NOTES for Joh 5:42-44

What, after all, is wrong with wanting to rejoice in the light of a lamp? The key words here are ‘for a little while.’ A lamp has an advantage over the sun in that we can turn it on and off whenever we wish. We cannot do that with the sun. Of course, John the Baptist, like all the prophets, was a rather inconvenient person because he spoke God’s words. But one could turn away from him, listen to some things and let others go in one ear and out the other… Jesus proves a far more inconvenient Man than John or any of the prophets, because He speaks with authority (Lk 4:32). His word enters the heart and becomes a fire there, either warming and healing or burning it up. Why, as Jesus says, do those who hear Him refuse to come to Him to have life? Because what He offers is not a little piece of life, but Life in all its fullness. We want to take just as much life as we need right now to feel comfortable. But when we look at Him and hear His voice, we realize that this will not work. He is the Light that illumines everything, lighting up the darkest corners of the soul. Precisely for this reason, it is impossible to remain indifferent to Him. We cannot choose ‘a little piece of Christ’s light.’ Either we accept Him and agree that our whole life should be in His light, or we choose darkness.

Jesus has just spoken of His inseparable unity with the Father, yet now He declares that He seeks the will of the Father who sent Him and can do nothing of His own accord. Here is another apparent contradiction, revealing the mystery of the Son's self-abasement, the mystery of His union with human nature. Having become human, He voluntarily placed Himself in obedience to the Father and went through earthly life as any of us does. In doing so, however, He enabled us human beings to see how one can walk through life, what a person free from sin could be like.

Jesus accepts and confirms John the Baptist's testimony about Him; His words about John are full of respect. At the same time, however, Christ points out the limitations of those who wanted to rejoice around John for a little while but drew none of the necessary conclusions from his ministry. As we know, remarkable spiritual ascetics who lead people to the truth quite often become dear to their disciples and followers for their own sake, regardless of where they called them to go. It would be unjust to attribute to them a desire to create an atmosphere of adulation and idol worship around themselves: they are not to blame for it. Great is the human weakness that prevents us from keeping a proper measure even in what is good in itself. But saints and spiritual ascetics came not in their own name, but in God's Name. We should not forget Him, especially while honoring His faithful servants.

And the warning that someone who comes in his own name will be accepted is still relevant. Often this is precisely why he is accepted: it is so easy to understand…

In Christ's words today, addressed to the Jews who do not believe in Him, there are several points that matter to us as well. First come the well-known words that the Old Testament Scriptures, through which the Jews thought they would find eternal life, bear witness to Christ. This gives us a key to understanding both the Old Testament as a whole and particular passages that are difficult to understand or accept. Moreover, Christ's call to examine the Scriptures as testimony about Him defines the purpose of the Bible's existence as a sacred book.

It is very important that the Law—the part of Scripture that goes back to Moses—is also testimony about Jesus Christ, not a set of rules necessary and sufficient for attaining eternal life. The Law, then, is concerned not only, and not so much, with what is permitted and what is forbidden as with what is worthy of the Son of God, who became incarnate for our sake, and what is unworthy of Him.

Most importantly, however, in today's reading the Lord speaks of why it can be so difficult for a person to believe Him. We usually think that first we will make sure, and then… somehow our life and our relationship with God will change. But the Lord says that love for God and trust in Him come first. One can demand proof of the existence of an invisible higher power, just as any of us is entitled to demand proof of the existence of an electromagnetic field. One can demand of Jesus of Nazareth signs that He shares in this higher power. But love and trust are possible only and exclusively in relation to a personal God. In this, Christ's words today continue the Old Testament and bring it the fullness of truth.

God is a person, and it is impossible to speak or think of Him in the third person. When we find ourselves having to call God 'He,' like the Jews surrounding Christ or people of later times, we lose something very important. If speaking in the third person about someone present beside us is not quite polite, then doing so about the omnipresent God is simply impossible. God is always 'You,' and only in this way can one accept the testimony about the Son of God and believe Him.

Speaking about the essence of His conflict with the Pharisees, Jesus puts their distrust of God first. It would appear to be a strange accusation, since the people in question are deeply religious, ready to do much for the sake of their religion, including, if necessary, sacrifice. Of course, there was often no small amount of harshness in this religiosity; readiness to die for one's faith often stood side by side with readiness to kill for that same faith. But after all, both were done in the name of God and faith!

And still Jesus speaks of the absence of love and trust toward God in His listeners. What is this: a feature of Pharisaic religiosity? If that were so, everything would be simpler, especially for us, who have nothing to do with the religion of the Pharisees. But the matter, as we can see, is not so simple. Jesus says directly that He is not the one judging the Pharisees who reject Him; rather, the Torah, whose violation they are trying to accuse Him of, judges them. And in reply He says that the Torah bears witness to Him.

Such a statement may seem strange: after all, in the Torah, unless one tries to interpret it with obvious stretches, nothing is said about the Messiah. But the Torah, on which Judaism is based, never fit completely within Judaism, just as it does not fit entirely within any religious framework. On the other hand, it was precisely the Torah, and above all, of course, the inner Torah about which the same Pharisees could not fail to know, that should have led Jesus' listeners beyond the limits of their own religion, opening to them something greater, if only they had been fully consistent in following the Torah.

But the whole trouble with every religion is that, at first stimulating a person toward spiritual life, at some point it inevitably begins to hinder him in that life, setting a certain spiritual ceiling and demanding from its adherents a compromise between its own requirements and what God calls the one walking the path of righteousness to do. And then a person has to choose between God and a religion that is so familiar and convenient. And Jesus sees that His listeners have made their choice in favor of their religion. And He says that the Torah, which points the way into the Kingdom, will from now on become for them not a support, but a judgment. As it does for everyone who rejects God and the Torah for the sake of anything at all, even for the sake of his own religion. Whatever that religion may be.

"The hour is coming and is now here" - in John's Gospel we hear these words when the Lord speaks about His mission on earth. The first Christians often understood the promises of the Lord Jesus as a description of what was soon coming: the Day of the Lord, the end of this world, when He would judge the living and the dead after the general resurrection in the flesh. But if this event is assigned to the future, near or distant, then first, it is unclear what it means that the hour "is now here," and second, words about the future can be important as a promise of our resurrection, but not as a description of what is really happening now.

And yet the Gospel is a very real book. It was written so that we may have life now, not merely be frightened by the future Judgment and begin to behave well. If this is so, then acquittal at the judgment of the Son of Man and the eternal life of the Father are already active, already taking place in the life of the one who has believed His words, and His voice even now gives life to those "who are in the tombs."

Today's reading helps us better understand the essence of Jesus' conflict with that part of the Synagogue which rejected and condemned Him. He Himself speaks of this quite clearly: the chief problem of His opponents is that they never knew the real, living God (vv. 37-38). At first glance, such a statement can appear strange, since both supporters and opponents of Jesus were, for the most part, deeply religious people, familiar with Scripture and, at least in words, awaiting the Messiah and the Kingdom. Yet religion, as we can see, had turned for them from a means into an end in itself. The Savior characterizes this situation in one short phrase: you seek glory from one another, and not from God (v. 44).

Every religion is the work of human hands. Of course, the revelation given by God often needs a religious covering in order to be preserved and handed on to coming generations, but its role here is purely auxiliary; religiosity as such has no relation to revelation. Yet, like every human work, religion gives broad scope for creative self-expression, since such different forms of culture as science, art, and ascetic practice are united in it. And, like every human work, religion can capture a person completely. More than that, as nothing else can, it can influence the formation of the value system both of individuals and of entire communities.

It is no surprise that every religion, and especially one such as Judaism, whose foundation is a centuries-old tradition connected with revelation given by God, sooner or later closes itself within its own boundaries and becomes self-sufficient. Then its followers have to make special efforts to break through their religiosity toward God. But Jesus' opponents, as we can see, were not at all inclined toward such efforts. On the contrary, all their strength was directed toward maintaining the religious covering which, in principle, was supposed to protect the revelation once received from God, but in reality had long since ceased to fulfill that function. It is not by chance that Jesus says that the Torah itself, given through Moses, will become their judgment (v. 45): for keeping faithfulness to the Torah means keeping faithfulness to God and to the One whom He sends, not to religious tradition as such, even if that tradition owed its origin to the Torah (vv. 46-47).

And the point is not that the Lord is offended by those who do not receive Him: in general He cares little for glory or fame (v. 41). The point is that the time of Judgment is already near, and He wants everyone to enter the Kingdom (v. 34). For Judgment places everyone before the choice between life and death. And no religion can help anyone here. Only the One who brought the Kingdom into the world can help.