Lectionary Commentaries for May 18, 2025
Fifth Sunday of Easter

In all three years of the Revised Common Lectionary, the Gospel readings for Easter 5 and 6 are from Jesus’ long Johannine discourse on the night before his crucifixion. It may seem odd to step back into that pre-crucifixion night at the close of the Easter season. However, one of the primary themes of these chapters from John is Jesus’ upcoming return to the Father and what that will mean for his disciples. This is just where the church finds itself on this side of Easter.

The language of “glory” and “glorify” is pervasive in John’s Gospel. The noun and the verb (only the verb appears in our passage) occur 42 times in John—more than in the other three Gospels combined.¹ The first use of “glory” in John is found in 1:14, a declaration that we have seen the glory of the Logos as the glory of the Father’s only Son (New Revised Standard Version footnote). “Glory” in John is about the revelation of Jesus as the Son sent by the Father. Specifically and shockingly, this glory is revealed especially in the Son’s loving death on the cross. In 12:23–24 Jesus declares that his hour to be glorified has come and then explains this by saying that a grain of wheat must die in the earth to bear fruit.

Now, the drama of Jesus’ glorification has begun. Judas has just gone out to arrange for Jesus’ arrest, a fact that the opening phrase of our pericope reiterates (13:30–31a). It is in the context of human failure and betrayal that Jesus declares the “now” of his glory and the glory of the Father through him.

The claims about glorification in verses 31–32 are bewildering. The word is used five times in these two verses, and the time frame keeps shifting between present and future. We heard something similar in 12:28, where past, present, and future were all included. The glorification is underway but not yet finished. John wants to draw together the reciprocal actions of the Father and the Son, and affirming such glory cannot be contained by mere chronological concerns. The whole story is encompassed by Jesus’ “now.”

In 7:33–34 Jesus told his opponents that he would be with them only a little while more, and that they would look for him but would not be able to find him or go where he is going. In 13:33 he says nearly the same thing to his disciples. Most of them will prove unable to follow Jesus to his crucifixion, but that is not the full depth of what Jesus means. Jesus is returning to the Father, and they cannot follow him there—at least not yet. However, that doesn’t mean they cannot know him or abide in his love. They will know Jesus and will continue to follow him by loving one another.

Jesus says that this is a “new” commandment, yet the command to love one’s neighbor was deeply rooted in Jewish law (Leviticus 19:18). What is new is not the content of the command but Jesus’ own role as the lover at the heart of this community’s life. Note that the command to love one another is repeated at the beginning and the end of verse 34. Sandwiched in the middle is a phrase that points to the new thing: “just as I have loved you.” Jesus is the one who has loved his own “to the end” (13:1). This love flows from the incarnation of the Word, and through it the disciples will enter into the love of the Father. This love not only models but will empower their love for one another.

It has often been suggested that John’s focus on love for one another rather than love for one’s enemies (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27) indicates a community that has turned away from hopeful engagement with the world and has turned inward on itself. That is probably an overstatement. This Gospel affirms that God loves the whole world (3:16) and that Jesus will draw all people to himself (12:32). Mutual love within the church is not an alternative to love for neighbors outside the community but is the foundation for such love. The command to love one another is given with an eye on the rest of the world: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.”

Marianne Thompson asks the crucial question, “Does it work?”² Of course, that depends on what effect we expect it to have. She points to the second-century letter of 2 Clement, which notes the result when the church fails to show such love: “When they see that we not only do not love those that hate us, but not even those who love us, they laugh us to scorn, and the Name is blasphemed” (2 Clement 13:4). On the other hand, Tertullian says that those outside the church remark, “Look how they love one another!” (Apology 39:7). But that doesn’t mean that everyone admired this or was led by it to faith in Jesus. The second-century satirist Lucian of Samosata tells the story of Peregrinus, a cynical huckster who takes absurd advantage of these Christians who oddly welcome strangers and then love them as siblings.

Yet Jesus calls us to this love even when the world remains hostile and sees only foolishness, just as the world responded to the love of Jesus by crucifying him. That is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus: to let loose such love for one another and for the world. In order to live out such loving discipleship, it will be necessary for the church to be reminded of something: It is already the object of infinite love: “my little children … as I have loved you.” It is that love that will sustain us.

Notes

1. Luke uses this vocabulary 22 times, Matthew 11 times, and Mark 4 times.
2. Marianne Meye Thompson, John. A Commentary. The New Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015), 301. The other ancient references in this paragraph are also mentioned by Thompson.

Commentary for this text is forthcoming.

In the “Preaching from Psalms” class I am teaching, we are reading/singing/meditating our way through the Psalter.¹

Encountering Psalm 148 through the ancient method of lectio divina brought forth a number of insights. One student from Burma reminded us of the potential for harmonious co-existence of all things. Another student was struck by the power of God’s voice. Yet another student expressed discomfort over the psalm’s reminder that she was worrying about so many things instead of praising God.

As I read through the psalm, I noticed the number of times I said, “Praise!” After three readings, it was nearly 39 times. “Praise him!” “Praise the Lord!” “Praise the name of the Lord!” Since the practice of lectio divina encourages participants not to judge what comes to mind, I’ll risk sharing with you what came to my mind. I was imagining that silly arcade game Whack-a-Mole. You know, the one where the moles pop up randomly and the player tries to whack them back into their holes.

It’s not the latter (whacking the moles back into their holes) that led to the association (especially since the psalmist very well could have had moles in mind when crafting verse 10!). Rather, it’s the “randomly popping up” part. Instead of moles, the repetition in fast succession of “Praise” in the psalm was a reminder of the abundant and random nature of reasons to praise the Lord that arise in any given day.

I wake up. Praise the Lord! I have food to eat. Praise him! I have meaningful work to do! Praise the name of the Lord! I encounter people who know my name and care for me. Praise him! Praise him! I breathe in the crisp, clean air and note the gorgeous magnolia tree attempting to bloom as I walk to work. Praise the Lord from the earth! There are all these reasons to praise the Lord, and I have not even been awake for two hours.

Later in the day, it occurred to me that there may very well be days when I inadvertently whack these abundant and seemingly random invitations to praise out of my sensory purview. The student’s statement indicating the psalm’s potential to convict began to make sense.

Indeed, this psalm is an invitation to praise and not necessarily a description of the way things are. As it offers a new thing with its hopeful, forward-leaning inertia, it hopes to move beyond an invitation to praise and into praise itself. While reading it aloud or, better yet, singing it at full voice, we are joining the heights, the moon, the sea monsters, and the cedars in praising the One who commanded us into being.

Walter Brueggemann’s work on psalm genres can help us here. He has moved beyond the traditional (and varied) genres of the psalms to suggest three “functions” of the psalms: orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. This way of categorizing the psalms converges a “contemporary pastoral agenda” with a more “historical exegetical interest.”²

At first glance, Psalm 148 appears to be a psalm of orientation, given the apparent “lack of tension,” “coherence of life,” “good order,” “celebration of the status quo,” and “assurance that [all is] well grounded” and will continue in this way. Yes, the content suggests that everything is aligned, or as my student poetically stated, everything is in harmonious co-existence. The heavens and the earth are aligned with one another, the elements in the heavens and the earth are aligned with one another (people, animals, landscapes, heavenly beings, solar system), and, very importantly, the heavens and the earth are aligned with their Creator.

In addition to content, the structure suggests good order. In between the invitation to praise the Lord that bookends the psalm (A) are two sets of verses that mirror one another as they move from invitation to praise (B), to exhortation (C), to clarification of motive (D). The first set represents heavenly elements, and the second represents earthly elements. It looks something like this:

A¹ Praise the Lord!

B¹ Invitation to praise (heavens)

C¹ Jussive (Let them …)

D¹ Motive (for …)

B² Invitation to praise (earth)

C² Jussive (Let them …)

D² Motive (for …)

A² Praise the Lord!

Despite the alignment of the structure and content, this psalm might be better understood as a psalm of reorientation. Psalm 148 does not simply describe the way things are, but proclaims that there has been a turn of events that is a welcome reversal. While there are definite resonances with the language in Genesis, this is not simply going back to those edenic good ol’ days. Instead, Psalm 148 is a “new song sung at the appearance of a new reality, new creation, new harmony, new reliability.”³ Indeed, there is a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21).

Here the psalm has the most homiletical potential in this season of Easter. Interestingly, we encounter this psalm every year (A, B, and C) on the first Sunday of Christmas. In year C, we also hear it during Easter. The newness expressed in this psalm was unimaginable a few weeks back, when we wept at the foot of the cross. Having been through the most profound disorientation we call Good Friday, we cannot look back, only forward where everything is made new (Revelation 21).

The student who mentioned the power of God’s voice reminds us that we take our lead from the Creator who speaks all creation into existence. When we join in singing this hymn, we participate in bringing forth the new world—a new world we thought was not possible, one where all of heaven and earth not only notice, but join in praising the Lord who is above heaven and earth. May it be so!

Have you ever felt like starting over? Maybe you have deleted a difficult text message, telling yourself that you would try again later. Or maybe you have turned off the game because your team was down at the half. Or maybe you are tired of all the political shenanigans and find yourself looking for fresh faces. Sometimes starting over seems like a good idea.

This is exactly how the popular Left Behind series and other dispensationalist theologies have interpreted the book of Revelation—the world is a mess, and God has deemed it time to say, “Out with the old and in with the new.” Revelation, for these interpreters, graciously warns its audience, “God is starting over. Don’t get left behind!”

In our own apocalyptic times, when everything feels out of sorts and is spinning out of control, I must admit, sometimes starting over sounds like a good idea.

As my students will attest, I often stress the importance of original languages when studying biblical texts, especially for preaching. This week’s lectionary passage is no exception. I’ll make three observations.

First, drawing on modern ideas of apocalypse as the world gone up in flames, the New Revised Standard Version and other translations describe the old world as destroyed, “for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (21:1). But the verb John uses here is not the word for death or dying. It is the verb for departure or going away (aperchomai). Heaven and earth haven’t gone up in flames and they haven’t died. Heaven and earth have departed. They’ve made a break for it. They’ve cleared out.

But there is more. As the old heaven and earth depart, a new heaven and earth come down out of heaven from God. This scene from Revelation images heaven coming down to earth. Despite popular depictions of heaven, God comes to us. God chooses to join us. It isn’t the other way around. God, it seems, isn’t in the business of starting over.

Second, the repetition of a singular preposition in verse 3 is also lost in translation. The New Revised Standard Version translates the Greek preposition meta with two different English words—“among” and “with.” In so doing, the Greek loses its rhetorical effect as the repetition of the preposition creates an echo of intimacy that weaves our lives together with the divine: God is with us. God dwells with us. God will be with us. This repetition stresses that we can’t flee from God. Our lives are too intertwined.

A third feature of the text’s original language calls our attention. Again, English translations miss the nuance. The New Revised Standard Version and other translations use the English words “home” and “dwell” to translate the Greek, but these translations miss an important image. A more literal translation would read: “See, the tent of God is among mortals, God will tent with them as their God…” The reference to God’s tent and God tenting with God’s people evokes the tent of meeting that housed God’s presence with Israel in the desert after their escape from Egypt. As Huber and O’Day note, John’s vision promises his audience that just as God camped with the Israelites in Exodus, so too God will camp with us.¹ In a world where the houseless are increasingly criminalized for camping in public, modern Christians would be astute to remember where God resides.

Aside from the Greek, one final image captures my interest: an image of God wiping away our tears. What God offers in this moment is not a one-way ticket out of Dodge. God offers care. God does more than simply rescue God’s people. God joins God’s people in their pain and suffering and expresses sympathy and concern for them. Just as they see God, God sees them.

I think we often miss this detail because we are too quick to jump to the second half of the verse—“mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” We are so eager to get to the good news that we end up ignoring the care God offers at the beginning of the verse. This image of a compassionate and tender God reminds me of the image of Jesus weeping with Mary and her neighbors in the Gospel of John (11:32–34). While both stories offer expressions of resurrection, neither ignores or attempts to erase the pain and suffering of God’s people. Resurrection isn’t in the business of starting over. Resurrection isn’t in the business of quick fixes.

These images of God and Jesus mourning alongside us are too important to overlook. Modern society often chastises crying, viewing it as a sign of weakness. In politics, this perception is especially stark. Leaders who show tears are frequently ridiculed or deemed unfit for their roles. When President Obama teared up while speaking about gun violence, for example, some critics dismissed his display of emotion as performative and a sign of fragility. Minutes after his second inaugural address, President Trump quickly chided his political enemies, labeling one opponent a “crying lunatic.” In a world that favors power and rhetoric over genuine empathy, a God who joins us in our tears is a powerful image of resurrection.

This fifth Sunday of Easter, John reminds us that we are not heaven bound. Heaven is bound for us. God has come to dwell among God’s people, even in our moments of pain and suffering. So, yes, it might be tempting to destroy it all and rebuild from the ground up, but that is not the work God calls us to do. God calls us to join God in the good work of redemption, the work of radical care. We don’t have to burn it all down. We don’t have to escape to some new world. God meets us right here on earth. This is what dispensationalist theology misses. God is not waiting for us to join God in heaven. God is waiting for us to join God in the good work right here on earth.

Notes

1. Lynn R. Huber and Gail R. O’Day, Revelation, Wisdom Commentary Series 58 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2023), 327–328.