NOTES for Joh 14:21-26

The conversation during the Last Supper is, in essence, devoted to one theme: the theme of the Kingdom. Before His death and the resurrection awaiting Him, the Savior wants to tell His disciples as much as possible about what awaits them. They understand Him entirely in human terms, in keeping with the popular messianic ideas characteristic of the age. One of the most important themes connected with the Kingdom was the theme of the Holy Spirit. This is understandable: God's breath permeates the Kingdom to its very furthest limits. This breath, properly speaking, constitutes the nature of the Kingdom, or rather what replaces nature in the Kingdom. Everything that becomes part of the Kingdom is permeated by it. All its residents share in it. The path of Jesus, which is ending on earth, continues in the Kingdom. And for His disciples and followers the Kingdom opens precisely as this breath of God, the breath of the Holy Spirit.

The disciples, however, are waiting for something else. They cannot understand: where is that messianic Kingdom, visible to each and every person, about which people say so much? When will it come? They are waiting for the beginning of a messianic uprising in which all of them will have to take part. They are waiting for the heavenly host, angelic legions that of course will appear at their Teacher's call, since for Him nothing is impossible. They do not understand why their Teacher is finally going to reveal Himself only to them alone, and not to the whole world. Does that mean there will be no Kingdom? Only a small circle of supporters and followers?

It was not yet clear to them that one cannot enter physically into the Kingdom their Teacher brought into the world, that one can be in its presence and not notice that presence. They will understand everything only after Pentecost. Then it will become clear to them that the Kingdom "not of this world" is so not because some special laws operate in it, but because its nature is different. Such a nature cannot be found in this world.

And this nature is determined precisely by God's breath, which only the one who wants and seeks can see. But such an understanding of the Kingdom will come to the apostles later. For now they are waiting for the kind of Kingdom they know about. And they are perplexed as they listen to the Teacher. But perplexity in itself does not hinder communion with Christ. Distrust does. Perplexity is a passing matter. The disciples did have trust in the Teacher. In spite of everything. It helped them survive everything that followed and live to see Pentecost.

When each person says the word "Comforter," he imagines something of his own, but there are also common features that can be identified. A comforter should relieve sadness and anguish, wipe away tears, pat one on the head, and say something pleasant. Is this how the Lord understands the word when He speaks of the Comforter?

We find nothing of the sort: the Comforter will teach everything and remind us of everything. Comfort appears before us as knowing, accepting, and taking in the words of Christ. Only in this does the Lord see for us the possibility of being comforted, of finding happiness and freedom.

The Russian translation of the Greek word "Parakletos" emphasizes only one meaning of this many-sided word. And we sometimes expect from the Holy Spirit first of all comfort in our sorrows. But let us notice that Jesus speaks of quite different works of the Spirit, related rather to other translations of His Name. A parakletos was an advocate in a court session who could suggest to the accused the right behavior and the right words. The fact that the Holy Spirit gives strength and words for witness to Christ is said in other places of the New Testament as well (see Matt. 10:19-20; John 15:26; Acts 1:8). But the Spirit not only puts words into the mouth; He brings love and truth into the heart, and precisely love and truth become the source of all our relationships and the driving force of all our actions. This happened with the apostles at Pentecost, and this will happen with us too if only we ask for it, because "the Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him" (Luke 11:13).

The Holy Spirit will teach you all things, but He will also bring to your remembrance all things that Christ said. These words contain the answer to a frequently asked question: by what principle were the canonical Gospels selected, given that there were many more Gospel narratives? The words and episodes recorded by the four Evangelists were preserved precisely because the Holy Spirit did not allow them to be forgotten. Meanwhile, anyone even slightly familiar with the “apocryphal gospels” will agree that, although they use certain Gospel motifs, they belong to a different kind of literature.

As He departs, He leaves peace to the disciples, but emphasizes that His peace is unlike the peace familiar to people. Unfortunately, the peace usually established in human relationships can be defined only negatively, as a temporary absence of war and hostility, and therein lie its weakness and fragility. But the peace brought by Christ is equivalent to the authenticity of life. Beside it, every hostility looks like a dark crevice that the light has not yet reached.

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.

Someone somewhere said: "Love is an instrument of knowledge." And in fact, what can we know about someone we do not love? Having turned away from a person, one cannot come into contact with him, cannot become closer to him, cannot understand him. The same is true when the matter concerns the knowledge of God. What can be known about Him without loving Him, without striving toward Him, is only dry and relative "scholasticism" about the fact that He is, supposedly, so great and strong and wise.

But truly to know Him, ("to know," in the language of Scripture, to be united with Him, to "abide in Him") is given only to the one who is ready to love. That is why Jesus says that He will reveal Himself not to the whole world, but only to the disciples, who will receive the Spirit of truth, revealing the Father to those who can understand Him, that is, love Him.

Speaking to His disciples about His path and ministry, Jesus mentions a “Comforter” whom the Father will send them and whom, Jesus Himself says, the world can neither see nor know (vv. 16-17). This “Comforter,” whom Jesus also calls the “Holy Spirit” (v. 26) and the “Spirit of truth” (v. 17), will in due course remind the apostles of everything they are now hearing from their Teacher (vv. 25-26). The mention of God's spirit, or breath—the corresponding Greek word, like its Hebrew equivalent, can mean either—in the context of an account of the Kingdom is, of course, no accident. The Old Testament prophets were the first to speak of God's spirit, or breath. For them the spirit was not an abstract theological or philosophical concept but part of a living experience of communion with God; they truly felt God breathing in their hearts.

But Jesus apparently means something more. He speaks of the spirit as a reality on a universal, cosmic scale that nevertheless remains hidden from the world, for this reality belongs to a different order than our still untransformed world. The breath of God unites everyone who abides in the Kingdom, making them one whole: the Father, Jesus Himself, the apostles, and all who will enter the Kingdom through their prayers and under the influence of their preaching. In the past, only certain people felt God's breath at special, exceptional moments in their lives; now it is revealed to everyone who abides in the Kingdom. And no wonder: God's breath permeates the Kingdom, gives it life, and gives it the power to affect the world by transforming it. Because of this breath there are no distances in the Kingdom; here only the quality of relationships and the intensity of love determine mutual closeness.

Until now, the apostles had seen the Kingdom only because of Jesus: they looked at Him, and through Him God's power was revealed to them. Now they were to enter and see from within what they had previously seen only from outside. The time was coming when Jesus would become invisible to a world capable of seeing only what had not yet been transformed. The apostles themselves would therefore no longer see Him with physical sight; but after entering the Kingdom, they would find Him there, seeing Him no longer with their eyes but with their hearts (vv. 19-20). It is no accident that Jesus speaks of a peace unknown to the untransformed world (v. 27): true peace and harmony are possible only in the Kingdom, permeated by God's breath and joined by bonds of love. Again and again Jesus calls the apostles into this Kingdom so that, having become part of it, they may carry it into the world that so greatly needs transformation and sanctification.

Another Comforter will remain with the disciples. It is not said that He will remain with everyone, most likely because those who reject the Son also reject the Spirit of Truth. One must accept Jesus, and then those who accept Him will be able to receive both the Father and the Spirit. Christ humbled Himself, but through His self-emptying we can attain the fullness of communion with God.

Christ promises the disciples that He will not leave them as orphans and that He will come again. Which coming does He mean—His Resurrection, the coming descent of the Holy Spirit, or the Second Coming? However these words are understood, He is near His faithful; He loves us and does not abandon us.

The sign of love—keeping the commandments—may seem too simple, and one can easily dismiss it as an expression of formal legalism. But depth begins at the surface. Observing basic rules is neither formalism nor mere discipline, but the pledge and first expression of a profound relationship with God that surpasses everything one could initially imagine.

The words we read today, “Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him,” are wonderful, kind, saving words. We often forget this, carried away by self-punishing repentance. In fact, repentance is joy, for obedience is love. When the Lord tells His disciples what to do, they are amazed; it seems impossible to them. “When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’” (Matt 19:25) It is hard to explain to a three-year-old child that his mother does not give him another sweet not because she is greedy or unkind, but because it would harm him. And sometimes it is simply impossible to explain to someone who has not found God how good it is to heed God’s commandments and obey them. Only as we grow into full maturity do we come to this, and only then do we finally understand what true love is: love that desires not for itself, but for the beloved. Yet when one reaches this point, when the heart already seems so full of love that everything within is burning and one is ready to go through fire and water for another person, even to the scaffold... at some point one discovers that love has run dry. Everyone goes through this. Juan de la Cruz called this state “the dark night of the soul.” But this happens only so that we may understand that God alone is the source of love, and that we love not because we are so kind and wonderful, but because He gives it. For, as our poet so beautifully said, “and sympathy is given to us as grace is given to us” (F. Tyutchev).

In the Last Conversation with the disciples, the Lord says two symmetrical things that mark the Christian's path. Like mileposts, these words stand on our road. "Whoever has My commandments," says the Lord, "is the one who loves Me." At the same time He says, "The one who loves Me will keep My commandments." If He had said only the first, it would have made Christianity a religion of law, in principle no different from the Old Covenant. If the Lord had said only the second, then our faith would have depended on elusive movements of the heart, which sinful humanity does not have the strength to control.

But precisely the paradoxical combination of these two, essentially opposite, statements places Christ Himself at the center and opens the possibility of salvation and life for everyone and always. Some of us are more inclined to try to fulfill the Lord's word, and through this we can come to know Him and love Him so that this love transforms the whole person. Others, by contrast, come to know Christ through the word, through the Church, or through any number of other paths, and for love of Him they begin in practical life to try to do what they had never even thought about before.

In the natural sciences there is a concept: a system with autocatalysis. These are systems in which two processes accelerate each other so that uncontrolled growth of the system begins. Explosive and chain reactions happen this way, for example. Combustion in active media happens this way... Perhaps what the Lord offers us is also a system with autocatalysis. Love for Jesus, the desire for communion and unity with Him, changes our life and moves us to fulfill His will. The experience of practical love for people, the experience of keeping the commandments, leads to the point where you can no longer live a single day without Jesus. And the result is autocatalytic, "uncontrolled" growth of the Kingdom of Heaven in your heart.

When telling His disciples about the Kingdom, Jesus describes it by the example of the relations between Himself and His Father, and also between Himself and His disciples. He says to the disciples: if you ask anything of the Father in My name, then I will do what you ask, and if you ask Me anything, I will do it. Thus, as we see, Jesus illustrates His own words that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. In His presentation, the Kingdom turns out to be, first of all, a spiritual space, the space of the relations that unite Him with the Father and with all His disciples, uniting them in such a way that He becomes the Mediator between His disciples and the Father.

Perhaps this is exactly what Jesus means when He says that His Kingdom is "not of this world." Indeed, the only thing in us that does not depend in any way on the laws of our untransfigured world is our relation to someone or something, for it is determined exclusively by our will, which, unlike the body or the soul, remains free under any circumstances. And if the space of the Kingdom is precisely the space of our relations, then it truly can be completely independent of the laws of the world in which we live.

The only thing that can hinder this is our own fallen nature. After all, the fall became, first of all, the result of a wrong choice, an erroneous decision, and the consequence of such errors is above all the weakening of the will, which in a fallen person tends to submit to the very nature that, in a normal state, it should have governed. The only way out of this situation is the intervention of another will: also human, but not subject to original sin. For the spiritual space of the Kingdom, the will of the Messiah becomes just such a will. That is why He becomes the Mediator between God and His disciples and followers: without His will the Kingdom is impossible; it simply will not be the Kingdom of God in the true sense of the word.

Once the space of relations has been created, it is filled with the breath of God, thanks to which this space can spread wider and wider, including more and more hearts and saving more and more souls, right up to the moment when the Savior's return marks the completion of this process and the full triumph of the Kingdom that transfigures the world.

That the Lord loves us is a fact that requires no proof; He loves unconditionally, in a way none of us knows how to love. And naturally, when this love remains unanswered on our part, it brings Him no joy. He wants us to respond to His love, although everyone (both He and we) understands that by definition there can be no "worthy" response from us: our love is immeasurably less than His.

And yet He does not lower the bar. He does not say that He, God, must be respected, feared, obeyed, and so on. He says: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matt 22:37, see Deut 6:5). The question is: how is this possible? How can we reach what He expects from us?

Today Christ Himself gives the answer. An unusual answer. We are used to perceiving rules and ordinances separately, and love and personal relationships separately. For us, say, even in family life these are most often two different areas. But today Jesus shows that this is not so: the one who keeps His commandments is the one who loves Him (see John 14:21).

That is how it is. Everything turns out to be very simple and at the same time very difficult, because loving Him is also a commandment. The result is a closed circle, and only God Himself, who promised that He would reveal Himself to us, helps us understand it. In this we place our hope: He will come to us and teach us everything (see John 14:26).