Sixth Sunday of Easter

I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. - John 14:18

Philip goes to Samaria - the Samaritans, the people the religious establishment would not touch - and there is great joy in that city. Unclean spirits cast out. The paralyzed cured. The people paying attention with one accord. Then Peter and John come and lay hands on those who have been baptized, and the Holy Spirit falls. The joy of the preaching and the signs was real. The Spirit's gift through the laying on of hands was the completion. Both were necessary. Neither was the whole.

Sister, I will not leave you orphans. The word orphan names a specific kind of loss - not just loneliness, but the loss of the one who was your covering, your center, your source of security. Jesus names it because the disciples were about to experience it, and because he refuses to let the fear be the last word. I will come to you. The Advocate is not a replacement - it is the continuing presence of the one who refused to leave.

Blessed be God who refused me not my prayer or his kindness. The psalm closes with that sentence, and it is the testimony of a person who has been through something and come out the other side knowing that the prayer was received. Not that the answer was what they expected. That God did not refuse them. That the kindness was there, even in the difficulty. On that day you will realize I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. The realization comes. Receive it today, before the full clarity arrives.

Peter says: always be ready to give a reason for your hope - but do it with gentleness and reverence. The gentleness and reverence are not constraints on the witness. They are the witness. Who in your life is watching how you carry your hope in a difficult season? That is the reason they will ask about. Be ready not with arguments but with the testimony: blessed be God who refused me not my prayer or his kindness.

Lord, I will not be left an orphan. Let me receive that at the full size of what you are offering - not a diminished presence, not a consolation prize, but you, in me, the Spirit of truth whom I know because you remain with me. Let the hope be visible from the outside without my having to announce it. Alleluia. Amen.