Fifth Sunday of Easter

“[Jesus said] If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever…”
+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
           
Today is an especially joyous day, not simply because we are gathered together to worship God and His Son Jesus Christ and receive His Body and Blood, but because we will also be welcoming Delilah Denny into the Body of Christ through the Sacrament of Baptism. Baptism is both a sign and a reminder to all of us that once we were separated from God because of our trespasses and sins. But God, in His great love and mercy, sent His Son to die on the Cross and rise from the dead, thus destroying sin and death. Baptism is the outward and visible sign of the washing away of our sins and of our entrance into the family of God.
           
What are the characteristics of the family of God, the Church? What does it mean to live as a part of this family? Fundamentally, to be a member of the Body of Christ means to be a part of a set apart people. As St. Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” What this means is that we are no longer in the world. We live in the world, but we are no longer governed by its rules and priorities. On the contrary, we belong to God, and therefore, we are called to live for Him and represent Him in the way that we live our lives.
           
In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus is telling His disciples what their life and the life of the Church will be like after He has completed His earthly mission. After reminding the disciples that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, and proclaiming to them that He intends to continue His mission through them, Jesus then declares to them, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” Here is the first characteristic of the Church: it is made up of people who demonstrate their love for Jesus Christ by keeping His commandments. The love of Christ is not simply demonstrated in professions of love and warm feelings for Christ, but in faithful obedience to His commands. Here we have clear evidence to support the idea that Jesus does not principally regard love as a warm feeling of affection, but as an act of the will that is rooted in obedience, a lifestyle marked by faithfulness.
           
After declaring that obedience to His commands as being the true sign of love for Him, Jesus then says to the disciples, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever…” Jesus reassures His disciples that even though His earthly ministry is coming to an end, they and the Church will not be left on their own to try to figure things out and carry on Christ’s mission to the world. Jesus tells them that the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity will be with them and live His life in their midst so that they will have the power and the ability to keep Christ’s commands and to be Christ’s witnesses to the ends of the earth.
           
To put it another way, the mark and characteristic of the Church is that it is a family marked by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in its midst. And when we think about the role of the Person of the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity, we see that the principal role of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity is that of love or in the Greek, perichoresis. God the Father loves the God the Son, who loves God the Holy Spirit, who loves God the Father. The relationships in the Trinity are marked by intimacy and love. Jesus compares the oneness of this indwelling to the oneness of the fellowship of His Church. In John 17:21 Jesus prays, “That they all may be one, just as you, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they may also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent Me.” Thus, the principal mark of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church is love. The Church is not simply an organization, but something much more intimate. We are a family who enjoy God’s power and presence in our midst and we enjoy a special intimacy and love with God and each other.
           
St. John the Divine, in our Epistle lesson for today, emphasizes the Church as a community marked by love and obedience filled with the Holy Spirit. He writes, “And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He has commanded us. Whoever keeps His commandments abides in God and God in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”
           
In just a few minutes, we will receive Delilah Denny into Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, Delilah will not only be cleansed from sin and raised to new life in Jesus Christ, but she will become part of a holy nation, a royal priesthood, and a holy people. Delilah will grow up in a spiritual family with a life surrounded by love, marked by obedience and faith, and filled with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.  
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+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.