NOTES for Joh 7:37-53

What is most important to us in Christianity? This question arises by itself when you read lines like these from the Gospel, when you look at church divisions and scandals, when you see your own and others' misunderstanding of the Good News. The Lord speaks about things that are fundamental and common to all people - about thirst for the Spirit, without whom any religion, any society, any life becomes stuffy and stale. He speaks about the fact that faith in Him will not remain a barren, dry idea, but opens to a person access to the rivers of the living water of the Spirit. But this is not what troubles the people and the scribes. What matters more to them is an inconsistency in the origin of the potential Messiah: since He must come from the line of David, He must also live in Bethlehem.

What could the Lord object to this? Tell them about His miraculous birth in the city of David? But they do not listen to Him even when He speaks about the most important thing. How, then, can they (and sometimes we) understand His words and draw near to the life-giving element of the Spirit?

"Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water." Bishop Cassian, in his foundational work on the Gospel of John ("By Water and Blood and Spirit") says that this is not the only possible translation. If the punctuation were different (and there are grounds for this), the phrase would mean that the water will flow from Jesus' belly. Each version has its supporters and opponents, but the bishop himself leans toward the second.

But what should we do - people not trained in philology? We can look at this from the standpoint that the history of the Word of God carries within itself not only the original truth about what was spoken by the Lord, but also a particular kind of truth, even if scientifically inaccurate, because the Spirit descends on everyone.

If this is so, perhaps it is worth looking at both translations at the same time. Of course, the second translation draws to itself the story of the Samaritan woman, and in that it is unquestionably true: only the Lord gives living water. And yet a person can become a conduit of this living water, and in this sense becomes a "secondary source" himself, to use the terminology of the theory of diffraction of light. And precisely in the fact that a person can become a source of the Spirit lies the meaning of today's feast - the Day of the Holy Trinity. This is astonishing and inexplicable, but it is so. Therefore the former translation is still important to us, even if it is not entirely correct from a scientific point of view; or rather, it would be more accurate to say that both translations are precious to us.

It would seem that the best witness is the manifestation of what those to whom you witness are waiting for. In Gospel times people spoke, argued, and preached a great deal about the Messiah and the messianic Kingdom. They argued about what it would be like, this Kingdom. About what the Messiah would be like and how He would come. And now at last the One appears who bears witness to the Kingdom not in words but in deed. At this point, it would seem, there is nothing left to say or argue about: "come to Me and drink." What else is there to argue over? What further proof is needed when one can simply come and taste? But it turns out that this is not simple for everyone.

For some people, conformity to criteria they themselves have invented is still important, and otherwise even the Kingdom is not the Kingdom. Why is this so? The people accept it, but they are no authority; they are "ignorant of the Torah." The authority is the one who thinks as we do, the guardians and bearers of tradition. And here is the paradox: the very Torah that for Paul, for example, became a tutor leading the apostle to Christ became for the "guardians and bearers" a wall separating them from Christ and from the Kingdom.

How and why does this happen? Of course, the issue here is not the Torah as such. The issue is precisely tradition. And perhaps not even tradition as such, but the fact that this tradition is put in first place. It becomes an end in itself. That is how religion is born when it hides from a person the living Revelation, Christ, the Kingdom. And the issue here is not the Torah as such. The Torah was given precisely as living Revelation. It was given in order to mark out for a person the spiritual path that should lead him to God. To Christ. Into the Kingdom. It is at once a map of the spiritual path and a spiritual compass given to a person by God.

And it is also an instrument for spiritual work. But it also happens that potential travelers, carried away by maps and guidebooks, remain only virtual travelers. For a long time. Sometimes for their whole life. And an entire tradition of such virtual travel takes shape. But if a real traveler suddenly enters such a community, the outcome may be very different from what that real traveler had counted on.

They simply will not accept him there. He is a violator of tradition. Even if he is the very author of those maps and guidebooks, popularity among virtual travelers is by no means guaranteed to him. They have their own priorities and their own authorities. No one is waiting for outsiders. So it is with those for whom religion has become an end in itself, the virtual travelers of the spiritual world: even the Author Himself of their maps and guidebooks is no authority to them. They know His Kingdom better than He does. And no "ignorant people of the Torah" will persuade them otherwise, even if in the heart of one of those "ignorant people" there is the whole fullness of the Kingdom.

Since the time of Moses, the Torah had been the foundation of the spiritual life of the people of God. It was law both for individual people and for the whole people. But not only that: the Torah was never reduced to legislation alone. It was always perceived as a kind of spiritual compass, as that inner core which, by following the commandments in everyday life, every believer must create with God's help in his own heart and in his own soul in order to rely on it on the way into the Kingdom.

But in every age there were also those who wanted to use and did use the Torah for another purpose: for self-assertion. "This people, ignorant of the Law, is cursed" - here there is already the end of the Torah and the beginning of what leads a person to complete self-destruction, if one follows this way consistently. Because the key to understanding the phrase is condemnation and self-assertion.

"Ignorant of the Torah" - what does this mean in this case? Ignorance of the commandments, of the text of the Pentateuch? No, of course not. In those times in Judea such a thing could not even be imagined. Every boy was taught the Torah from the age of five; many remembered the Torah by heart. For a Jew of those times it was simply impossible not to know it.

Those about whom the religious authorities spoke were considered by them "ignorant of the Torah" because they had not received a theological education. Because they could not explain everything the way these religious authorities explained it. And most importantly, because they had dared, without looking back at the opinions of the authorities, to give a spiritual assessment of what was happening before their eyes.

The logic of the "leaders" is simple and understandable: they are the spiritual elite, and all other believers must look at the world through their eyes, otherwise they are "ignorant of the Torah" and cursed for their disobedience. Such an attitude toward oneself and toward others already in itself excludes the possibility of normal spiritual life.

This, in fact, is what prevents the religious authorities from seeing in Jesus the One He is. The point here is not even Jesus' messiahship as such, because of which He could have been dangerous to them. The point is that with such an attitude toward oneself and toward others, it is impossible to accept anyone at all in any capacity except "oneself, beloved."

When Jesus accuses such leaders of having the devil as their father, He has in mind not only their attitude toward Him, but also their very spiritual position, their absolute spiritual egocentrism, which will give no place in a person's life to God, faithfulness to whom is loudly declared, except perhaps on the periphery as service personnel.

It is precisely this position that makes its bearers completely impenetrable to any spiritual influence, to any breath of the Kingdom. And their religiosity in this case does not help the matter at all; rather the opposite: the more religious they are with such religiosity, the farther they are from God and from the Kingdom. And from salvation too.

The Pharisees had a clear idea of who the Messiah was and what signs should accompany Him. And then Jesus appears, working miracles and speaking as no one before Him had spoken. Many, seeing this, accept Him, if not as the Christ, then at least as a prophet. Even the Temple officers begin to doubt that His preaching can be harmful to Israel.

But for the Pharisees there is a law into which this simple man from Galilee, despised by the Jews, does not fit. The law says plainly that the Messiah is to be expected from the line of David, and therefore they do not even want to "hear Him and find out what He is doing." Was that the very step they lacked in order to see clearly? Then the truth known only to those close to Jesus would have been opened to them: that He was born in Bethlehem, that He is of the line of David. Sometimes, in order to understand God, we simply need to hear Him out to the end, and not judge by relying on our legalistic ideas about His providence.

The words of the leaders of the Pharisaic movement that a prophet "does not come from Galilee" have their historical grounds. On the one hand, Galilee is part of the land God promised His people, it lies within the borders of that land defined by God, and as part of it Galilee is of course no worse than any other part.

But historically it happened that in the Second Temple period, when traditional Jewish theology was forming and theological schools were taking shape, Galilee found itself on the periphery of the Jewish world. There were no major schools or academies there like those, for example, in Jerusalem, Babylon, or Alexandria; this land knew no teachers famous throughout the Jewish world, and none of the later prophets was a native of Galilee or preached there.

From a theological and spiritual point of view, Galilee was regarded as a deep province. There were, of course, Jewish communities there, but in Gospel times Galilee was a semi-pagan region, where influences of non-orthodox Jewish movements such as the Essenes were also fairly strong. It is not surprising that learned experts and teachers of the Torah, as well as the spiritual leaders of the Pharisaic movement, expected nothing interesting from Galilee. Neither a prophet nor the Messiah could arise from there.

And in general, that was where the very people lived who, according to the learned rabbis, were "ignorant of the Torah" and therefore "accursed." Of course, the point was not that believing Jews living in Galilee did not read the Torah; that was simply impossible. The point was these simple believers' ignorance of the learned theological tradition of which the leaders of the Pharisaic movement considered themselves the bearers.

These leaders were absolutely convinced that both the prophets and even the Messiah Himself could now be connected only with their own circle, that God looked at them in the same way they looked at themselves, seeing in them the spiritual elite of the Jewish people, the very messianic remnant that the Pharisees proudly proclaimed themselves to be. They could not even allow the thought that God saw the matter differently.

That is why they so easily refuse to take seriously the entirely reasonable arguments of such a respected and authoritative man in the Sanhedrin and in the Pharisaic brotherhood as Nicodemus: for them there is no question here and nothing to discuss. It is not surprising that such a position makes the figure of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah completely unacceptable to them: such a thing simply cannot be, because it "can never be." And the way into the Kingdom is closed to them. Not because they were defenders and guardians of tradition, but because at the center of that tradition they saw not God, but themselves.

The phrase "and they all went home" helps us understand that everything that was happening took place in the most real reality. By its brevity, concision, and ordinariness it seems to bring us down to earth, saying that all the words spoken in the dispute by the Pharisees and the officers are as everyday as returning home. Indeed, it is very easy for each of us to imagine how he returns home. We meet our loved ones there, eat dinner, tell about what happened during the day. And after this one immediately imagines some disputing assembly, shouts, angry and sarcastic words of "blind" people going home with a sense of duty fulfilled. And Jesus, bitterly understanding that some people cannot see Him, accept forgiveness and healing. And we behave like these self-confident Pharisees, looking at ourselves. Would it not be better to look intently at the Face of Jesus, so as not to miss His appearance (see Matt. 25:1-13)?