NOTES for Joh 19:17-42

The crucifixion and death of Jesus are not simply a moment in His biography, and therefore the description of this event is not simply one of the stories about His life. It is testimony. The evangelist points several times to the witnesses of the execution: the beloved disciple, Mary, the other women, those who "testified," whose "testimony is true." John wants to bring us to the place of the crucifixion so that we too may stand with him at the cross, confirming the truthfulness of his account to the other disciples.

Why is this testimony needed, why the quotations from the Law and the prophets? Do we really doubt that a Man who lived two thousand years ago died? Of course not. That means John's testimony is not testimony about death, but testimony about a victory that has been accomplished...

What lies behind Pilate’s refusal to change the inscription? Was it only a desire to annoy the chief priests, to whose demands Pilate had just yielded and against whom he now wished to regain at least a little ground? Or did he truly sense something and wish, in this admittedly somewhat distorted form, to express at least some respect for Jesus? One way or another, Pilate unexpectedly spoke the truth: the true King had been sent to be crucified...

John, Christ’s beloved disciple, was beside Him during the execution, and it is he who omits from his account many details given by the other evangelists, who wrote from the words of witnesses. John tells of the division of the garments, of how Jesus entrusted His Mother to him, and lists the names of those who stood by the Cross, but he describes the Lord’s torments on the Cross more briefly than the others; only the moment of death does John recount in greater detail. Although the Gospel of John omits many details already mentioned by the other evangelists who wrote before him, it seems that John did not close his lips merely because he did not wish to repeat details recorded earlier. It must have been too painful for him to return to those unbearable memories...

One common way of reading and understanding the Gospel is to try to find one's own place in one passage or another, to identify what applies to you personally. It is not always possible, or necessary, to do this, but in today's readings it is natural.

The foot of the Cross is the only "right" place for each of us, because it is precisely in the Savior's death on the Cross that the salvation of the world is accomplished and life is given to all of us, even if this never enters our minds. The world is full of suffering, some explainable and more often inexplicable, and this mystery cannot fail to concern a person. It is hard for us, so our desire to hide from suffering, to turn away from it if it does not touch us personally, is understandable. But the Gospel tells us that every genuine, unimagined human suffering is a place of Christ's special presence. It is He who suffers in every person, and it is exactly here that we meet Him.

You may have seen Michelangelo's great sculpture "Pieta" ("The Mourning One") in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome or in photographs. Grief, but not complaint; sorrow, but not a cry; tears, but not hysteria. A sword pierced Her soul, according to Simeon's prophecy (Luke 2:35), but the Mother's heart continues to live by love for the Son and for all the sons whom He entrusted to Her (John 19:26-27). One no longer wants to say any words, only to bow in silence before the royal strength of love.

The apostle stands beside the Most Pure Virgin at the Cross and, by the word of the Lord Jesus, receives her as his mother. From that time, the apostle writes, "this disciple," and it is very characteristic of him not to name himself when possible, took Her to his own. Many Christians, mainly Orthodox and Catholics, are convinced that at this moment the apostle John represents the whole Church, all generations of Christ's disciples. At this moment he is the first of us, and in his person all of us become brothers of Jesus and children of Mary.

This conviction of Christians is deeper than it may seem at first glance. The point is that in the New Testament our connection with the Lord Jesus can truly be so immediate and strong that His family becomes ours. Finishing his Gospel, already aged, he says of himself, his life, and Christ's Gospel: "This is the disciple who testifies to these things... and his testimony is true." Thus the whole life of the apostle is a testimony to the cruciform love of the Son of God, and this too is not only a fact of the personal biography of John, son of Zebedee, but a path for every Christian.

In these key moments, standing at the Cross, Mary's adoption, and witness to Jesus, the apostle John embodies the whole Church, as Peter embodies it in the preaching on the day of Pentecost, as each of us embodies it when he fulfills God's will for himself.

The Gospels in general tell us very little about the life of the Mother of God, which makes the small details they do convey all the more important. The youngest of the disciples, John, the one whom Jesus loved, takes upon himself the care of Jesus' Mother. Even on the cross, Jesus does not forget Her and entrusts Her to His beloved disciple. There is a purely practical meaning in this: women in Israel did not support themselves; they were homemakers, while the means of living were earned first by fathers, then by husbands, and then by sons. With the death of Jesus, Mary has no one left who would provide for Her life, and She had no savings; the Holy Family had always lived in poverty. Therefore Jesus' care for Her in the final moments of His earthly life is very important for both of Them.

But there is another meaning as well. The Church created by Christ is called to continue His work, to do everything that He did. By receiving Mary, the disciples show themselves to be brothers of Jesus, and the Church becomes one family, in which there is a Father, there is a Mother, and there are children, brothers and sisters to one another, living in unity with Christ, in obedience to the Father, and in care for the Mother, who overshadows them with her motherly love.

The evangelist describes Jesus' death on the cross precisely as death. The death of a completely ordinary person. As if there were none in Him of that fullness of God that had revealed itself so often during His earthly ministry. But it could not have been otherwise. He is truly human: human not less, but more, than any of us. His divinity in no way diminished His humanity. On the contrary, it revealed it in all its fullness. It made it Humanity with a capital letter. And a human being in the fallen world is mortal.

Even being free from sin, a human being can in principle die. Although if one is free from sin, dying is not necessary. In this sense Jesus' death is absolutely voluntary. But a person living within the boundaries of this world can always be killed. True, only within the boundaries of this world. Beyond them, death will have no power over the one who lives the life of the Kingdom. And all the more over Him who Himself bears within Himself the fullness of that Kingdom. But the Savior had to walk His path to the end precisely in our still untransfigured world.

In order to make its transfiguration possible. And a path within the framework of this world includes the possibility of death. In the concrete situation of the fallen world, it includes not only the possibility but the practical inevitability of death. Of course, Jesus comes into the world not in order to die, but in order to bring it the Kingdom. Had there been no fall, had there been none of the evil in which our world found itself after the fall, the Savior of the world would not have had to die on the cross. But He came into the world that exists.

He did so, of course, fully understanding where He was going and what awaited Him here. And those who wanted His death saw no farther than our world, limited by evil. They were sure that if He died now, everything would be over. In their favor, of course. When He was dying, they felt like victors. And they really had won, in their limited world that lies in evil. Which of them could have known that there is also the Kingdom, that there is a great world of God where their victory is worth nothing and where they have already suffered complete defeat? Soon they will have to be convinced of this. But for now they are triumphant.

In asking for the legs of those crucified to be broken, the Jews display what seems like astonishing inconsistency. To the Roman Pilate, this was yet another sign that the religious zeal of the inhabitants of Palestine bordered on madness. The situation would seem just as strange today. A criminal who had been accused with such difficulty and sentenced to death ought to suffer as long as possible; he ought to bear his prescribed punishment to the very end. Yet for religious reasons that seemed strange and incomprehensible to an uninitiated pagan, they wanted to ease his execution by ending it early. But Jesus turns out to be already dead. Christ dies before the other criminals hanging beside Him. It appears that the Jews’ fears were groundless: the dangerous criminal they had condemned was not a mighty king, but merely a solitary man who did not even have enough physical strength to endure until the end of the execution. For Christians, however, this weakness of Christ reveals the profound mystery of the God-man.

Relationships with Jesus can be very different for different people. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had theirs too. Their own. Unlike any others. These people were not apostles; most likely they did not even consider themselves disciples of Jesus. But they came in order to perform the burial rite. It would seem not so much, but none of the closest disciples did this. Almost all of them scattered. And everyone was sure that everything was over.

It is hard to blame them: all of them were sincere; all acted as their own understanding of the situation prompted them. And it turned out that all of them, except perhaps Peter and John, were bound to the Teacher first of all by the work. By a prospect. By the great future awaiting them beside this Man. And when it turned out that there was no such future, they decided that they were no longer needed by Him. And He by them? Needed, of course, but He Himself had decided to renounce everything. So how could they help Him?

Only for a few did relationships with Him prove to be something unconditional and valuable in itself. Yes, of course, for Peter and probably for John; otherwise he would not have been at the cross. And for the women who stood there too, at that same cross. And now also, who would have thought it, for Nicodemus and Joseph. After all, they had communicated with Him least of all. They knew Him less than the others.

But sometimes it happens: a meeting occurs in life, perhaps the only one, such as will never be repeated, and it remains forever with the person who experienced it. And it fully or largely determines all his subsequent life. And no one except those two who met each other knows about the meeting. And perhaps one will never again see the one, or the One, who overturned the whole life. But the life has already been overturned. It is already different, and the former one is no more. And the relationship with the One who overturned it remains for one's whole life. And it no longer matters what the One who overturned the life managed to do and what He did not. The main thing, after all, He has already done. That is why the relationship with Him will remain forever.

And even death, well, in our world everyone dies... Even death will not destroy these relationships. Because they belong to the Kingdom. And everything connected with them does too. And there nothing is forgotten and nothing disappears without a trace. And everything is absolutely important and absolutely precious.

"We venerate Your Cross, O Christ..." What do these words mean for us? Boundless compassion for the innocent, beaten, naked righteous one hanging on this wood. Love for Him, limitless gratitude. And also the understanding of how infinitely lighter our own cross is. All the problems that seem impossible to carry are nothing compared with the measure of suffering He took upon Himself for our sake. "You, who so loved Your world..."

And there are other words: "Then He says to the disciple, 'Behold your mother.'" On these words the Church is built, the strongest of strongholds. We have all been made sons and daughters, and therefore we can never be orphans. Orphanhood is a word from some other life. We often enter prayerfully into the Passion of Christ, but it is much harder to enter into the passion of Mary. His inconceivable physical pain and her inconceivable pain of soul. The whole world is embraced by this pain.

Today’s reading is dedicated to the feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. At its center is the veneration of the Cross, by which we have been saved “from the bondage of the enemy,” as the magnification for the feast sings.

The Evangelist John bears witness to the Crucifixion and to those standing by the Cross. The foot of the Cross is the only “right” place for each of us, because it is precisely in the Savior’s Death on the Cross that the salvation of the world is accomplished and life is granted to us all, even if it never enters our minds. The world is full of suffering, sometimes explicable but more often inexplicable, and this mystery cannot fail to concern a person. This is hard for us, so our desire to hide from suffering and turn away from it when it does not touch us personally is quite understandable. But the Gospel tells us that every genuine human suffering, not one that is contrived, is a place of Christ’s special presence. It is He who suffers in every person, and it is precisely here that we meet Him.