February 8

John 14

1 “Do not let your hearts be distressed. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. Otherwise, I would have told you, because I am going away to make ready a place for you. 3 And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too. 4 And you know the way where I am going.”

5 Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you have known me, you will know my Father too. And from now on you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be content.” 9 Jesus replied, “Have I been with you for so long and yet you have not known me, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I don not speak on my own initiative, but the Father residing in me performs his miraculous deeds. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, but if you do not believe me, believe because of the miraculous deeds themselves. 12 I tell you the solemn truth, the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

15 “If you love me, you will obey my commandments. 16 Then I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever – 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept because it does not see him or know him. But you know him because he resides with you and will be in you.

18 “I will not abandon you as orphans, I will come to you. 19 In a little while the world will not see me any longer, but you will see me; because I live, you will live too. 20 You will know at that time that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you. 21 The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him.”

22 “Lord,” Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “what has happened that you are going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” 23 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. 24 The person who does not love me does not obey my words. And the word you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me.

25 “I have spoken these things while staying with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and will cause you to remember everything I said to you.

27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give it to you as the world does. Do not let your hearts be distressed or lacking in courage. 28 You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father because the Father is greater than I am. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe. 30 I will not speak with you much longer, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me, 31 but I am doing just what the Father commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Get up, let us go from here (John 14, NET).

When you look at a painting of the Last Supper – Da Vinci’s is the most famous example, but it was a subject taken on by many of artists of the pre-modern period, often making icons, as well as by painters chasing after Da Vinci’s masterpiece both during and after the Renaissance – you’ll see one of the disciples leaning against Jesus. This is, of course John, the disciple whom “Jesus loved.” Jesus loved all the disciples, but throughout John’s gospel, you see John refer to himself this way as a way to avoid talking directly about himself. He’s not a main character in the gospel, that’s Jesus, and John wants your focus on Jesus; that’s where his was. But he pops up enough that you get to see something of the unique way John approaches this most intimate, most personal of the gospels, a tone that is repeated in John’s epistles found later in the New Testament.

Of all the four gospels, John’s has the most concentrated focus on the passion week, and especially on that last evening that ended in Jesus’s arrest. Much of the Last Supper discourse that we read is unique to John’s gospel, and I think this is because John likely wrote his gospel after the other three were already in circulation. John’s gospel is a very personal gospel, very focused on Jesus’s relational nature, his care for the people with whom he interacted, not least John himself.

Chapter 14 is within this final discourse Jesus has with his disciples, and even though he’s about to go through the hardest night of his or anyone’s life (just what does it mean that the Father forsakes the Son as he hangs on the cross!? I know I don’t want to know!), he’s giving his disciples a bit of a pep talk to prepare them for what they’re about to see.

As I read through chapter 14, I was thinking again of the Abrahamic blessing – we’re going to see it next week – that Abraham would be blessed to be a blessing, and that God would follow through in faithfulness. Here Jesus gives a bit more detail for how this will work as the disciples move from being followers of this greatest rabbi to being leaders in the church that proclaims Him as more than teacher, as in fact “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” the One who uniquely embodies the Father’s love for humankind, the Father’s purposes for us to live as sacrifices and finding our purpose in giving of ourselves in love, the only way to come to the Father.

It had to have been scary to be one of those guys (or gals), seeing Jesus perform miracle after miracle, hearing him confound the great religious scholars of their culture with his radically pure vision of what following God really was all about, and then turning himself over willingly to be tried, condemned, and executed by a political and religious conspiracy. All the power of corrupted religion was poured out on him as he was condemned as blasphemer. All the power of a corrupt state just looking to maintain its eminence was poured out on him as he was executed as a failed king to rival Caesar. But Jesus wasn’t playing by the same rules.

In John 14, we get this encouragement to live by those different rules. There is a hope, a hope beyond this life, a hope even beyond death, that Jesus will return for us and make us a place to dwell with him forever. He guaranteed it with his own body, and John makes sure to take lots of time (go look at chapter 20 and 21 of his gospel) to share with his readers about Jesus’s initial return, about his real, tangible, physical body not just pulled out of a coma, not just recovered from a brutal beating, but the dead man made new, truly resurrected into a new life. It’s still mysterious to us this side of eternity just what all is entailed in the resurrection life; nonetheless, it’s the promise of Jesus.

And as down-payment on this resurrection life, John shares this lengthy discussion about the way Father, Son, and Spirit co-act to provide us with all we need, “whatever [we] ask in [Jesus’s] name!” We’ve already read Romans 8 where Paul elaborates on the way the Holy Spirit works with and in us to quicken our consciences, to reorient our minds, to make the Word come alive. Each generation is responsible to work at this. Each generation needs to find for itself, informed by the Scriptures, this most marvelous of books (or anthology/collection of books), and the manifold ways the traditions of the saints who’ve gone before us inform us, the way that the Spirit is operating in its day.

My prayer for you as you read or re-read this text this week is that you resonate with the experiences of Thomas or Philip or Judas, that even if you don’t understand exactly what God is up to in your life right now, you find joy and hope and trust in his promises. It’s also that you resonate with John’s experiences, leaning against Him, because He is strong, strong enough to overcome sin and hell and death, strong enough to deal with whatever you are facing. Lastly, it’s that you join with the saints of all history, in listening to the Word, listening to the Holy Spirit, and learning to love God by trusting Him with what’s worst about you, and learning to give in return your faithful obedience.

Next week's text is Genesis 12.