How often as persons in authority, we leave instructions for others. It may be as an employer or supervisor training a new employee or a parent giving directions to our children.

With friends, we may also find ourselves giving them directions to accomplish some task perhaps sharing a recipe for a special meal. When planning to give instruction, we must understand something about the recipients. How do I express this? What incentive can I give? What do they need? Jesus’ final instruction to His disciples was the basis for His mission.

His Plan, the Father’s Plan was that they would keep his Word, that they would recognise, him as the Way, the Truth and the Life and that their lives would be patterned by his life – the life of the Father who dwells within Him.

He had lived among them; He had given them a chance to know Him, to love Him. He had been sent as an example to them.

“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.” 

He was ready to commit the final act in showing them what true love demanded. They would need the Eternal Presence of Jesus and the Father dwelling within them. “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you.” What else would they need? “Peace”, he said, “I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you.” Jesus is giving them all of himself.

What else would they need? Faith – “I have told you” what is going to happen “so that when it does happen you may believe.”

Love, Peace, Faith, the Holy Spirit. Jesus wants it all for his disciples so that they will truly belong to him, that they will be able to keep his Word to the very end.

As our society seems to be spiraling out of control – systems, beliefs, values are crumbling and people go their own way. Anything goes, anything we choose to justify, anything that feels good, anything that will give us if only a moment’s pleasure, to be repeated for another taste. As citizens of this world, many of us have become pleasure junkies. Isn’t it God’s Plan to protect us from just such a state?

Who will be His disciples among us? Who will remember Jesus’ instructions? Who has kept His Word? Who walks through this life filled with the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, given by the Father and the Son for just this purpose - To love Him and so to keep His Word?

Who is not confused? Who is not in doubt? Who has not forgotten? Who has not grown faint and afraid in the face of the bombardment that is the media, the new technologies and the devotion to modern living, allowing “the Word” to be condensed, revised, washed away? Who hears him…?

Let us pray

Almighty God and Father, Creator of us all, hear the cry of our hearts, pluck us from among the vines that threaten to hold us captive. We still hear your voice speaking to us in your only begotten son, urging us to remember.

We still hear his voice reminding us of his love and urging us to keep his word if we truly love him. We have not forgotten that he walked with us. We really have not forgotten the lessons he taught us. We have not forgotten the sacrifice he made to show us the Way to you.

We pray that we would not shut out the Holy Spirit, the Advocate that you have sent to us. So often though we are aware, that our voices have grown faint, not loud enough to be heard, that our message has not been clear.

Father, we have allowed ourselves to be caught in a rut; we have allowed ourselves to be distracted, to lose sight of you. Often we feel ourselves sinking and know that you alone can save us. With extended hands, we ask you to pull us out of the pit of confusion.

We, who have heard your call, refuse to live as those without direction. We refuse to live as though we did not know the Truth, as though the Way was not revealed to us in your Son.

Accept us again, Father, through your son. Allow us to hold steadfast to your Hand. Allow us to again experience the Power of Your Love revealed in him and of the Spirit that you have sent us so that we may live in accordance to your Word. We pray in the name of Jesus, your son and our Lord. Amen.

Gospel Meditations for May are by Maraika Gooding. Maraika and her husband Trevor are the parents of five children and grandparents of two. She is a guidance counsellor.