The Next Step After Easter

“To all who did receive Jesus-Christ, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” These verses, 12 and 13, taken from first chapter of the Gospel of John, introduce us to the aim of Jesus’ mission. Easter is not the end, but a way to go forward in God’s plan. Jesus washes our feet to share with him (Jn13:8), He takes us to pass from forgiveness to reconciliation, from salvation to the kingdom of God and from sinners to Children of God.

Jesus came to redeem us and to give us the desire to open our hearts to receive the Spirit of God which can come and dwell in us as a temple. Jesus came to give us the blessing to live with the Holy Spirit, like he did himself and to live in harmony with God, as it was planned in the beginning when God created humanity, before its falling into sin.

The mission of Christ reveals to us the truth about God and us. We are God’s creatures, we come from Him and He gives us life. Now we are in God’s hands, He loves us, He is merciful, we can love Him and collaborate with Him and decide to live according to Him. We are going to God to be with Him intil the last day of our life.

Saint Seraphim of Sarov, an Orthodox priest, in 1831, said: “The true aim of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God.” The Holy Spirit leads us to be friends of Jesus. “You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” Jn 15:14-15.

Jesus came to open the way from Easter towards Pentecost.