Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” (John 14:15-21)
Love and Commandments
It is clear that love is tied to the cyclical renewal of the world. The ancient Greeks observed that much. In this case, Jesus begins stating that keeping his commandments is the natural result of the love that the human race should feel for their Creator. We can understand this passage better against the backdrop of Logos creating and giving impulse to Creation and more specifically to the world. That world that has strayed from its original purpose since the times of the Garden of Eden. As disobedience and sin entered the world there was a fundamental deviation: the original plan of God was distorted by the action of evil. Sadly, that is why the world is what it is.
The original rebellion against God was moved by a hate of both God and humanity. Nothing good could come from that hate. The revolt —today we would call it a revolution— against the Creator was a veiled assassination attempt against the human race firstly and secondly against God Himself. Christ came to us and died on the Cross so we can see that. What seemed impossible happened: a deicide, the killing of God on a Roman cross. It was God’s big secret! By Christ dying on the Cross He ‘contaminated’ evil with divine love and made it possible to redirect the course of human history back towards its original course. Love is always present at the beginning of a renewal as the first blades of grass are present before the spring season blooms.
The Spirit of Truth
For love to be expressed properly it has to be true. Those who have observed human endeavors know that false love is not desirable. We were made to love and be loved. We were not made to fake love or to desire fake love. True love is above any other kind of love. God the Father sees the work of Jesus in us and gives us the Spirit of Truth. God the Father and God the Son love each other with a love so perfect and pure that it becomes a Person, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. In our present state we do not deserve the love of God because we are not capable to respond in kind. The good news is that we can receive God’s love because Christ has made us worthy of it by including us in His Mystical Body. Christ tells us “I will be in you” and that is exactly why we can receive the love of the Father thus allowing us to get the Spirit of Truth.
The world cannot accept the Spirit of Truth. Why? Because the world has a different aim. The natural inclination of worldly people will lead them away from the path that Logos set out for Creation. Mankind being in the world is trapped in a train speeding up to a collision. Jesus comes to the world as the Christ to modify that death path to a path of life. Christ is reconfiguring mankind to the original purpose of the Father. The first step to effect that reconfiguration is to allow the Holy Spirit to descend and possess the Church forever. That is achieved by making the Church the Mystical Body of Christ. The Church we are talking about is not a collection of buildings, seminaries, convents, parishes, etc. No, those are mere material expressions, possessions, belongings, temporal associations. I am sure you have met that man at a party. As you engage in a casual conversation with him, he quickly goes through his catalog of possessions: his trophy wife, his yacht (with measurements), the prestigious colleges and universities his children are attending, and his latest business achievements. “So-and-so is an affluent man” you conclude while still you have no idea of who he is.
In a similar manner, the Church is not the Sistine Chapel, la Pietà, or the thousands of edifices where Holy Masses are celebrated. No, the Church is made of the souls of men and women in various stages of traveling the path to sainthood, that thing we call the Communion of the Saints. That same Communion conforms the Mystical Body of Christ extending in every direction of space and time. Their sanctity consists in the voluntary setting apart of oneself to do the will of God. That is what makes a saint’s compass point to the path the Logos set out for Creation.
Like a flock of sheep led by the Divine Shepherd, the saints move away from the path of the world and adopt the path of the Logos. The aim is to reach the Father and enjoy the life Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share and generously offer to us. Christ is leading us to a kind of perfection that the world simply can neither give nor understand. Christ gives us the condition of sons and daughters of God.
That has quite interesting consequences. The Church, the flock of Christ is marching on to a real objective while the world is travelling into non-existence. Said in a less complicated way: the Church built upon the Rock that is Christ is the only real thing in this world. All the things that the world builds upon the sands of time are as real as a dream that will dissipate upon waking up.
In time, the Church has opened the seed of doctrine received from Jesus and began to unfold the practical truths that allow us to survive the trip. That is like the manna in the wilderness. We are a community that survives in truth because that truth connects us to Christ, who is the Truth and the Way. What motivates God to give us such a sublime gift is love. God is renewing our world because He loves us, because we are His children.
As we walk in the wilderness like the ancient Hebrews did, obedience to God’s commandments out of love invites Jesus to reveal Himself to us. That is the beginning of an even greater revelation that one day will lead us to know God face to face and incorporate His Law into our very being.
