“It Is Much Better for You That I Go.”

These words of Jesus to His apostles in today’s gospel (Jn 16:5-11) are
spoken in the context of the Last Supper. They must have sensed that
things were about to change dramatically, and these words from their
Teacher must have been deeply disturbing and confusing.

Yet from our perspective, they delineate quite clearly the basic mystery of
the Incarnation: Jesus was fully human and fully divine. And each aspect of Jesus’ identity had its “pros and cons”. Not that the apostles could have possibly understood this in that moment.

As a fully human man, Jesus had walked the paths of Galilee with His
disciples for about 3 years. They watched Him interact with people, they
listened to Him teach, they saw Him heal. They shared the intimacy and
companionship of countless meals. He was constantly among them as a
companion, teacher, and model. He was the driving force behind bringing
the Kingdom into the lives of the people.

But in this capacity, He could never be in more than one place at one time.
No human can. And Jesus knew that His time as a man was coming to an
end. The work of the Kingdom had to continue and be handed on.

To “go” obviously (to us, though not to the apostles in this moment) means
to return to the fullness of His divine nature. And from “there” He will send His Spirit-

“If I fail to go,
the Paraclete will never come to you,
whereas if I go,
I will send Him to you.” (v 7)

Definitely not good news for the apostles at the Last Supper; but definitely
good news for the world.

And from the moment of Pentecost onward, the Spirit has been among us,
empowering first these same apostles and now us to spread the Good
News and to ‘incarnate’ the values and lifestyle of the Kingdom in our own
very human lives and times.

The mystery of the Incarnation is no longer to be found in the form of one
Man walking the paths of Galilee 2,000 years ago; it is to be found in the power of that one Man’s Spirit alive and at work in each one of us today.