Everything that the Father gives me will come to me,
and I will not reject anyone who comes to me
Jesus promised that he would welcome everyone who came to him as gifts of his heavenly Father. All those whom the Father calls, including us, are gifts of the Father to Jesus.
because I came down from heaven not to do my own will
but the will of the one who sent me.
Jesus was able to receive everything his Father gave him without rejecting anything because he did not come to do his own will. We are usually not able to be as open as Jesus because we are more interested in a litany of personal preferences that make us reject some while perhaps accepting a few that are to our taste. What we don't realize when we act this way is that we're imposing limits on ourselves as to the gifts we will let ourselves receive, preventing others from being gifts to us in the ways that the Father intends.
We can be confident that Jesus did not come only to accept people who fulfill a certain stereotype or maintain a certain appearance. He did not come only to accept those who lived a life of perfect and consistent holiness, if indeed there were any such to be found. Rather, his heart was utterly open to welcome anyone who would come, saints, sinners, outcasts, outsiders, those who didn't fit in, and even those more normal individuals who saw nothing extraordinary about themselves.
And this is the will of the one who sent me,
that I should not lose anything of what he gave me,
but that I should raise it on the last day.
Because Jesus came in order to save the world and not only the perfect he knew that he would have to not only welcome those who came to him but also to hold fast to them in the palm of his hand and to keep them with his protective care. It would not have been enough for Jesus to come and give us a blast of holiness, regenerating us, and then leaving us to fend for ourselves. He knew well that we would continue to need his care from moment to moment if we were to continue to live as he lived. He was aware that we would continue to fall and need help to stand again and continue. In fact, even those who appeared to continue to stand only did so because of the grace that resulted from this intention of Jesus to "not lose anything" the Father gave him. Jesus has this providential care for each of us, meaning it doesn't ultimately come down to what we ourselves can do or manage. Even our mistakes, even our sins, are not enough to make Jesus lose his hold on us. It is he himself who designed the sacrament of Confession. It is his voice within us that draws us back, his own hands continuing to hold us.
For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him
may have eternal life,
and I shall raise him on the last day.
Jesus came to solve the problems of sin and death in a way that only he could. God himself did not create death and neither did he delight in the death of sinners (see Wisdom 1:13). One way we could view the Passion of Jesus was as his holding firmly unto those who would come to him, bringing them safely through death together with him to the resurrection. Because Jesus refused to let anything shake his hold on us even death itself is no longer an absolute tragedy. It is certainly still sorrowful from a human point of view. But now it is also a doorway, a passage, which, when seen in faith, is more full of hope than sadness.
The souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them.
They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;
and their passing away was thought an affliction
and their going forth from us, utter destruction.
But they are in peace.
It is possible to make Jesus let go, possible to abandon ourselves to despair. But he will not give us up willingly even to our own foolishness. Let us work with him and not against him a he, the Good Shepherd, leads us through the dark valley, and to the banquet table of eternity.
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