NOTES for Joh 21:21-22

This may be the unique quality of our faith. It rests not on fulfilling certain laws, not on a shared ritual, though it rests on both, but most of all on deeply personal communion between me and the Lord. The Lord and I. Not someone else, even the best friend and brother in faith, but only He and I. And although Judaism is a very normative religion, the roots of this unfathomably deep intimate communion still go back precisely to the Old Testament. Let us recall: what is man, that You are mindful of him, and the son of man, that You visit him? (Ps 8:5) The image of the Lord coming to tell a person something about himself, about how he should live, is a unique revelation of God's nearness; it is both difficult and necessary. Difficult, because one must learn to listen, and necessary, because without this there is no life. In the Third Book of Kings there is a story about a man of God (3 Kgs 13:11-32). What caused the death of the man of God? After all, he died because he listened to the old prophet, who sincerely wished him well and respected him so much that he even ordered himself to be buried beside him. But the man of God turned away from what the Lord had said personally to him, looking instead at what had been said to someone else, even though that someone was a prophet. We must trust very deeply what we hear not with the ear, but with the heart.