Rt. Rev. Timothy Ravinder, Bishop in Coimbatore.
4th Sunday
after Easter
Reflection
on John 14, 1-7
Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. (John 14, 1 ESV)
HUMAN BEING or HUMAN DOING?
The trouble in the minds of the disciples, troubles
Jesus. The disciples had to trust in God even when they could not find his
reasons: Jesus is the I AM: He told bereaving Martha (John 11, 25-26) that he
was the Resurrection of Life and those who believed in him would live even
though they died. For Jesus, Gethsemane experience was awful. He could not keep
the thought of the gruesome prospect of the Cross, out of his mind. In faith he
pulled on. We have similar situations - TROUBLED HEARTS here. We are anxious,
worried and confused. Apart from other worries, the novel virus COVID 19 is
spreading and the DANGER IS GROWING (Antonio Guterres, UN Chief) - even
globally. Climate change makes the virus more hospitable (Alanna Shaikh) and
the evasions and our dishonesty makes it difficult to track the outbreak. We
are seeing cases of transmission are not from returning from travel…, we watch
people contract with COVID 19 when we do not even know where it comes from.
These are signs of an outbreak GETTING WORSE and not an outbreak that is under
control. Our burden is heavy: Like Jesus, we need to pull on trusting in God.
Jesus strengthens
us when he says “Let not your hearts be troubled”. Becoming a believer is easy
but BEING a believer is challenging.
PRO ACTION IS BETTER THAN REACTION
Again Jesus comforts the troubled hearts of the
disciples, „I am preparing a place for you”; to this Philip questions, “Lord we
do not know where you are going…” and Jesus answer: “I am the Way, the Truth
and the Life”. Jesus is the Way to the Father. When we delve deep, we see the “SELF-SACRIFICE”
that guides our way forward, particularly in this time of crisis. We need more
pro-activity than reactivity - Targeted Testing, Rapid Tracing and Determined
Isolating. Though our (India) effort is to mitigate strategies to suppress
transmission, we have to do much more on this. Look at Thailand. It is
minimizing impact with simple procedures. Their deaths are low, 55. United,
world leaders and Nations should coordinate this, which is a huge challenge to
global leadership. Now, we know 'The Way’ there is a window of opportunity.
BELIEVE IN GOD and respond rapidly putting our complete trust in the
Resurrected Lord and continue to PRAY to ‘know’ the Way and to believe in it.
JESUS IS THE WAY and he is not going to leave us alone. He promised “I will
come back to you”
PLEASE...
Do not touch your face, do not rub your eyes, do not bite your finger nails and
do not wipe your nose with the back of your hand. Thank you.
A first millennium parish experience: (Anthony Mc-Carten)
There was a funeral in the Church… (do imagine a
medieval church); Everyone is weeping with tears running down their faces -
except one man. The priest notices that this one man is not crying and at the
end of the Funeral Service, he goes up to the man and asks, “Did you know the
dead man?” The man said, “Yes, I do”. But why are you not crying?” To this, the
man answered, "Well, I would have, but I do not belong to this Parish”.
God bless, be safe. AMEN.
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