active and demonstrative.  

And authentic love is the command that Jesus is inviting his disciples to follow.

Jesus in earlier interactions in his life affirmed that the greatest commandment is love of God, neighbor, and self. And in the midst of his farewell discourse he adds a new command – another one rooted in love: love one another as I have loved you.

To love as Jesus loved is to be present and actively engaged. To love as Jesus loved is to be responsive and relational. It is to offer and receive wisdom and counsel. It is to participate in community. To advocate for those on the margins. To create spaces of belonging, while challenging systems that other. To take time for rest and renewal as sustenance for the ongoing journey. It is to live with creativity and imagination that ever expands the boundaries of what love might look like in practice even, and especially, when contexts are challenging and hope is hard to come by.

Prentis Hemphill, author and host of the Becoming the People Podcast offers this wisdom:

“I have a lot of people ask me – how do you stay hopeful? And all the time I say: I do not. I do not stay hopeful. But I stay in the practice. Which is a kind of expression of a faith or a faithfulness. So even when I feel despair, I stay in the question of, how even now can I recover my imagination? How even now can I look for a path? How even now can I listen for what I have not heard before? How even now?”

Jesus’ invitation is to keep at the practice. To keep choosing love. For where love is lived out the Spirit shows up. Love makes a space for the presence of the Spirit and the Spirit, in turn, reveals the presence of the Holy.

The Spirit is the presence of Holy love gifted to the world as a helper, a comforter, an advocate. A presence that reveals paths towards truth in the midst of systems that do not recognize or honor the truths of justice and love. A presence of accompaniment with, and in, all who navigate the mysteries of what it means to live love into the world.

The choice to live love is always ongoing and not always easy. How to practice authentic love is not always clear. Jesus knew that disciples (including us now) would need support on the path of love and the gift of the Spirit is assurance of the persistence of God’s presence in the midst of all things.

A little while now and the world will see me no more; but you’ll see me; because I live, and you will live as well. On that day you’ll know that I am in God, and you are in me, and I am in you. Those who obey the commandments are the ones who love me, and those who love me will be loved by God. I, too, will love them and will reveal myself to them.

And, true to form for the writer of John, we find ourselves back at another mysterious overlapping of identity and presence. Only this time, it’s not just the Word and God. It is Jesus, God, and us – all woven together through the presence of the Spirit.

A presence that comes into the world to continue to advocate for, and support the fostering of, God’s living love in the absence of Jesus’ embodied presence after Jesus’ ascension.

And Ascension Day is coming up on Thursday of this week. Ascension Day is the 40th day after Easter – it is a day that liturgically marks the ascension of the resurrected Jesus into Heaven in a swirl of clouds. We have not tended to officially observe this day in significant ways – though our Amish cousins do so don’t plan on visiting the Amish Market on Thursday it will be closed.

Last week in Bible Story Hour before church those who gathered each chose a story from the Bible to read aloud and wonder about together. One of the selections we read was the story of the ascension.

As we pondered this story we drew billowing and swirling clouds on a big piece of cardboard and I explained that sometimes artistic representations of the ascension have simply depicted feet dangling from a cloud.

Upon hearing that a cloud came and swept Jesus up into the sky, one of the youngest among us asked with amazement and wonder: “How did that happen?!”

I paused and said, in a spirit of truth: it’s a mystery.

We don’t always get to know how God moves in the world – yet we can always be on the lookout for the presence and movement of the Holy and we are always invited to be part of God’s presence and movement in the world by choosing to live out love.

And the Spirit is perpetually present and at work, swirling around and within us all the time, like the clouds that mysteriously scooped up Jesus, the Spirit is ready, willing and waiting, to reveal the presence of the Holy to us, with us, when we seek and choose love.

And also, like the clouds of the ascension, the Spirit sometimes shows up in the most unexpected ways.

One evening this week I was laying in the hammock in our backyard, pondering the contents of these passages in John, thinking about the mysteries of love – what it is – how it shows up in the world…how Jesus’ presence was a revelation of love, how Jesus reveals the presence of the Spirit, how the Spirit reveals the presence of God and how all of that is part of a big swirl of love…that we are invited to encounter, experience, and be a part of.

As I was holding these thoughts I looked up and noticed, actually noticed the clouds swirling above me – a tangible connection to the story of Jesus’ ascension – so I paused and looked intentionally at the clouds again, holding space for them in an open way in my heart, and there right in one of the swirls was a bright shape of the bottom of a robe with two feet dangling down from it! I burst out into laughter!

There I was looking, longing, waiting, and watching for understanding about the mysteries of love – and there was creation – drawing me a literal picture of Holy presence. I could feel the Spirit. And I just kept laughing and laughing…and as I laughed I watched the image of the robe and feet dissipate and though it was no longer present my heart was still full of joy.

Full of joy and deep peace, I turned my head and there in the sky the clouds had taken on the shape of a giant dove – often used as a symbol of the Spirit – winging its way towards the earth! My deep laughter continued.

Becky was inside our house as all of this was happening just hearing me laugh and laugh and so by this point she called out the window: what is going on?! I told her what had happened and she said – you’re laughing like Sara – the Sara in Genesis who laughed when she overheard the Holy telling Abraham that she was going to bear a child in her advanced years…who laughed in hope and amazement at the unexpected possibilities of love.

Living out love is a mysterious journey. One not always full of logic – oftentimes it is more like poetry…a medium which reveals things in unexpected ways. Jesus, the Word, Emmanuel, God with Us, gifts us the Spirit as a companion and advocate on the journey, and in living out love, we too become part of God’s presence in the world. May we find the courage to keep seeking, longing for, and choosing love that makes space for the Spirit and reveals the Holy.