Reading
John 16:5-11
5 but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. 7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
Comment
The words of Jesus - "I am going to him who sent me" (v. 5) - testify that he is not taken from the world by force but voluntarily lays down his life, returning to the Father.
The phrase "None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?" forms an apparent contradiction with Peter's previous question (Jn 13:36) and that of Thomas (Jn 14:5), but the context is different. here Jesus refers to the conclusion of his mission, there the disciples have not yet reached the awareness necessary to ask questions on the subject.
Sadness fills the hearts of the disciples for the imminent departure of Jesus, but this will imply several advantages: his death will overcome sin and death itself; the ministry of the Spirit, which he will send, will be omnipresent and superior to the physical presence of Jesus; by the Spirit, believers will experience adoption as children of God.
The impending passion arouses in the disciples a sense of defeat, the disappointment of their expectations because they still do not understand that the kingdom that is about to be established will not be of a merely earthly nature: the Church will be the presence, vivified by the Spirit, of the body of Christ in the world, waiting for the consummation of the times.
The Spirit will convince the world of his error - by demonstrating Jesus' right to present himself as Messiah - by resurrection, by the charismatic preaching of the apostles, and by the truthful force of the Scriptures he inspired. The action of the Spirit will also demonstrate the condemnation and defeat of Satan, who loses his power over the world freed by Christ.
Jesus asks us not to "hold him back" (Jn 20:17), not to be confined within the perimeter of this world and his limited expectations, but to let him go where he will draw us with His Spirit. In short, he asks us to cast our gaze beyond the earthly horizon, towards the ultimate goal of those saved by grace: eternal communion with God, who contains everything but which cannot be contained.
Prayer
Fill us, o Lord, with the presence and charisms of your Spirit, so that we can testify to you in the midst of men and be built up as living stones of your Church.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
