Scripture Reflection – Fifth Sunday of Easter (13-14th of May)

Life is busy.  Living requires a great deal of energy and enterprise.  We are focused on meeting deadlines, either or own or someone else’s, and time slips by and we are caught up in its vortex of demands.  So we do not have time for the great philosophical questions of existence, dying, death or life after death.

It is only when a relative, close friend or a notable personality we admire dies that the questions arise about dying, death and the afterlife.  More so when we are personally confronted by the reality of death.  Life is called into question – its orientation, values, shortcomings and successes mean very little in the face of the threat of death.  Today’s Gospel show us that it was no different for the disciples – their hearts were ‘troubled.’  Jesus understood that.  He told them to ‘trust in me.’

In their confused minds Jesus tells them, and, he tells us, that he is the ‘Way, the Truth and the Life.’  There is no other answer, nor is there any other insight into death, other than in him.  Jesus tells us that he goes before us to the Father’s house to prepare us a place (or a loging) so that we too may be with him.

He is the Way by which we travel to the fullness of God.  He is the revealed Truth and the fullness of the Father’s love.  He is the Life that sets us free.