NOTES for Joh 16:12-15

In the verses of today's passage from the Gospel of John, the Lord speaks of the Spirit, who will come and guide us "into all truth." And why will He be able to do this - to reveal the truth, to free us from our inability to receive it (see John 16:12)? Because "He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears He will speak"; He will do the will of the One who sent Him. This alone is the pledge of success - and not of personal success, but of the true attainment of eternity.

It would seem, why is this so? The Holy Spirit is God, and He could speak on His own... But we see that Jesus also does the will of the Father who sent Him. The point, apparently, is that between the Persons of the Holy Trinity there is no such division as there is between us and God, and the very fulfillment of the will - this deepest harmony in the actions of the Trinity - happens in a completely different way. This will is precisely one of those things that bind Them, the Persons of the Trinity, together...

So it is for us as well: the will of God, or more precisely, our free consent to it, is called to serve as the connecting link between us and the Kingdom of Heaven.

As we see, Jesus' disciples understand their Teacher with difficulty. And He continues speaking to them in hints and figures of speech. It would appear that if you are not understood, or not fully understood, it would be better to refrain from figures of speech, since in such a situation they can confuse the matter even more. And yet Jesus continues to speak as He speaks. Why?

On the one hand, one could say that He had already more than once, perhaps even in plain words, told the apostles about what awaited Him. As we see, they did not understand Him then either, just as they do not understand now, and therefore Jesus resorts to images and figures of speech in order to convey better to the disciples what is so important for them to understand.

But the matter was perhaps not only this. Why did the apostles understand Jesus with difficulty when He told them about His death on the cross and His Resurrection? Perhaps, above all, because they were completely unready to hear anything like this, and what they heard shocked them. In a state of shock a person is unable to perceive and analyze anything; he simply falls into a stupor.

Seeing this reaction from the disciples, Jesus turns to images, allegories, and figures of speech, because all this forces the listener not simply to listen, but constantly to think over what has been heard, so that the listener himself can come to the conclusions that otherwise would simply shock him. But when you come to shocking conclusions yourself, as the result of your own reflection, they, while remaining shocking and requiring further thought, still do not knock you off balance as much as the words of a person you trust can do when he lays out before you the very same facts in ready-made form.

And Jesus, like a wise teacher, tries during His last earthly meeting with the disciples to lead them toward an understanding of things without which one cannot enter the Kingdom. For He understands perfectly what they will have to live through in the coming days, and He tries to do everything possible so that the prospect of the Kingdom coming into the world will not be hidden by what they will have to experience.

The Lord tells the disciples that after the joy that entered them with His coming there will follow sorrow, which will then once again be transformed into joy. It is as if there are two days separated by night. It is very important to understand that this night of sorrow, when the Lord lies in the tomb and is not with us, this night of God-forsakenness, is something everyone necessarily passes through who truly walks the path of spiritual formation. The fact that our great teachers also experienced such a state, difficult and grace-filled, bears witness to this. It is known that St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, who lived in the eighteenth century, experienced a mystical night of the soul, but even earlier, in the sixteenth century, the great Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross created an astonishingly deep and rich concept: "the dark night of the soul." It is impossible to explain it in a few words, but in the poem with the same title he gives an allusion to the Paschal hymn "Exsultet," which Catholics sing on Holy Saturday. Here are the words of the hymn:

This is the night
when once You led our fathers, the children of Israel,
out of Egypt
and brought them through the Red Sea on dry ground. (...)
This is the night
when Christ, breaking the bonds of death,
rose victorious from hell. (...)
O truly blessed night,
the only one worthy to know the time and hour
when Christ rose from hell.
This is the night of which it is written:
and night will be bright as day;
and night is my light and my joy. (...)
O truly blessed night,
in which earth is joined to heaven,
and humanity to divinity.

Let us return again to the experience of Orthodox ascetics. Theophan the Recluse writes this in his commentary on today's reading: "They say that every soul on the path to perfection experiences a similar blow. Darkness everywhere covers it, and it does not know where to turn; but the Lord comes, and its sorrow is transformed into joy." Let us also try, when we are enveloped by the darkness of God-forsakenness, the loss of faith, when "the mind seeks the Divinity, and the heart does not find it," not to lose heart, but to understand that this night is inevitable, and that a New Day awaits us ahead.

For us, what is happening at this very moment is often very important. We are concerned above all with our own feelings about what is happening. If we are hurting, the whole world around us looks dark and hostile. And if we feel good, our mood is peaceful, the sun is shining, and the whole world is smiling at us. Of course, things are not always so sharply defined, but most often our feelings tend toward one of the poles...

The Lord, however, is trying to teach us one wise practice: to remember that our condition changes, because nothing human is eternal. Only what is from God is eternal: "My righteousness will remain forever, and My salvation from generation to generation" (Isa. 51:8). Speaking today of a woman preparing to give birth, Christ emphasizes that we must not rely on what we feel now, not weep and lament because of sorrows, but remember not the sorrow, but the joy that will follow it (see John 16:20-22). We should think not by the feeling of the moment, but see more broadly and farther ahead. We should try to look at what is happening with God's gaze, seeking in everything meaning and a reason for joy and gratitude to God.

The Lord tells the disciples that after the joy that entered them with His coming there will follow sorrow, which will then once again be transformed into joy. It is as if there are two days separated by night. It is very important to understand that this night of sorrow, when the Lord lies in the tomb and is not with us, this night of God-forsakenness, is something everyone necessarily passes through who truly walks the path of spiritual formation. The fact that our great teachers also experienced such a state, difficult and grace-filled, bears witness to this. It is known that St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, who lived in the eighteenth century, experienced a mystical night of the soul, but even earlier, in the sixteenth century, the great Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross created an astonishingly deep and rich concept: "the dark night of the soul." It is impossible to explain it in a few words, but in the poem with the same title he gives an allusion to the Paschal hymn "Exsultet," which Catholics sing on Holy Saturday. Here are the words of the hymn:

This is the night
when once You led our fathers, the children of Israel,
out of Egypt
and brought them through the Red Sea on dry ground. (...)
This is the night
when Christ, breaking the bonds of death,
rose victorious from hell. (...)
O truly blessed night,
the only one worthy to know the time and hour
when Christ rose from hell.
This is the night of which it is written:
and night will be bright as day;
and night is my light and my joy. (...)
O truly blessed night,
in which earth is joined to heaven,
and humanity to divinity.

Let us return again to the experience of Orthodox ascetics. Theophan the Recluse writes this in his commentary on today's reading: "They say that every soul on the path to perfection experiences a similar blow. Darkness everywhere covers it, and it does not know where to turn; but the Lord comes, and its sorrow is transformed into joy." Let us also try, when we are enveloped by the darkness of God-forsakenness, the loss of faith, when "the mind seeks the Divinity, and the heart does not find it," not to lose heart, but to understand that this night is inevitable, and that a New Day awaits us ahead.

Your sorrow will turn to joy — these astonishing words of Christ express very precisely the essence of Christian hope. It would be inaccurate to say that sorrow will cease and joy will take its place, that joy will replace sorrow. It would be inaccurate to say that joy will arise alongside sorrow, in addition to it. Rather, sorrow itself will become joy, and the two will prove inseparable. There is no Christianity without grief over Christ's suffering and death on the Cross, just as there is none without the joy of the Resurrection. To emphasize this inseparability, the Lord uses the image of the pains of childbirth, which are transfigured by joy at the birth of a new human being.

The various attempts to portray Christianity as the ‘opium of the people’, a religion of groundless consolation, or as a religion of social protest, or as a cult of suffering, founder on this mystery of sorrow's transformation into joy. Human life is always terrible enough, and the Lord always suffers in those who are oppressed and persecuted for righteousness. Yet even in this life there is room for a joy that does not belong to this world and is not given by it. This joy of ours is born of grief and sorrow, and so does not lead Christians away into a world of illusions. It is the joy of the future Kingdom of Heaven, given to us already today. That is why the Lord speaks these most important words, which strengthen Christians: ‘and no one will take your joy from you’. The apostle Paul will later write: ‘nothing can separate us from the love of Christ’.

On Good Friday, on a Good Friday that is not distant from us but closer than ever, although we were not yet alive then, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh spoke these words from the pulpit. '<...> The Mother stood by the Cross; Her Son, betrayed, reviled, cast out, beaten, torn, tormented, was dying on the Cross. And She was dying with Him… Many, surely, looked at Christ; many, surely, felt shame and fear and did not look into His Mother's face. And now we turn to Her, saying: Mother, I am guilty—among others, yes—of Your Son's death; I am guilty—intercede for me. Save us through Your prayer, through Your protection, because if You forgive, no one will condemn or destroy us… But if You do not forgive, Your word will be stronger than any word spoken in our defense… <...> Let us stand before the judgment of our conscience, awakened by Her grief, and bring a repentant, contrite heart. Let us bring Christ our prayer that He may give us strength to awaken, come to our senses, come alive, become human, make our life deep and broad, capable of holding the Lord's love and presence. And with this love let us go out into life to create life, to fashion and build a world, deep and spacious, that would be like a garment clothing the Lord's presence, shining with all the light, all the joy of paradise. This is our calling; this is what we must accomplish by breaking ourselves, giving ourselves, dying if need be—and it is needed!—because to love is to die to oneself, to cease valuing oneself and instead value the other, whether God or a human being; to live for another, laying aside concern for oneself. Let us die as much as we can, let us strive with all our strength to die, so that we may live by love and live for God and for others.' So close to us is that Friday on which the Metropolitan spoke these words, as are all the Good Fridays that have been and will be. 'I am guilty.' I was not alive then, but I am guilty. We cannot regard this day as a symbolic commemoration of events that once took place. No. For the Body and Blood of which we partake are not a symbol, but the very Body and the very Blood. Here I am, and I am guilty here and now. It is frightening when people begin to greet one another for Easter in advance—this really happens, and happens often! Today I know nothing of Easter; I know only one thing: whether woman or man, I am guilty, for He died, and I did nothing to prevent it.

The idea that the Lord has His own pedagogical principles, incomprehensible to us, was thought up long ago and not by us. The famous words spoken by God through the prophet Isaiah are exactly about this: "My thoughts are not your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8). He, the ruler of time, has His own time for everything. He knows exactly when His disciples should learn and understand something.

At times His words can appear to contradict one another: "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34) and "I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world" (John 12:46). But what we try to perceive from our point of view may be something entirely different for God. And therefore He, one may say, cares for us tenderly, watches over us, and waits for the moment when it will be best for us to hear His word, so that we can receive it (see John 16:12).

But it often happens that Christ's words are given to us "in advance," for the future. The Lord knows that we cannot understand everything right away, but all the same He generously shares His Word with us: His life. And it does not matter to Him that it will take us a great deal of time for the meaning of what He said to reach us, first the mind, then the heart. He still speaks to us, so that later on this soil the Holy Spirit will grow something new (see John 16:13).

As the day of Pentecost approaches, it is necessary to listen closely to Christ's words about the coming of the Holy Spirit, so that we do not deprive ourselves of His gifts of grace. Two things are fundamentally important for us. First, that the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. This means that in the coming of the Spirit we will see all this; these things will become evident, will become visible. In the power of the Holy Spirit the Church will know that sin is unbelief in Christ, that righteousness is His Resurrection, and that judgment is His victory over evil.

And the second thing we need so much is guidance into all truth. The Lord says that we will no longer wander through life like blind kittens, not knowing or understanding where life is and where death is. The Holy Spirit will guide us, and in Him we will know the truth and be able to live and move toward God. This is precisely the chief and so necessary gift of the Spirit.

When telling His disciples about the Kingdom, Jesus more than once mentioned its organic incompatibility with the untransfigured world. This, and nothing else, is how He explains the persecutions that will become the inevitable companion of Christians throughout the Church's historical path. What, then, proves to be such an unbearable rebuke to the world, provoking such a violent reaction in response?

First of all, of course, the witness that the "prince of this world" has already been judged. Perhaps if the point were precisely the devil, dark powers, or the forces of evil, there would not be such a sharp reaction to this witness. But the point is the "prince of this world," and therefore the entire order of things existing in the world. Even the righteous who follow the Torah are justified in it not because they are part of this world, but because, and only insofar as, being righteous and following the Torah, they already do not belong to it. The world would like to appropriate to itself everything good that sometimes happens in it contrary to its own nature, and to wash its hands of all the evil that it itself produces by virtue of that nature. But the Kingdom, entering the world, bears witness to the world's true nature, corrupted by sin, thereby provoking the fury of the forces of this world: the fury of a villain whose mask has been publicly torn off.

An additional irritant is the reminder of the One whom the world would like to forget, but of whom it is constantly reminded. No, of course, if the world were reminded of Jesus as, for example, some great theologian, religious reformer, or, at worst, a teacher of morality, this would still be bearable: after all, He is not the first and not the last. But He is pointed to as Someone unique and unrepeatable, who in addition has no desire at all to take account of the world or of its weaknesses and sins.

As we see, the conflict is caused by the very essence of the differences that separate the Kingdom from the world mired in evil. No wonder it will last until the end of time, only becoming sharper with the years.

The disciples cannot understand Jesus' mysterious words: "A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me...". We too can fully share their bewilderment. Even if we know that He said these words to them with His imminent crucifixion, death, and then the meeting after His Resurrection in mind, why are these words addressed to us now? We did not see Him either before the Cross or after the Resurrection.

Perhaps He is speaking of the Second Coming? Perhaps... But here too we hear that the words, the image, and even the very presence of Christ can meet us before the end of the world, when the Comforter brings them with Himself, the One who will speak with the voice of Jesus and teach as the Lord taught, because He Himself will come from the same place from which Christ is from: from the Father.

In speaking to His disciples about His path and His ministry, Jesus could not avoid telling them the meaning of the death that awaited Him. He tells the apostles: My earthly journey is complete; the time has come to part (vv. 5-6). But this is not simply a parting—Jesus leaves so that the Kingdom may be revealed to the world in all its fullness. He says: if I do not complete My earthly, human journey, then My divine fullness will also remain hidden from the world. The apostles themselves will not feel God's breath or come to know the Spirit-Comforter of whom Jesus spoke to them (vv. 6-7).

Meanwhile, the Savior tells His disciples about the coming of the Kingdom. He says that when God's Spirit comes into the world, He will become the chief witness to everything that many people did not want to hear from Jesus and His disciples: the witness to His mission, the defeat of the dark powers, and the sin of rejecting the Messiah sent by God (vv. 8-11). The meaning of this testimony is clear: it is testimony to the Kingdom and to Jesus as the Messiah who brought the Kingdom into the world. No testimony in itself deprives anyone of freedom of choice, of course, and those who reject the testimony of God's Spirit will become persecutors of the witnesses to the Kingdom (vv. 1-4). This is the chief thing; the disciples will learn and understand the rest when they enter the Kingdom and receive the revelation of God's Spirit (vv. 12-15).

Yet the disciples still do not seem fully to believe that Jesus is speaking to them about His death. They are bewildered: what does He mean? Where is He going, and why does He want to hide from them (vv. 16-18)? Jesus then speaks to the apostles with the greatest possible clarity about His death and resurrection. He warns His disciples that they are to experience great sorrow, which will soon give way to even greater joy (vv. 21-22). He promises them that the day will come when they meet again, the day when everything becomes clear to them and they have no questions left (vv. 22-23). Finally, Jesus tells His disciples directly: I came into the world from the Father, and now I am leaving the world again and going to the Father (v. 28).

After these words from their Teacher, the apostles think that at last they understand everything, but Jesus apparently thinks otherwise. He tells the disciples plainly that soon they will all scatter and leave Him alone (vv. 29-32). Yet even the flight of the bewildered disciples is of no consequence: victory over the powers of evil that hold the world captive has been won, and no suffering of the Kingdom's witnesses can now undo it (v. 33).