NOTES for Joh 14:1-11

"I am the way and the truth and the life." That is how these words sound, in a way unfamiliar to our ear. We are more accustomed to "I am the way, the truth, and the life"; then it would be a list of coordinate terms, each of which could be moved into first place. See Fr. Georgy Chistyakov's book Light Shines in the Darkness, chapter 19. Yet such an approach substantially distorts the picture: the word "way" stands at the beginning for a reason, for Christ is the way, and "the expression 'and the truth and the life' has, to use the scholarly term, an explicative character, from the Latin explicatio, explanation" (ibid.).

But it is hard to come to such a conclusion by limiting oneself to an attentive reading of this one phrase alone; it is necessary to turn to the whole New Testament text as a whole. Let us recall the words where the way and life again appear together: "narrow is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life" (Matthew 7:14). The way that leads to life. What sort of way is this? Let us note that here it says "gate and way." But the Lord says, "I am the door; if anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture" (John 10:9).

A door, like a gate, is something one must pass through in order to go out onto a way. But when the way is finished, one must pass through the gate and the door again, for this is the beginning and the end of the way. The Lord is the beginning and the end, but also what lies between them: the way itself. Let us recall another saying: "I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one can shut; you have little strength, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name" (Revelation 3:8). The opened door becomes, as it were, an icon of the Lord, who sends us on the way and waits for our return.

So we have tried to understand the link between "way and life." Now let us turn to the expression "way and truth." The word "truth" (like the words "to do," "works of God," "light," "hour," and some others) is key for the Gospel of John and does not occur in the synoptic text. First of all we must recall a fragment of the prologue: "for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). It is not He Himself who is truth, as one could think if the words in the phrase we are considering were separated by commas; rather, truth came through Him. And although neither the Greek nor the Latin originals contain this etymological connection, in Russian the word proiskhodit, "comes forth," has the same root as khodit, "to walk," and one can walk only by one way or another.

It turns out that the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ did not complete God's plan for our salvation, but opened a new stage in the spiritual history of the world. And the Lord speaks to us about this in today's reading from the Gospel of John. "I will send you another Comforter, the Spirit of truth."

He speaks of such nearness of God as we are unable to imagine and could not have expected. The Spirit of God Himself, whom the world does not see and does not know, will be not only with us but also in us. The Lord says that the Spirit, the Comforter, will guide us into all truth; therefore we will no longer be alone in our search for God, but He Himself will lead us to Himself. And another name of the Spirit of God is the Spirit of life, the life-giving Spirit, as our Creed calls Him. He creates in us life that never ends, never grows poor, and never ceases.

How important it is for us that Jesus says these words: "Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me" (John 14:1). First of all, it becomes clear that the Lord knows we can be troubled and doubtful. He does not say that this is bad; but the fact that He calls us not to be troubled means that there is something better for the human heart: joy, rejoicing, peace, and all of this is given to us as the fruit of faith.

This is precisely why the Lord calls us to believe, overcoming trouble and doubt by faith. True, this does not mean that joy and peace will come to us immediately, because God expects faith from us regardless of what is happening around us and longs for our steadfastness. Therefore verse 1 of today's passage can be received as a motto for life, suggested by God Himself.

The faith, Jesus speaks about is similar to an exploit. He looks like a common person, He moves as a common person. He speaks - as an exceptional person, but all the same as a person. And He proposes us to believe He is in God, and God - in Him. That is, if a later theological terminology is used, than He is God-Man. It is as much as to jump a two and a half meter height - it is possible in theory, but we meet few people who can make such a jump!

We can't say Jesus doesn't understand this. That is why He uses the expression: "or else", - that is, if we do not succeed to believe in what He says, then believe "for the very works sake ". Jesus is Himself in His works all the time superior to human capacities - in His righteousness, His commitment, His love to God and to the men, in the realization of miracles... An open-minded vision of His works can prompt to faith (trust) in Him, and that will already be a small step towards the faith in Him.

Jesus' words about His unity with the Father, spoken during the Last Supper, take on a new meaning compared with what they conveyed before. Now Jesus speaks of this unity as the way, the truth, and the life. His life itself proves to be not only the fullness of living truth but also the living embodiment of the path everyone must travel—the path of the Kingdom. In those days, the ideas of way, truth, and life were traditionally associated with the Torah. The Torah was regarded as the way, the way of truth and the way of life, leading the one who walked it to God and to the threshold of the messianic Kingdom. The ideal was a living Torah, which a person could become if his life conformed to it completely.

By calling Himself the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus speaks of Himself as the living Torah. But His way becomes the way of the Kingdom. His relationship with the Father contains a dynamic that is revealed to the world as the dynamic of the Kingdom entering it. He goes to the Father—and the Kingdom enters the world. Such is the path of the Man who revealed the Torah to the world in all its fullness, the living Torah. But it is also the path of every Christian, everyone who wants to follow Christ into His Kingdom and travel that path to the end.

The Savior goes so that there may be a place in His Kingdom for each of His disciples and followers. But to become His disciple in truth, to reach those dwelling places in the Kingdom that He promises to prepare for them, one must repeat His journey. Not imitate it outwardly, but repeat it in essence, travel it oneself—and oneself become a living Torah.

Of course, a person does not remain alone on this path. Otherwise no one could become a living Torah, for without help from above this is impossible for a sinful human being. Yet everyone must still walk for himself. A person can be helped to walk, but only if he is walking rather than sitting on the sidelines. This is the path to which Jesus calls His disciples. He is confident that they know the way, for He Himself is before their eyes as a living example. They do not yet see or understand everything, of course, but what they do not yet see or understand can be understood only through their own experience, which each of them will gain in due course. Words are useless here. Jesus has already told His disciples the essential thing; the rest will become clear once they set out on the path.

The Lord continues His final conversation with the disciples about His new covenant with them. If since the time of Moses the bond between God and Israel had been carried out through sacred rites in the tabernacle and then in the temple, now Jesus becomes the center of God's presence, the new temple (John 2), He is the way to the Father, the manifestation of truth, and life itself living in people.

But they face separation: He is going where access is still closed to the disciples. He promised to return, but how many generations must pass before His words are fulfilled? How can the disciples preserve their bond with God if Jesus leaves them? And the Lord reveals a new mystery to them: He remains despite His departure. He will abide with them through the One whom the Father will send to them, the Comforter, who will remind them of Jesus and make His presence among them manifest, so that each person may recognize in the Spirit the face of Christ and, having recognized Him, see the Father in Him...

The last two lines of today's passage from the Gospel of John read as one, as something similar and repeated. But in the words "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it" (John 14:14) there is what appears to be a small difference: it does not say of whom we may ask anything in Jesus' name. We can ask anyone: relative or stranger, acquaintance or unknown person, evil or good. And despite this, He says that He will do it. The main thing is that the request be in His name.

And a person who, without embarrassment, openly pronounces the name of his Lord, without being sure that the one listening will understand him, trusts God. And his faith is strong. According to this faith the Lord does what we ask.

The eleventh verse from today's Gospel is one of the most important in our life. The Lord calls us to believe Him, to believe His words that He abides in the Father and the Father in Him. At the same time, He knows that at times no words are enough for us to believe... Then He speaks of His works, calling us to believe Him because of the works.

And here the wondrous wisdom and mercy of God are opened before us: Jesus offers us the road of "faith," helping us enter it, if not immediately through faith in His words, then through contemplation of what He does. And if God speaks this way, that is enough for us to believe in Him, and therefore enough for our salvation (see John 5:24).

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).

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.

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.