Preparing to leave this world, Jesus prays for those who remain. This is understandable: Christianity is inseparable from the person of Christ Himself. Christianity is not a new religion, not a new theology, not a new morality; it...
Preparing to leave this world, Jesus prays for those who remain. This is understandable: Christianity is inseparable from the person of Christ Himself. Christianity is not a new religion, not a new theology, not a new morality; it is new life. It is precisely this life that Jesus speaks about, and it is precisely this life that He opened to those who became His disciples. Christianity is, after all, the state of being a disciple of Christ: Christians (that is, messianists) was once the name given only to some of His disciples in one specific city, and only later did all His followers adopt this name for themselves.
Yet Christianity is a very special discipleship. Usually a teacher trains disciples in a craft, techniques, practices - something that, when the training is complete, can become an inseparable possession of the disciple. This applies to any learning: from mastering a craft under an experienced craftsman to training in spiritual and ascetic practices under masters of such practices. With Christ everything is different. Jesus, praying, says that He has revealed the Father's name to His disciples.
The main thing, however, lies elsewhere: in the life to which He has joined them. Yet one is inseparable from the other, because among believing Yahwists the sacred name of God was always connected with theophany and communion with God. To know the sacred name meant to know God Himself in the dynamic reality of one's relationship with Him. To become the embodied name meant to become God's person absolutely, to the very end - to the extent that human nature allows.
To the end and in fullness, this was achieved in human history by only one person, Jesus, for He was free from sin from the very beginning. For us, all the rest of humanity, one thing remains: to partake of His life, the life of the Kingdom that He brought into our world, which had separated itself from God by the wall of our sin. Discipleship here is not about learning from Him some skills, techniques, or practices (even spiritual or ascetic ones), but about learning a new life. It is about acquiring a new quality of one's own life, because new life becomes real for us only when it becomes ours. It is about learning to abide in the newly acquired life, to preserve it - to preserve it as a state, because this new life cannot become our property, even an acquired one, at least not at the earthly stage of our path. And only then, if we manage to solve this minimum task, will we be able to call ourselves true disciples of our Teacher: disciples for whom the Kingdom and its life are not merely words.
