Wednesday, Fourth Week of Easter

In today’s gospel reading Jesus refers to ‘the Father who sent me’. In the fourth gospel Jesus is the ‘sent one’. One of the most memorable verses of this gospel declares, ‘God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’. Jesus personalizes this statement in today’s gospel reading, ‘I have come not to condemn the world but to save the world’. As Jesus says elsewhere in this gospel of John, ‘I came that they may have life and have it to the full’. This is why God sent his Son into the world. There is another sending in today’s first reading. The church in Antioch, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, sent two of their leading members, Barnabas and Saul, on mission to places where the gospel had not been preached, resulting in the expansion of the gospel westwards. This was a costly sending, because Barnabas and Saul had been central to the life of the church in Antioch. God’s sending of his Son into the world was also costly because it entailed a giving of his Son over to death, death on a cross. Yet, both the sending of Jesus and the sending of Barnabas and Saul were life-giving for those to whom they were sent. This is supremely true of the sending of Jesus, without which there would have been no sending of Barnabas or Saul. The church in every age is called to send, to let go of precious resources so that others may flourish. That dynamic of sending and letting go to others is vital today as parishes learn to journey together, sharing resources, perhaps becoming poor so that others may become rich, but, in the process, discovering that all are enriched.