Friday of the Fourth
Week of Easter
(Acts 13:26-33; John 14:1-6)
A university co-ed tells her roommates in the
middle of a blizzard that her father is coming to pick her up. “How
can you be so sure he will get here?” the roommates ask. “Because I
am his favorite daughter,” the young woman replies. In the gospel
today Jesus means to instill such confidence in his disciples.
The passage is taken from the beginning of the
second part of John’s gospel, the so-called Book of Glory. Jesus
is giving a farewell speech to his disciples. He does not want them
to worry because he is leaving and so assures them that they will be all
right. Thomas expresses the uncertainty that they all feel. Jesus
answers that there is no need for fright since he is “the way and the truth and
the life.” That is, he is the way to the Father because he is the
truth sent from the Father to give the supernatural life of the Father.
We sometimes find ourselves in bleak
situations. Perhaps we face job termination, mortgage foreclosure,
or even terminal disease. We are not to cower but to hope. Jesus
is one with the Father who called the Israelites out of slavery into a new
marvelous land and raised the crucified to new life. He will save
us, his followers, from distress.
