³¹When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ³²If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. ³³Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” ³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

Unbenounced to me and to many of us when last we gathered, there was a tragic death in the Cardinals organization.  Pitcher Josh Hancock was killed in a traffic accident.

Five years ago, Darryl Kile died in his hotel room.  Five days prior to Hancock’s death, his teammates were alarmed when he did not show up for a noontime game.  Today there are reports of drinking and driving.  “We are not invincible,” Walt Jocketty reported to the press.

Yet this loss of a shining light brings an overcast to the clubhouse.  When such tragedies strike a community, it is diminished.   A light has gone out.

One must imagine that there is a similar diminishment when Judas leaves the room.  Taking his already dimming wick from the presence of the disciples and Jesus whom he would betray, he goes out.  No one feels this loss more keenly than our own Lord.  But in the midst of the darkness of this hour, he speaks to his disciples about glory.  Five times he uses the word glory.  And glory is a sign of light, of blinding, brilliant light.  That light will shine in the darkness.

Yet this reference to light is also in the midst of his departing.  “As I said to the Jews, so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’” 

Where will the light come from when Jesus departs?  Here Jesus gives a new commandment:  that you love one another.  Light will come in the love of the community.  “As I have loved you, so you should love one another.”  “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Jesus seemed to regard that love was part and parcel of what it meant to be the people of God, and that those outside the community of believers would see this love as a light. 

Yet many have commented on how the church can be greater at loving those who are away and at a distance through support and encouragement than it does at home.

The church does great works for people outside her midst, but may not find it in her heart to regard one another as the brothers and sisters and family we have together.  Here we fall into the darkness of our own diminished light.

There is the humorous and apparently true story of what once happened on a school playground.  A young boy, Bobby, was making faces at other children.  One of his teachers, Ms. Smith, stopped to reprove the child.  “Bobby, when I was a child, I was told that if I made ugly faces, my face would freeze and I would stay like that.”   Bobby looked up and replied innocently, “Well, Ms. Smith, you can’t say you weren’t warned.”

Is it possible that outsiders do not see the love?  And if so, how much are our own lights out?

Yet that is not were Jesus would want to leave us. We must look again at his words, “where I am going you cannot come,” and see how he speaks these words just after turning up the light to full glory.  Light shines in the darkness by his very going where we cannot come.  His Light will shine in the darkest hour of lovelessness on Golgotha.  And it will shine beyond that place of death and the grave and on the morning of Easter.  It will shine over all our darkness.

He loves us so much, he loves the world so much, that he chooses not to stand aloof from our darkness, but to venture deeply into it.  And there, God’s glory would shine even when it would look like lights out for us.  God’s love would shine for us from the cross.

When our own light is diminished, we look to the cross for Christ’s mercy and grace.  There is the glory that replenishes our souls in his love.  As a bridegroom loves his bride the church, so Jesus loves us.  He will wipe away every tear from the eye of his beloved.

“Where I am going you cannot come” means that he takes his journey to the cross and to the grave in a way that we cannot go.  We do not have that kind of love to bear.  But he does, and for us all.  And he has that love for the loveless, for you and for me, so that we may be embraced in his love.

Only here in all the gospels does Jesus use the phrase “little children” to describe us.  It conveys the heart-warming love of our Lord for us that sees us as his very own family, as children of the heavenly Father who will love us as he has loved us in Jesus the Christ. 

That is where we look for our light when it is so easily lost. And it where we look for our love when it is so easily lost.  We look to the cross.  We look to the very mercy of God, the very forgiveness of God, and there find the possibility to love again.

We also look to Christ’s cross to see each other in a different light.  We see each other through the lens of the Crucified One, as those who are made beautiful and whole through his mercies.  

We are a community of love.  That is what we are called.  That love is based on faith that trusts the Lord who loves us in spite of our lovelessness, in spite of our ugliness, in spite of the dark truths in our hearts and in our pasts.  He loves us beyond such as these.

And we become a people who love beyond such as these.  The Easter love of Christ overcomes all tragedy and darkness. 

In preparation for the 50^th anniversary of this congregation, many came out to clean the church and will continue to do so in the coming weeks of May.  You notice the brightness that was not there.  The engagement of love in these efforts shows.  We need that same kind of love to brighten our lives, to lift up one another, to empower one another, to show grace and compassion for one another.  And others will notice the brightness and the glory of Christ at work in our lives.

This is hard for me to say as a Cubs’ fan, but Go Cards!  When there is so much pain and hurt, Go Cards!  It is the Eastering thing to encourage. 

So also, we encourage and build one another up in love.  Go Holy Trinity!  Go with God! Go with grace and love!

There is life, there is love, there is light beyond the grave.  Little children, you know this to be true in your Easter faith in Jesus the Christ!

Light the way!