The Gospel for Tuesday of the fourth week of Easter is taken from John 10:22. The Feast of the dedication was taking place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus walked about in the temple area on the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, how long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you really are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe.

The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. But you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they know me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. And no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one. When someone tells us something that we have not thought of before or that involves some kind of information that we don’t yet have, and we simply don’t hear what they’re saying, we don’t grasp it, we don’t understand it. And it seems that was so much what was going on. When Jesus would be teaching in the temple, people would listen to him and be intrigued by what he was saying, but they wouldn’t believe it because they couldn’t understand it.

And then he makes something so clear, and yet this would be way beyond their pay grade, so to speak. He’s saying to them, you have to understand that the Father God himself is in me. And when you see me, you see the Father. When you hear me, you hear the Father. That was so out of their range of understanding. And in truth, it’s out of the range of many of us who don’t understand the mystery of the indwelling presence of God, the intimacy of God within us.

It is a source of the love that we long for that heals the world and changes hearts and brings them into the light of life. Take a few moments to reflect upon these images and then I will close with a prayer. The closing prayer. Father, we long to know who we are in you and with you. Open our hearts to understand this in a way that goes beyond logic, beyond what we think of as normal, and be open to mystery and mysticism. And we ask this in Jesus name.

Amen. Sam.