For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me
and have come to believe that I came from God.
Jesus came to demonstrate his love for the Father, and the love with which they together so loved the world. He revealed a heart of compassion for all those who were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. His invitation to the ones to whom he came was that they believe in him, that they come to know him. This faith would give them a window into his own love for the Father. Seeing the love of the Father and the Son had the power to fill the hearts of believers with that same love, nothing less than the Holy Spirit himself. Without faith how could our own love ever come close to resembling the living bond of love who is the Spirit? But with truly personal and relational faith, beginning with our relationship with Jesus himself, we could be genuinely lifted up and incorporated into this great love. The more we chose to do this, and opened ourselves to this transformation, the more we would resemble Jesus himself. The Father would then love the image of his Son in us, like an artist seeing the true form of a statue gradually emerges from the raw materials.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.
Until now you have not asked anything in my name;
By faith, hope, and love we are conformed to the image of Jesus himself.
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (see Romans 8:29).
The more we are conformed to his image the more truly we can live, love, act, and desire, in the name of Jesus. As we grow in union with Jesus our desires become more and more those of his own Sacred Heart. These are desires which the Father cannot refuse, to which he will not say no. But we should not wait until we are perfect to start asking the Father for our needs. Jesus said, "Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you" (see Matthew 7:7, Amplified). He taught many parables on the value of persevering in prayer (for example Luke 11:5-8, 18:1-8). We know that Jesus did not expect us to change the Father's mind. Rather, he knew that by persistence our own hearts would be changed to be more like his own. Somehow, mysteriously, holding on to our desires for God to work would refine us as we surrendered our stipulations about method and timing and all of the rest. We can even see the agony of Jesus in Gethsemane as a model for this, wherein he did not surrender his desire for the salvation of mankind, yet yielded his human preferences about how this would take place to the will of his Father (see Matthew 26:36-46).
The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures
but I will tell you clearly about the Father.
The resurrection made it possible for us to be filled with the Spirit and to attain a deep and experiential knowledge of the Father, united to Jesus himself through our baptism. What came before the resurrection as mere "figures" could now be unlocked "clearly" by the Spirit. As for the disciples at Emmaus, Jesus himself could now reveal that all of Scripture was in fact about him. The Spirit by which the all of Scripture was written now corresponded to the Spirit in the hearts of believers, allowing us to experience them as a living and effective reality. The sequence was not in the order we might have guessed. Rather, we would probably have expected that we would need to understand the Scriptures, then believe, and then love Jesus. In fact, Jesus first loved us, and then we were empowered to respond with faith and love. That love, nothing less than the Spirit himself, then enabled us to understand the Scriptures, to draw from them ever increasing depths of meaning and of power.
I came from the Father and have come into the world.
Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.
Jesus returned to the Father but did not leave us orphans. We remain united to Jesus himself by the power of his Spirit. He continued to teach us and lead us to the Father by this same Spirit. Just as Jesus himself was motivated and even "driven" by the Spirit (see Mark 1:12) so now his body would be as well.
with ardent spirit, spoke and taught accurately about Jesus,
although he knew only the baptism of John.
Apollos may not have had a perfect understanding of the message about Jesus himself, may even have by missing what we recognize as key elements. But this did not disqualify him from speaking about Jesus. Priscilla and Aquilla did not try to silence him for a few years while he brushed up on doctrine or attended seminary. Rather, they recognized that his faith made him ready to receive clarification and correction.
they took him aside
and explained to him the Way of God more accurately.
Perhaps like Apollos there is still much we do not know or things we still get wrong. Perhaps we are therefore afraid to ask the Father in the name of Jesus, afraid to speak the message of Jesus with an ardent spirit. Jesus seems to be inviting us to start now, to begin with our meager attempts to desire what he himself desires, and to speak his message, while trusting him to refine and perfect us as we do so.
After his arrival he gave great assistance
to those who had come to believe through grace.
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