Reflections for the Fifth Sunday of Easter – John 14:1-14
John 14:1-3 often serves pastors in funeral contexts.
I used to speak of it to students as the “cots in heaven” sermon that goes something like this: when we die, our souls are immediately whisked to heaven to a mansion of some sort where our personal cot is waiting and where we FINALLY get to encounter God intimately after spending a lifetime of “seeing through a glass darkly.” That would be a great sermon if Paul had written John, but he didn’t. John is the Incarnational gospel, a gospel rich in realized eschatology. The idea of the believer having to wait until some future date to achieve full intimacy with God is foreign to this gospel. This gospel doesn’t support our too common practice of telling people that it is somehow better for their loved one to be dead and with God in a “better place” than to be alive and with family in this place which was, in fact, created by God’s very own Word.
In chapter 13 Jesus gathers his disciples and washes their feet, teaching them that they should do the same for each other. This action was already pre-figured by Mary in chapter 12, of course, who apparently intuited what Jesus would make explicit in chapter 13.
With chapters 14-17, we move into what is known as The Farewell Discourse of Jesus; it follows the genre of Testamentary Literature. Recall the Patriarchs on their deathbeds, bequeathing possessions and wisdom to their progeny. It turns out that Jesus has no goods to dispense; instead he gives his disciples the power to do even greater works than Jesus himself did during his earthly sojourn (14:12)!
This passage exhibits some perplexing moves. Jesus begins with his famous words in vv. 1-3, capping it with the promise that he would take his disciples to himself, so that wherever he is, we’d be. Total intimacy. Thomas — the Eeyore character of John — acts in character, taking the practical, realistic/pessimistic role, and asks a fair question. On the heels of Jesus’ grandiloquent locution about abiding places and enigmatic travel plans, Thomas, in a voice that I imagine to be somewhat weary but not yet despairing, cuts to the chase: “We have no idea what you’re talking about, first of all, and second of all, upon what basis should we have known?” And here the moment of judgment (krisis) arrives for Thomas, et. al., in the form of one of the “I Am” statements distinctive to the Fourth Gospel (cf. 6:35, 48; 8:12;10:7, 9, 11, 14; 11:25; 15:1, 5); they are groping around aimlessly for a path, a truth, a life, and THE path, truth, and life is staring them in the face and they can’t see it. They are looking for seven habits, nine steps, or ten commandments when the answer lies in intimate, if confusing and challenging,relationships, the preeminent one being between Jesus and them. Insofar as Thomas has missed that point, he is judged. But judgment in John always comes as diagnostic, forward-looking, rather than retrospective. Jesus calls Thomas into a future that is wholly dependent upon relationship with Jesus and God. Jesus also stops Thomas from complaining about all the reasons he’s in the ignorant spot he’s in. “This is hard; how are we supposed to know? We don’t get it.” Jesus doesn’t settle for that but calls Thomas out–I am it; surely you know me. In that case, you know all you need to know. Notice that Thomas never gets to respond. However, he gets his shining moment in 20:28 when he utters a full confession of Jesus’ identity: “My Lord and my God.” He’s the only character to do so in the entire Gospel.
Thomas was fixated on “the way,” and his sense that Jesus hadn’t provided full and necessary information related to it. Now Philip is concerned with seeing the Father. As he did with Thomas, Jesus says to Philip: look in front of your face. The answer is not in some esoteric code or far off where you cannot attain it (Dt. 30:11-14); no, the Word, the Christ, the Father, all of it is here and available right now. Philip thinks he’s asking a concrete, simple question: “Just show us the Father and we’re good to go.” Not too pushy, no long list. And how does Jesus respond? Again, with words that may sound judgmental to us, because they are, in a way. Jesus lights into Philip–don’t you understand that my only purpose in relating to you all is exactly for the purpose of exhibiting the nature of God, of deep, sacrificial, life-giving, almost embarrassingly intimate relationship? “What or whom do you seek?” Jesus often asks (John 1:38; 5:44; 18:7) because he knows that what we seek often determines what we find. Everything we actually deeply hope for is available to us right here and now, we just don’t see it. John would agree.
Kevin+
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