(Adults, you could begin by reading the first paragraph of the reflection to the child, then read the Gospel, and then continue with the reflection.)
This Sunday, we celebrate the fifth Sunday of Easter. In this time of celebration, we think more and more about what dying and rising to new life mean. On this Sunday, we listen to something Jesus says before he dies and rises to new life. We listen to his words about love.
Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
Jesus knows that soon he will die on the cross. His own disciples do not want him to die. They think that death is the end. They must worry; when Jesus dies, will he stop loving them? But Jesus knows something more.
What happens when Jesus dies on the cross?
God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.
God glorifies Jesus. What does glorify mean?
To glorify someone means to lift them up in glory—so full of beauty, so magnificent, so grand. It means to make them the king.
When Jesus dies, God glorifies Jesus. God glorifies Jesus at once. God lifts him up and fills him with life so full of beauty, so magnificent, so grand—life that will never end in death. God makes Jesus the king.
Jesus says,
“Little children, I am with you only a little longer.
Jesus knows that dying is not the end, but it is a great change. He has his old life a little longer, until the cross, and then, when God fills him with new life, he is with his friends—little children—in a new way.
How is Jesus with little children?
In the Bible we hear,
Having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end.
We are in the world. Are we Jesus' own?
When we are baptized, the priest makes this on our foreheads with his thumb:
We know what that is! It is a cross. It is Jesus' sign. The priest makes the sign of the cross on our foreheads to show that we belong to Jesus.
We are Jesus' own! Jesus loves us to the end!
But Jesus has life that does not end, so the loving just goes on and on and on!
Forever and ever.
Amen.