Local Preachers’ Group on John's Gospel
Notes of meeting held 28th April 2010
John 13: 31–35 & John 14: 23–29
We changed our minds about the passage we were to study in order to talk about John 13: 31 – 35 for someone who was preaching on it. Later we had some time to look at John 14: 23 – 29, our original passage. We read John 13: 31 – 35 through as usual and discovered once again that this small section chosen as a lectionary reading needs a lot of explanation. The verses that precede it are very important to an understanding of the passage. The congregation need to know that Judas has just left the table to betray Jesus. John tells readers that it is night - one of John’s themes of light and dark. This contrasts with what is going to happen through Judas’ betrayal. As soon as Judas has gone through the door, Jesus says that “now the Son of Man is glorified” (verse 31) and, through this, God will be glorified. Paradoxically the dark deed of Judas will reveal the light of the love of God.
The first two verses of the passage (31 and 32) are difficult and need unpicking, unlike the next three which refer to Jesus’ new commandment on loving each other, which are easily understood but not always so easily obeyed. Verses 31 and 32 have a dramatic quality about them compared to the next verse (33) where Jesus speaks very intimately to the disciples, calling them “little children”. In these verses (31 and 32) Jesus conflates the idea of God’s glorification with the Son of Man’s glory. In chapters 12 and 13 Jesus says that God will be glorified and the Son of Man will be lifted up. Here the Son of Man too will be glorified. So, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are allowed to experience the glory of God. We are able to experience the light of God in our lives. The depth of Jesus’ sacrifice in losing His life shows the depth of God’s love which is likened to “shining”. God’s glory reveals who he is, and Jesus is now set to reveal this, as His own vocation and ministry come to an end. The disciples need to know this and understand it. There were three different translations of part of this particular verse:
1. Will glorify
2. Is glorified
3. Has glorified
We spent time talking about the glory of God and how to describe it. We ended by saying that in the Old Testament it is sometimes described as a luminescence which, of course, contrasts with the dark deed being done by Judas as Jesus speaks. God can conquer the dark with his own light. Events seem to be taking an unavoidable direction from now on. Judas’ going out has set in motion events that cannot be stopped. Jesus’ sacrificial death will have a glorious result. Jesus’ revelation of God’s glory shows God’s immense love, which is beyond human capacity to comprehend. This naturally leads on to the next verses where Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you”.
One of our group told a story “The Harrowing of Hell” by Trevor Dennis, in ‘The Three Faces of Christ’. It is set on Holy Saturday. “The writer is one who helped in Jesus’ in burial. He returns to the tomb to find himself enshrined by darkness and falling into hell where an angel becomes his guide. He is stunned by the silence but Jesus has already passed through. As he travels through hell Jesus forgives everyone he meets. In the last cell the two companions find Jesus holding a child tightly by the hand. Jesus is telling Hitler – the solitary occupant who the child is, a Jewish girl killed in the concentration camps during the Second World War, and is begging Hitler to let the child lead him out. Jesus is now exhausted, so the little girl has to forgive Hitler for him. Hitler eventually accedes and allows the child to lead him out. This illustrates how we are expected to react to the revelation of God’s “glory” or “Love seen in Jesus”. This new commandment of love is repeated in Chapter 15. If we show love for one another we will glorify God. We will be reflecting God’s nature in just the same way as Jesus did.
This brought us to the next lectionary passage John 14: 23 – 29, which also talks about love and its consequences. In John 14: 23 Jesus says that anyone who loves Him will obey Him, and then both Jesus and God the Father will come and live inside them. So from Jesus’ sacrifice we are brought into a great circle of never-ending love and the light of God. It is through our love for Jesus that we will want to obey His commandments to love, not because we are made to, but because we want to. The indwelling talked about in John 14: 23 is the complete relationship that Jesus wants everyone to have with God.
The command to love each other is not new but to love as Jesus has loved is a new idea. It is of course merely aspirational to love as God loves, because we are human and we make mistakes.
We had now moved naturally on to this next lectionary passage of John 14: 23 – 29. We were intrigued to know whether the lectionary left out verse 30 deliberately these days, and if it had ever been included. This verse talks about the “prince of this world” i.e. the devil. Do people still believe in a personal devil? Why do we not talk about the devil today? Many years ago hellfire and damnation sermons were all the rage. We thought that these sermons had had their day and should not be repeated but that we should not ignore this aspect of the Bible just because the devil is mentioned quite openly.
This led us to a discussion about death itself and how this aspect of life had been pushed to one side as medicine progressed and death was now a hospitalised event. In verse 28 of John 14 Jesus asks his disciples to rejoice because he is going away. We wondered how many people rejoice today because they believe that their loved one is going to be with Jesus. Is it the death that is good, the dying bad? We felt this was a delicate issue for many people and that we should address the transient nature of life with sympathy but emphasise the eternal nature of the life of our faith through God’s love. Verse 27 acts as a comfort to those who will be left after Jesus has gone. John 14: verses 1 – 4 are often used during funeral services and these verses do hold some comfort for the bereaved. In verse 26 Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, who will teach the disciples everything they need to know and remind them of all they have forgotten. This will lead to the “peace” offered next. The Holy Spirit is always with followers of Jesus and we see it in some people who radiate peace. The peace that Jesus offers is quite different to that which the world offers (verse 27). Jesus offers total wellbeing, inner rest of the soul, not necessarily of the body. Jesus heals souls regardless of any physical imperfections. Chapter 14 verse 27 refers back to chapter 14 verse 1 “Set your troubled hearts at rest”. All through chapter 14 some disciples question Jesus. These questions stem the flow of Jesus discourse so that after each question Jesus has to go back and re-emphasize what he has been trying to teach them.
We wondered about the possibility of sometimes taking services on two adjacent Sundays to be able to preach on both these lectionary passages, to make the link between them
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