Monday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 18, 2020

John 15:26-16:4

Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. I have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.”

The Gospel readings, this late in the season of Easter, prepare us for the celebration of Pentecost, giving us the Lord’s teaching on the Holy Spirit, which we find principally in St. John’s Gospel.  The Lord has already spoken of the Holy Spirit as the Unity of the Father and the Son.  Here, he speaks of him as “the Spirit of truth”.  He is the Spirit of truth because he proceeds from the Father and testifies to the Son.  He testifies to the Son through the holiness of the Church and the saints, through the holy teachings of the Church, which are the teachings of Christ, through the Holy Scriptures which are given to the Church to announce and interpret, and through the Sacraments, by which the Church’s members are sanctified.  The Lord tells his Apostles, “You also testify”, as eyewitnesses to his words and mighty works.  They do this through their Gospels, letters, and preaching, and through their holy lives, leading ultimately to their martyrdom.

It is of persecution and martyrdom that he next speaks.  He says, “I have told you this so that you may not fall away.”  The main verb here is in the perfect tense and refers back to a prior time: I have told you this (previously), “They will expel you from the synagogues, etc.”  Indeed, from the beginning of his ministry, as witnessed by St. Matthew, Jesus has spoken of the persecution and murder of believers.  Testimony to Jesus will inevitably lead to this since the world will feel threatened by it.  The fact that John quotes Jesus specifically saying that the faithful will be expelled from the synagogues is a clue that he wrote his Gospel for Jewish Christians at a time when this was taking place, most likely before 70 A.D.  So horrible will this persecution be that “everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.”  This was a particular trial for the early Jewish Christians in Galilee and Judea, that their own co-religionists, their own neighbors, were persecuting them. 

To this point the Lord had attracted large crowds and even some among the Jewish leaders believed in him.  Just a few days before, he had entered Jerusalem to great acclaim.  No sign pointed to the cataclysm of which Jesus spoke.  Perhaps the Apostles were startled and confused by these words and they put them aside at the time.  Later, in the weeks after Pentecost when they preached Jesus openly, the Jewish leadership would arrest them and beat them, but they would rejoice because they had suffered for Jesus, and because they saw his prophecy fulfilled in them.