“Come and See” Where Jesus Lives

COME AND SEE . . .

 

A nyone alone in a strange town knows the experience of asking directions, only to be told, “Sorry, I don’t know, I’m a stranger here myself.”

Equally, the relief when given practical help from someone at home there. Unless and until we are given such help in unfamiliar surroundings, when not lost, we are insecure, and can lose much time trying to find the way.

Journeying into a present awareness of God in everyday life, we too welcome expert help. The Fourth Gospel, in a series of powerful signs, points the way to such a realization. Nicodemus, the searching figure, who “came to Jesus by night,” since, “we know that you are a teacher come from God,” is told categorically that “unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God”. (Jn. 3:2, 5).

. . . WHERE JESUS LIVES

So the Christian, baptized into Christ in the Spirit, is given entry to the kingdom and a new perception of reality. There, in Christ’s company, he or she “will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man”. (Jn. 1:51). There are echoes here of Jacob’s dream of the ladder reaching to heaven from where he slept, and his awed realization on waking up that “God is in this place, and I did not know!  How awe-inspiring this place is! The abode of God . . . the gate of heaven”! (Gen. 28:16-17). Could this reality be found at a bus stop? The Gospel maintains it can.

It is precisely such a realization that the Christian seeks. God is the creative presence at the heart of the community from the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob until now. In a sacramental world, therefore, the moment is charged with His presence. Wrestling with the world for meaning, the Christian seeks a living faith to enable him to see. In a strange country he needs to be shown the way. To facilitate this, John’s Gospel first points to Christ – “we have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father”. (Jn. 1:14). If, like the evangelist, we never take our eyes from Christ and are progressively held by what we see, a heavenly reality comes alive in an earthly present.

THE SHEPHERD

To help our awareness of this, the Fourth Gospel offers a sign pointing to Christ the door of the sheepfold, through whom enter those who know him. “I am the door; if anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find Pasture”.  (Jn. 10:9). In a world powerful enough to crucify Jesus as His mother watched, and which can be as frightening and crucifying still, this is a powerful sign of security. It is intensified further with Jesus “the good shepherd (who) lays down his life for the sheep”. (Jn. 10:11). It is literally over His dead and risen body that anyone who would harm ‘His own’ must pass. Neither person, place or circumstance, therefore, can come between Jesus and ‘His own.’

This reality is experienced in going beyond the sign to the person. The wonder of this is opened further as Our Lord says “I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father”.  (Jn. 10:14). This points to almost inexpressible intimacy – ‘my own . . . me’ – so close are the links of graced knowledge and love binding us to Our Lord. ‘As the Father knows me and I the Father’ is the unimaginable depth into which we are drawn! If this is present reality as glimpsed by the Gospel, clearly, wherever we are now, God is in this place and perhaps we scarcely know it.

THE VINE

To help us come alive to this in faith, the evangelist offers another helpful sign. “I am the vine, you are the branches”. (Jn. 15:5). Again, this indicates an organic union of graced knowledge and love with Our Lord. This is the only way to what is deepest in a person, and is open to us with God through our baptism in water and Spirit. What this means, given the perception of a living faith, almost explodes from the measured words in which it is expressed – “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love”. (Jn. 15:9).

Notionally, we hear what is said, but to realize something of what those words carry – ‘as the Father . . . so I you’ – is yet again to echo Jacob’s awakening wonder. ‘Abide in my love’ . . . could anyone ever leave? Glimpsing in faith the ever-present reality of God’s self-giving love beyond sheepfold, shepherd and vine, is it possible to stay anywhere else?

DO YOU WISH TO GO AWAY

Regrettably, as the Gospel makes plain, it is. “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life, but there are some of you that do not believe . . . After this many of His disciples drew back and no longer went about with him”. (Jn. 6:63- 66). That pattern held to the end of Our Lord’s ministry when he pointed out that “you will be scattered, every man to his home, and will leave me alone”. (Jn. 16:32). No doubt, the reader of this page could join such company without a blush. The signs of water and Spirit, sheepfold, shepherd and vine are powerful, and point directly to Our Lord as an ever-present reality.

Ideally, in faith we should go past the signs to absorb the wonder beyond. They point to Jesus, but do not compel us to stay with him. “Do you wish to go away… ”? (Jn. 6:67).

COME AND SEE

To help us, perhaps we could look to ‘the mother of Jesus’ as Mary is always called in St. John’s Gospel. Significantly present at the lovely beginning and horrific end of her son’s public ministry, the Gospel reality began through her, even earlier, when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”. (Jn. 1:14). If, as the evangelist confessed, he could not take his eyes from Christ – ‘we have beheld his glory’ – what did and does his mother see?

When the disciples of John the Baptist first tentatively approached Our Lord – “Rabbi . . . where are you staying”?  He said to them, “Come and see”. (Jn. 1:38-39). The impact of that first evening was immediate. They left to bring their friends. They did not argue, just shared their experience – “come and see”. (Jn. 1:46). The excitement and wonder and peace is tangible.

If that first evening in Jesus’ company meant so much to the would-be disciple, what does it say of the mother who brought him into the world, brought him up, and made a home for him? They came to see where he was staying. She had spent her life with him. Time in her company now must enrich our faith.

The Gospel says there was “a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there . . .”.  (Jn. 2:1-2) . Her sensitive and revealing presence is reflected in her initiative bringing a domestic problem to her Son. His response meets the personal need while giving it universal meaning – “you have kept the good wine until now” – so, “this, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him”. (Jn. 2:10-11).

DO WHATEVER HE TELLS YOU

She can do as much now. If we genuinely wish a live faith to transform the present moment, “do whatever he tells you” (Jn. 2:5) is the key. If Cana is a guide to Our Lady’s approach, her encouraging presence would make our needs her concern. Such is her delicacy, on the evidence of the Gospel, that we are unlikely to be aware of her practical help. Much better, surely, if we were.

Baptized with water and the Spirit we are one in Christ with the mother of Jesus. We share, therefore, with her the reality to which the signs of sheepfold, shepherd and vine point. Entering the sheepfold we meet her for whom preeminently the shepherd gave his life. “I know my own and my own know me” expresses in Mary’s case intimacy beyond anything we can know. Immaculately conceived, living then by faith and now in glory, she is known “as the Father knows me and I the Father”. One can but wonder. She lives to the full the reality open to us in baptism – “this IS eternal life . . . they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ . . . ” (Jn. 17:3) – to which the Gospel signs point. She can only help make that wonder live for us too.

CHOSEN . . .

Life in the vine into which we are baptized, self-evidently, is meant to mature and bear fruit. True for us, it is particularly true of the mother of Jesus. “You did not choose me, but I chose you . . . that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide”.  (Jn. 15:16).  She is ever the mother of Jesus. One in the Vine with her, we can, if we will, receive her Son from her. Instrumental at Cana in the first sign that led Jesus’ disciples to believe in him, her grace-full presence can do as much still. She can guide us beyond the signs. In helping bring us to her Son she bears lasting fruit.

Our Lord himself, in the last and greatest of his signs on earth encouraged just this. “Jesus having loved his own . . . he loved them to the end” (Jn. 13:1), and gave absolute expression to this on Calvary as the shepherd giving his life. This is his ‘glory,’ what God is like. “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all people to myself” (Jn. 12:32). Chief among them, he drew “his mother and the disciple whom he loved“.  (Jn. 19:26). He saw them, and from the cross said, ‘Woman, behold, your son!”. “Behold, your mother”! And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (Jn. 19:26-27) .

. . . TO BEAR FRUIT

So many, subsequently, have seen this as a sign for them too. As the shepherd died to protect the security of the sheepfold, mother and disciple are drawn together at his dying invitation. The insights of the beloved disciple are paralleled in the graced, feminine, maternal presence of Our Lady. The harrowing experience of Calvary which brought them together in faith, has now been transfigured as they are one in Christ in glory. The mother of Jesus, one with us in the Vine which is her Son, offers that same faithful, feminine presence to us now.

MARY’S . . .

This is caught superbly in a line from a prayer of St. Anselm to St. John the Evangelist asking the love of God. Anselm on earth, pictures John in heaven absorbed in the vision of God’s glory. “If then, sir,” he prays, “your gaze has more good in it than my prayer has devotion, let your gaze become my prayer”. ( The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm, trans. B. Ward, Penguin 1973).

This is exactly the pattern to be found in the Vine in the company of those who see further than we do. Initially, Anselm begins speaking TO John, only to be drawn to what John now sees. Ideally in faith, this is how we view the signs in his Gospel. There is always so much more to see.

This, it seems to me, is the heart of Our Lady’s mediation – ‘let your gaze become my prayer’.  Open to whatever influence she can bring to enlighten us, inevitably, we will be drawn to what attracts her . . . the glory of God on the face of Christ. If we accept the invitation to ‘come and see’ in her company, we shall progressively become like what we see.

. . . GAZE

The Evangelist saw and sees so much, what then does Our Lady see? This, preeminently if not exclusively, is a feminine, maternal role. If we take her into our home as did the disciple Jesus loved, we are then with the Spirit-graced mother of Jesus who first nourished the shepherd and the vine, and now the flock and branches. These are analogies, at best signs pointing to a reality beyond our immediate experience. But as the Gospel maintains, they point to a present reality. They are earthed in Our Lady living once in faith now in glory. In so far as her gaze becomes our prayer they too can take flesh in our selves.

The needs of Cana and the agony of Calvary are ever-present realities. To be faithful to the Gospel from within the situation, we ask to be given the sensitivity to see that “they have no wine . . . I thirst” (Jn. 2:3, 19:28), and respond accordingly. If the contemplative is primary, if we would see in faith what is really here, to be open to the gaze of the mother of Jesus as seen at Cana and now in glory, can only transfigure us too.