A Reflection for Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Find today’s readings here
But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go.
For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
In Mrs. Owens’ sixth-grade science class, I learned about one of the most fascinating aspects of animal biology: regeneration. I was never much of a “science kid,” always gravitating towards reading and writing classes, but I often think about that classroom, decorated in cell diagrams crafted from sun-washed construction paper, pinned across the bulletin boards, and the one lesson Mrs. Owens taught about starfish (or sea stars, as some biologists now call them).
She explained how if a starfish is cut in half, it can grow into two completely new, completely separate starfish. They may not have all five arms, but they can grow an extra limb to keep themselves strong and stable. The only way their regeneration system fails is if the central disk to which all the nerves connect is severed. Starfish are not endangered, but because they are essential members of an underwater ecosystem, their cells have evolved to protect them.
Persistent and resilient things, those starfish.
I thought about this phenomenon while reading today’s Gospel. Jesus tells his disciples that he will leave them, and knowing that this news fills them with grief, he reminds them that he must go so that “the Advocate” will come. Now, the Apostles do not know that the Advocate is the Holy Spirit. They cannot begin to fully understand the triune God until the Holy Spirit descends upon them. For now, it seems as though Jesus, their friend who just rose from the dead, is leaving them yet again. The very person they have built communities around, centered themselves upon and loyally follow announces that he will leave them. “It is better for you that I go,” Jesus says. How is this possible?
It sounds like the central disk is being severed, that the fellowship of the Apostles may be collapsing. Jesus knows the disciples will worry about this, but, as Jesus says, not one of them asks, “Where are you going?” Perhaps they are more concerned that Christ is leaving them, and not with the fact that he is going to be with “the one who sent me.”
Though Christ will no longer dwell among them as the Son of God, he will be enlivened within them by the Holy Spirit. Regeneration will occur through the Holy Spirit, who will reanimate the mission of the disciples by descending upon them.
The disciples will still be connected to a core, the central mission of their apostleship and thus the mission of all Christians to continue this regeneration within our communities—to evangelize the very best that we can and share the Gospel message. While Jesus is not among them, the disciples will continue to grow communities in his name, new limbs built around the same core.
