The Word of God

Today’s Gospel reading draws us into the quiet intensity of what the Church has long called Jesus’ Farewell Discourse—a moment of sacred preparation. The hour is drawing near. Jesus is no longer teaching the multitudes or confronting the powers of the day. Instead, He turns toward those who have walked most closely with Him. In the shadow of the cross, He offers comfort, clarity, and peace.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid,” He says. “If you loved Me, you would have been glad to know that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I” (Jn. 14:27–28).

These are not words of resignation but of reassurance. They are not the silence of retreat but the stillness before revelation. Jesus does not simply speak of departure. He speaks of return—a return to the Father and a promise that the divine presence will remain with us, not in absence but in new intimacy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once observed, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” And indeed, it is the inward life—the soul’s reckoning with love, fear, doubt, and hope—that Jesus touches here. He knows the hearts of His disciples are heavy. He knows ours often are, too.

We gather in worship because something within us still longs for meaning. We come searching for the assurance that what lies within us is shaped by what lies beyond us: by God’s eternal love, made known through Jesus Christ.

Saint Teresa of Ávila once confessed, “I wish I could write with both hands at once.” Divine insight, she said, came so swiftly she could not capture it all. Reading the Gospel of John can feel like that. The ideas arrive in waves—not neat or systematic but radiant and abundant. One finishes a sentence and is swept into another.

The very first chapter alone resounds with what might be called a thunderclap of theology:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

Just that—that the Word of God took on flesh, that eternity entered time, that the divine became personal — is enough to stop us in our tracks.

This is not abstract doctrine. It is the story of God’s self-giving, not through force or fear but through the life, death, and love of Jesus Christ. To believe in Christ is not simply to admire His teachings. It is to receive Him as the clearest expression of who God is.

In today’s Gospel, one of the disciples interrupts Jesus with a question born of bewilderment: “Lord, what is all this about? Do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

Jesus replies, “If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him” (Jn. 14:22-23).

There it is. The mystery was made plain. God comes to us and makes His home with us.

This is the essence of the Christian life: not that we escape the world but that God enters it—not that we climb toward heaven, but that heaven reaches toward us.

And so, we ask: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could discover a way to truly know one another? Could some common ground make our differences less threatening and our shared humanity more visible? Wouldn’t it do wonders for our collective peace of mind—for our individual sense of belonging?

Indeed, we gather in worship to proclaim that someone has come to show us the way. Someone has stepped into history to teach us what it means to live in peace—not just the absence of conflict but in the presence of love.

“If I knew you and you knew me…” — it’s a beautiful vision. But that kind of knowing doesn’t begin with the other person. It begins within. We must start by understanding ourselves before we can truly understand one another. My capacity to see your worth flows from my grasp of my own.

Jesus said, “Anyone committed to the truth hears My voice.” And the first truth you must take to heart is this: you count. You matter. You are someone. You are a unique and unrepeatable work of the Divine Artist. God willed you into being, and God calls you beloved.

To understand the meaning of life, you must first recognize the truth of your own worth. To imagine a world without you is to imagine one different from what God has in mind. You are part of the sacred design. And so is every other person.

We are all God’s beloved children—every one of us. That means you are worthy of your own deepest respect. And it means you are called to see others in the same light because God has loved them first, just as He has loved you.

This call to love—to live with divine dignity—leads us to ask questions about our purpose, our worth, and the meaning of our days.

There is a species of caterpillar that transforms into what scientists call a “moth with no mouth.” Once it has laid its eggs, it can no longer eat or sustain itself. It lives only long enough to reproduce, and then it dies.

A preacher once asked a haunting question (Harold Kushner): “Are we like that? Do we live only to perpetuate the species? Do we exist just long enough to make room for the next generation? Or is there something more?”

These are not abstract musings. These questions press in when life feels uncertain—when we wonder if we matter and when we ask what it all means.

Again, Jesus gives us an answer in today’s Gospel. At the Last Supper, knowing death was near, He left His friends with a parting word:

“If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him” (Jn. 14:22-23).

And then:

“My own peace I give you, a peace the world cannot give, this is My gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” (Jn. 14:27).

Jesus tells us that the answer to life’s riddle is found not in striving or performance but in living His love. The meaning of life unfolds as we keep His word, center ourselves in divine love, and live as though every person—ourselves included—is a child of God.

When we accept God’s love and extend it to one another, we stop asking why we are living and start asking what we are giving. And in that shift, Jesus says, we begin to experience God’s promises not as distant hopes but as living realities.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

You are not here by accident. You are not without purpose. You are not alone.

In God’s great design, you are essential, you are beloved, and you are going somewhere with your life. That promise stands and bears the everlasting imprint of a divine exclamation point.

1 – Kushner, H., “When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough” (adapted).