CẢM NGHIỆM SỐNG - CN5PS-C
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Mo NguyenMay 18 at 4:32 AM
JOHN 13: 34-35 - A NEW COMMANDMENT
FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER / C - 19 May 2019
Reflections on the Gospel (John 13: 31-35)
GOD’S GLORY REVEALED
AS GOD’S LOVE
It seems surprising that Jesus responds to Judas’ departure from the Last Supper with what is virtually a cry of exaltation: ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified’. Judas’ betrayal will trigger the sequence of events leading to Jesus’ death on the cross. In human understanding, such a death is the ultimate in shame and degradation; for Jesus it will be the moment of ‘glorification’.
To understand this, we have to appreciate the biblical sense of ‘glory’. No human being can see God. But the presence, power and character of the unseen God is to be seen in the created world and in saving events – as, for example, the deliverance of Israel from captivity in Egypt. Such things reveal God’s ‘glory’.
The Fourth Gospel makes clear that the glory of God, revealed in a terrifying and remote way to the Israelites on Mt. Sinai, has been made manifest in the humanity of the Son (John 1:14). And, as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the high point of this revelation will occur as Jesus is ‘lifted up’ and dies on the cross. The crucifixion, while at one level the effect of human violence and treachery in unparalleled degree, is also his ‘glorification’ in that it supremely reveals the nature of God to be love (cf. 1 John 4:8, 16).
After Jesus’ death and return to the Father, the community will no longer have his physical presence to make the divine love palpable in their midst. His ‘new commandment’ is that their love for one another must henceforth take on this role.
Brendan Byrne, SJ
English Christian Song 2018 "God Has Revealed His Entire Disposition to Man":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGfQ8iNzl-Q
A NEW COMMANDMENT: Love Thine Enemies