A blessed Easter to all.

The evangelist John dedicates five chapters to the Last Supper. This is where we find the testament that Jesus has left. They are his last words, the most sacred. Today’s text is part of this testament. We are going to approach this text with some apprehension and try to understand the message of every word uttered by the Master.

We are in the Upper Room and Judas has just left. Although Jesus had never hidden from his disciples what his destiny would be, he now says it clearly: “I’m going to leave you.” Three years have passed since the disciples joined Jesus on the shore of the Lake of Galilee.

The disciples had allowed themselves to be involved in the message of Jesus so much so that they had given up everything to unite their lives with the life of Jesus. And, that night, in the Upper Room, they heard this dramatic announcement: Jesus is about to leave them. How do they react? They are distressed and disgusted. They are afraid, they are lost. They realize that the dream of glory that they had cultivated for three years is now fading. Reality is very different from what they had expected. They face failure head on.

Let’s listen to what Jesus says:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be Where I am going you know the way.”

To these lost and bewildered disciples, Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” The Greek verb used is ‘ταρασσέσθω’ – ‘parasein’, a very strong verb; it indicates the churning of the waves in a rough sea. So are the hearts of the disciples. Jesus realises that the disciples are distressed and displeased and speaks to them to reassure them. He does what Moses did before he died: Moses had gathered the people and he said to the Israelites ‘fear not, do not lose heart. The Lord will walk before you, will continue to guide you; I will no longer be there, but God will use someone else to accompany you towards the land of freedom.

Have no fear. Don’t lose hope.’ Similar words are the ones that Jesus uses with his disciples. These words of Jesus are not only directed at the Eleven, they are also relevant for us. Today we are also concerned and with many fears in our hearts. Jesus is not visibly present, as he had been with the Twelve who had accompanied him for three years, but Jesus is always present, although not visibly.

And we have the impression of being alone to carry out his new world project. As a Church, we experience the hostility of the world; it would seem that it is evil that triumphs. And there are even some who say that the Church is in decline and it will gradually disappear. Even some Christians question the truth of the words of Jesus who had assured that the gates of hell will not be able to resist the force of the kingdom of God. We are concerned not only because of the hostility of the world but also because of our fragility, of our weaknesses and infidelities. In short, we feel very little capable to carry out the mission that Jesus has entrusted to us.

We also have the feeling of being in the middle of waves of a rough sea. Jesus takes our fears into account. Even a little earlier, he had told the disciples that one of them would betray him, and the evangelist notes that even Jesus was troubled internally and used the same verb that applies to the agitation of the disciples. Jesus, too, was deeply and inwardly troubled.

It is a comfort to know how close Jesus is to us, how he understands us because he also has been through the same as us. What remedy does he offer to appease our cravings, our bewilderments? “Believe in God and believe in me.” Continue to believe in God and continue to believe in me. Trusting the gospel for a little while is easy, but it is difficult to hold fast, and not to doubt even when history seems to deny what the Master has said. Jesus says ‘you must calm your cravings, trust my word.’

Many of our anxieties come from the fact that we look at the history of the world with our eyes, not with the gaze of God. We focus on the present moment and we would like to see immediately the full realization of the kingdom of God. We will never see the fulfillment of the kingdom of God, not even Jesus saw it. If we become aware of our smallness, if we make peace with our limits, if we leave this concern to the Lord, we will regain serenity. We trust in the Word we believe in –Word that gives us the certainty that no drop of love will be lost.

Jesus continues: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places…. I am going to prepare a place for you.” What do these words mean? Let us ask ourselves, where is his Father’s house? Let’s not think about paradise. Jesus is talking about something else. He has called the temple ‘my Father’s House’. Jesus had said that the temple would be destroyed and God will build another temple, not made of material stones. Jesus Himself is the temple from which the sacrifices would come pleasing to the Father, the works of love, the gift of self for love. And this is the burnt offering, the incense pleasing to the Lord.

Jesus is the temple. Jesus is his Father’s house and we are called to be living stones, united to him, foundational stone, living stone of this temple. In this house of his Father, to which we also belong, “there are many dwelling places.” One for each brother and sister. No one is excluded. There is room for everyone and there is a mission that everyone has to carry out.

Each of us has received gifts of God, gifts that must be used for the lives of our brothers and sisters. This is the place that everyone has in this temple that is Christ. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.”

What does that mean? What place will he prepare for us? Again, let’s leave aside and not think of a numbered armchair in paradise. NO. Jesus went first to prepare the place for all of us. Where did he go? He went to donate his life. This is the place where he waits for everyone who trusts him. He says, “I’ll be back.” He goes first to donate his life, then he returns—not to the end of the world—he returns today, to also take us so that we can be by his side and like him and with him donate our life for the love of the brothers and sisters.

And a special note: when we let ourselves get involved in this sharing of love with him, we will be able to celebrate an authentic Eucharist because this is the Eucharist: saying YES to the spousal proposal of union of life that Jesus invites us to do. We welcome, with the gesture of eating that bread, we make the gesture of assimilating Jesus with all his love storyand we unite our life to his. And now Jesus introduces the theme of the way.

What is the path that leads to where he is, because he wants us by his side? Let’s listen to Thomas’ reaction: Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, AI am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Thomas appears three times in the Gospel of John. And we like him because he resembles us, reacts like us. Whenever he is mentioned in the gospel it is almost always added that he is called ‘Didymus’- twin. Our twin. After Jesus said: “You know the way”, Thomas reacts immediately and says “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, how can we know the way?”

Jesus’ response is addressed to Thomas and all his ‘twins’. It is very important because we must fix well in our minds what is the way to come to life. “Jesus says to him: I am the way, the truth and the life.” This statement must have sounded very strange to them because they had learned in catechesis that the way to come to life was the observance of the ten words, of the Ten Commandments. From now on no more.

The commandments are fine, but if you want to reach the fullness of life, the way is another. The way is the same person as Jesus. If you pursue another path, even if they lead you to apparent successes, even to conquer the entire world, they are paths of death. In Antioch, before Christians were called by this name, they were known as ‘those of the way’ because they followed “the way” that is Jesus.

Thomas knows where Jesus is going, he is going to death. And he sees the gift of life as the end of everything, as the ultimate defeat. And Jesus says to the disciples who are afraid to go to Judea: “Let’s go to Bethany where Lazarus is asleep.” The disciples tell him: “Don’t go because they want to kill you.” And Thomas says: “Let us also go and die with him.” Thomas, who has not yet seen Easter, sees this ‘way’ which is Jesus, who goes to death. He thinks of this as the ultimate destination. He has not understood that the way to reach life passes through this gift of life out of love. We see our disbelief reflected in Thomas.

Like him, we too often see death as the last horizon and this is why we are afraid to donate our life. We have the instinct that tells us: ‘Enjoy life because it will end sooner than you think.’ It is what the people who lived in ancient times had said when they suggested the ‘carpe diem’ – “seize the day”. Or what was on the floor of the pagan palaces: ‘Memento mori’ = remember that you are going to die. Therefore, enjoy the present moment. The temptation to follow this path always exists in us.

So, when you see that the ultimate fate it is death, we are afraid to follow the path proposed by Jesus: to donate our life to reach the fullness of life. “I am the truth.” Truth is not a concept, it is his person. It is he who embodies the true God and the true man. There is a God who does not look like Jesus: the severe, susceptible, righteous God that many still have in mind and they adore him because they are happy with that concept… this ‘God’ think like them… This God is not ‘true’, it is a lie. You have to forget about it.

And the person who does not resemble Jesus is not a true person, he or she is unfinished because a true and perfect man is Jesus: he who loves without saving anything, the one who donates everything for the brother’s life. This is the successful, true man. “I am the life.” Life is love. Is that compulsion that comes from the Spirit, from the divine life that leads you to save nothing when you can bring happiness to someone, even your enemy. This solemn statement of Jesus sounds strange in our pluralistic society today that doesn’t understand this self-presentation of Jesus as the only way to salvation. No other life proposal is despised, it does not mean that there are beautiful things in other religions, extraordinary gestures of love of those who belong to Buddhism, to Islam… nobody denies this. But if we seek the fullness of light in God and in people, this light is found only in Jesus of Nazareth.

And now Jesus says: “If you knew me, you would also know the Father. Actually, youalready know him and have seen him.” This enigmatic statement of Jesus provokes Philip’s question. Let’s hear it: Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.

Philip asks Jesus to be able to see the Father. It is the deep longing of the human heart: to see God. The psalms speak to us of this need to see the Lord: “Come,” says my heart, “seek his face”; your face, Lord, do I seek! (Ps 27:8). Or Psalm 42: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. When will I see the face of God” (Ps 42:2). And this desire that is deep in the human heart provokes Philip’s request: ‘Show us the Father.’ His wish corresponds to that of Moses who had asked God: “Show me your glory” (Ex 33:18).

We are well made… we are made for infinity. The Qohelet, in the third chapter, this wise man says: “God has set the infinite in the heart of man.” If we are not aware of this, of the need for God, we will respond to this need by filling ourselves with pleasures, successes, goods, satisfactions that will never be enough. And we’ll probably blame something we’re missing or someone about our dissatisfaction. NO. It is an illusion from which we must free ourselves.

This is the need for God that we have deep in our hearts: to see the face of God. This is Philip’s question: “Lord, teach us the Father and it is enough for us.” Thomas did not know the way and he had it in front of him. Philip does not see the Father and he has him by his side. The Father’s face has been manifested in Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, “Jesus replies: Philip, I’ve been with you for so long, and you still don’t know me? Who has seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus, the Son of God, has become man. He has come into our world, has walked our streets, has passed through our cities, precisely to show us the face of God. That face that had been disfigured.

People had put on that face infinity of masks that must be removed. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” And these words are the compendium of Christian revelation. And Jesus continues: “The words that I say to you I do not say on my own; the Father who is in me he is the one who does the works. Keep believing and if you don’t believe me, believe at least in my works.”

What works is Jesus referring to? I think we will instinctively think of miracles that he does and that prove the truth of his claims. NO. These are not the works to which Jesus refers. It is as if Jesus said to his disciples: ‘You have the Scriptures available to you that progressively reveal this face of God that you have in fullness before your eyes. Think of this face of God that begins to manifest in Scripture and you will realize that now the full light has come, in continuity with this light that was already beginning to shine in the Old Testament. God is the Father of life. The Father’s works have always been love and the gift of life. Is he not the Father of the poor, the defender of the orphans, the widows, the protector of the helpless foreigner? Is it not the God who rejects the hypocritical worship of the temple and instead wants justice, sharing bread with the hungry, and dress the naked? He is the God who does not blame people for their mistakes, but saves them from their sins. God does not see the sin of man; he sees the good that exists in his sons and daughters; and when there is something that hurts his sons and daughters He purifies it.

The book of Wisdom, in chapter 11—it is very beautiful—says: “God closes his eyes to the sins of men” (Wis 11:23) and seeks that they find the right way; He doesn’t get angry at them, He wants to free them and “He closes his eyes.” Very beautiful this image. Also, the book of Ben Sirá that says that God ‘dissolves our sins like the sun melts the frost with its heat.’ Also, the beautiful Psalm 103 when it says: “As the dawn is far from sunset, so it takes our crimes away from us” (Ps 103:12). Also, Micah: God who casts our sins into the sea. We who care so much about our weaknesses that amaze us, humiliate us… NO. God sees the beauty within us. And this already in the Old Testament. And this light on the beautiful, good face of God, that he only knows how to love, which is good and only good, shines fully on the face of Jesus. Jeremiah too in chapter 31, when he says that “God will no longer remember sin”… God who goes mad… remember everything except our sins. Is not this the light of the Old Testament that then prepares the splendid light of works made by Jesus, who are fully in tune with the works of the Father?

And so, Jesus says: believe at least in the works that I do and that you see, and that are the works of the Father in heaven. “I assure you: whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and even greater works, because I go to the Father.” These works of the Father, manifested in Jesus, do not end with him. Jesus says: “whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and even greater works.”

Jesus lived in a specific time, very limited, in a very small place; Palestine has just 20,000 square kilometers. The manifestation of the Father’s works in Jesus ended with the life of Jesus. This is the great message. Now the Father continues to manifest his works… ‘As it has manifested in me—Jesus says—now it continue manifesting it through you. The works that you find and that the Father has always done are not miracles; they are those that I myself have made throughout my life.’ When we open the testament we immediately search for what it has left us in inheritance. What has he left us as an inheritance? His very Spirit. That Spirit that leads us to behave like the Father and, therefore, to manifest his own works. We cannot desire a greater inheritance.

I wish you all a good Easter and a good week.