«A very short time»: we are not in the waiting room
(Jn 16:16-20)
The human communion of the first disciples with the Master was suggestive, not exhaustive. It must now be renewed.
This takes place in the passage of Jesus from the world to the Father. Therefore in the journey and dialogue outside any circle, to which the apostles themselves are called.
The earthly separation from the Lord was dramatic. But even today we are impelled to live and grow in the 'outgoing Church'.
A shift that obliges the faithful in Christ to move from community brothers and sisters to an all-encompassing relationship with the human family.
The immediate perception would become unbreakable: Jesus must go and leave us alone so that we enter the Mystery, in search.
This is so that it is the Risen One and the totally Other that emerges in this detachment, in the mist and night of the reaffirmed Exodus, all real and all new.
For us too, certainty becomes a problem; stability knows shocks.
We are not protégés - as in pagan religion, where the gods descended into difficulties and sided with their friends.
There is a detachment from representations of God, even from our common way of thinking of the Risen One.
He becomes an echo of the soul, guiding. And it becomes 'body' i.e. Church; as well as 'call' to the shattering of idols, to outgoing witness.
The evangelising activity of the genuine apostles goes hand in hand with the Lord, and reflects his events, his teaching, his type of confrontations.
In this way, the Living One becomes present and active in us, seamlessly.
Certainly, the approaching events take on their own configuration - each time particular.
But for Faith in the victory of life over death, we understand: everything is configured in the ways that allow us to express the deepest core of being, our feeling called.
Fontal, authentic joy.
As disciples, we unfold the Risen One in the history of each one: death resurrection manifestations... personal, unprecedented even in the sign of travails - for each believer.
In such a typically Johannine perspective (and practical action) the death-resurrection, the glorification at the right hand of the Father [Ascension] and the Gift of the Spirit become simultaneous.
Like a 'new order' of things [so-called Return to the End of Time].
In short, the integral event of the humanising Messiah allows the believer to feel in communion with God, and united to the Son - without any caesura or temporal delay.
The Faith-Vision catches the innovative and creative Spirit of the Father at work, to build the definitive world.
Therefore, the Judgement from the Cross is now, it will not take place after a nerve-wracking wait, in a distant moment.
Church Time thus does not become 'intermediate'. Nor can it justify dark and empty forms of spirituality.
The impact with the divine challenges and exposes. Yet it possesses its own, unique density.
The tribulations would be there - even very serious, full of embarrassment and unprecedented - but they would drag the consciences far beyond the bewilderment and the sudden unfulfilling.
In the experience of the envoys, placed face to face with the Mission, the enigmatic 'in a little while' would have nothing impenetrable about it.
We 'see' it in the Spirit, but not only in the heart.
It is for an Announcement together - without intimism. Free relationship with reality and the Living One, 'from' ourselves.
Jn reflects a question-and-answer catechesis addressed to those who could not understand the meaning of the Master's death and asked for explanations.
The masters of the ancient religion of consensus rejoiced at the disappearance of that subversive and heretic who instead of keeping quiet and making a career had been a thorn in the side of their prestige - and earnings - finally done away with and shamed.
By now a failure and rejection even by God.
Well, "a very short time" or "within a short time" are expressions that reaffirm and mark the continuity between the experience of physical closeness with Jesus and the 'vision' of the Risen One.
Transfigured and Lord-in-us, it is the same Master that we recognise in his earthly life, including the less happy aspects. E.g. of rejection, denunciation, rebuke.
Just like one who does not know how to be in the world.
These are priceless moments: times of rediscovery of cosmic and divine closeness, obviously purified of illusions of glory or social conformity.
Despite the hostile environment, the disciple's inner situation does not change: it is one of permanent unity and is not interrupted, indeed it becomes more incisive and goal-directed.
Faith is a penetrating relationship: even today, no longer linked to feeling, ritual experience, or the signs of a monopolistic and consolidated civitas christiana - but to the acuity and incisiveness of personal adhesion.
Does it sometimes seem to vanish? Immediately after a doubt arises, everything is turned upside down.The frankness in the harsh confrontation with established power or the ideas of devotion good for festivals and all seasons, makes Him suddenly Present.
Vivid and uncomfortable, but astonishing.
It is true: when everything smacks of sadness and trial, in an instant the situation is reversed.
It is the moment of profound Happiness: of the Vision of the invisible Friend manifesting Himself in His real Wisdom and strength.
Incarnation that continues in the critical witnesses and assemblies that take the form of the Lord's luminous Awakening.
They face the same Passion of love and do not shy away from problems: they make them flourish as the vital Newness of God.
To internalise and live the message:
Is your testimony diluted and sleepy, or is it intense, insightful, pungent?
