Aurora Celestin: Making Home With Strangers (May 25, 2025)

Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and God will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” John 14:23.As we journey through Eastertide and work together to figure out how to be Easter people, we have repeatedly returned to Jesus’ mandate to his disciples at the Last Supper to love each other as he has loved them. Yet, as we’ve seen, that’s easier said than done for both Jesus’ disciples and us.John’s account of the Last Supper gives us some clues on putting Jesus’ mandate for love into action. John shows us how Jesus spent a lot of time reassuring the disciples that, even though the worst was coming, they would always have a home and family through love and the Holy Spirit.But how do we make a home in love? The apostle Paul’s trip to Macedonia can help us. Even though the vision that compels him out there is of a man (of course), it’s Lydia, a merchant of purple cloth, who surprises Paul with her openness to living out Christ’s new commandment. It is from this remarkable woman that we learn what it means to be welcomed into a new kind of home for a new kind of commandment.See you Easter People Sunday,Aurora