The readings for this Sunday no longer look back to the resurrection, but change direction and have us look ahead to our Lord’s Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells His disciples that it is “expedient” that He leave them. He tells them that only by His own departure will they be able to know the presence of God and the Holy Spirit. As long as He is physically present with them, they would continue to relate to Him in worldly ways. They would relate to Him as a national hero, a remarkable teacher, a great leader, a wonder-worker, and so on. Only by Jesus’ departure would that relation be purified and elevated to become a purely spiritual relation. 

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus promises that when He ascends to Heaven, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, will come to the disciples and to all the Christian church. God the Holy Spirit, the promised Comforter, will give life to the church, indwelling her members with the very presence of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Just think about this. Try to catch a glimpse of what this means. God the Holy Ghost dwells within us. The very Spirit of the living God dwells within us. He leads us and teaches us, informing us – inwardly forming us – so that we may begin to see and know one another and ourselves with the mind of Christ. And yet there is more. The Heavenly Father loves His Son, and the Son loves the Father with the very love in which the worlds were created. When the Holy Ghost dwells within us, the love of the Father and the Son dwells within us. We are loved by God with that very same Divine love. And we are meant to be incarnate expressions of that love, living out in our lives the love of God. This is who we are and nothing less. You know, all sin is really our vain and futile attempts to be less than who we really are.

It seems appropriate to me that we are thinking about the love of God on Mother’s Day. What we celebrate on this day is love, our love for our mothers and our mothers’ love for us. This is a love we could never earn or merit – a love freely given us for just being who we are. (I was blessed with a marvelous mother. No matter what I did or how bad I was – and there could be a number of sermons in that – she was always there to embrace me and was constant in her love. When she died almost 16 years ago I was in a real state of despair. In speaking with an older priest and former professor, I lamented the loss of my mother and her unconditional love. He responded with words that became a real anchor in my grieving. He said, “Now it is time for you to let that love be perfected by a higher love.” – meaning I had to let go and let her love be taken into God’s, and for me to now turn more completely to God as I had turned to her.) A mother’s love is a sacrificial love, a love born of labor and all the sacrifices being a mother entails. The greatest gift any child can give his mother is simply to love her in return and be the very best person he can be, by God’s grace. The greatest gift any father can give his children is to love their mother.  

A wonderful Mother’s Day story is one you have heard before involving a young boy who had promised to carry a breakfast tray in to his mother on her special day so that she could enjoy breakfast in bed. A few days before Mother’s Day, the boy broke his ankle at a soccer game. Nevertheless, on Mother’s Day, he went in to the kitchen on crutches and began making scrambled eggs, toast and coffee, and had it all assembled on a tray. Just then, his father walked in to the kitchen and offered to carry in the tray for him. “No”, said the boy, “I’ll carry the tray and you carry me.” And that’s just what they did. The father lifted up his boy who in turn carried the breakfast tray to his mother.  

This story not only illustrates a son’s love for his mother – a son determined to keep his word, but it also illustrates the indwelling work of the Comforter, God the Holy Ghost. The word “comforter” comes from two Latin words and means “with strength.” The Holy Ghost is the strengthener, the fortifier. He comforts us, but He does not comfort us by removing all the challenges in our path. We would not grow if that’s what He did. Instead, he strengthens us, and even sometimes carries us, so that we may be able to carry out our promises and be more fully a loving presence and a comfort to others.

 Finally, notice the distinction Jesus makes between the Spirit of truth and the world which He says cannot receive the Spirit. He says the world cannot receive Him because it does not see Him or know him. It is the world which cannot see beyond itself being caught up entirely in its own preoccupations. It is the same as being so busy in life that one forgets what the purpose of life is. As Jesus ascends into the realm of His heavenly Kingdom, so we are called to look up and see both beyond this world to that kingdom and also see here and now in this world the reality of that kingdom in the divine love given us in Jesus; the love which dwells in us by His Spirit.