Study Format:
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The verb translated “troubled” in v. 1 (tarasso), appears three other times in John’s Gospel (11:33; 12:27; 13:21). In all of those cases it refers not to sadness, but to Jesus’ agitation and disturbance in the face of the power of death and evil. So when Jesus implored the disciples not to let their hearts be “troubled,” he was not telling them not to be sad, but rather to stand firm in the face of the powers of death and evil that seemed to be winning the day.
• Jewish (and Christian) tradition usually identify the “Father’s house” as the heavenly dwelling place, and that imagery certainly lie behind this image. But Jesus is talking about more than just heaven. John’s Gospel is based on the mutual relationship and indwelling between God and Jesus. Location in John’s Gospel is a symbol for relationship. The noun translated as “dwelling place” further strengthens this interpretation of being not just about a location but about relationship. It is the Greek word mone, which takes its root from the Greek meno, to remain or to abide. Meno is used frequently in John’s Gospel to speak of relationships. For example 1:14, “the Word became flesh and lived (meno) among us.” 15:4, “Abide (meno) in me as I abide (meno) in you.”
• V. 2b in the NIV and the NRSV footnote is translated “if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you.” The question is over the difficulty of translating the Greek word hoti, that or for. O’Day prefers the NIV and the NRSV footnote, which translate hoti as “that” because it fits with John’s Gospel that Jesus is making a declarative statement about his mission, to go to prepare a place for them.
• “I will come again” in v. 3 points this promise to the traditional early Christian expectation of Christ’s return at the end of time, it is about God’s ultimate power over life and death. This language places the disciples within the promise already, bringing the tension of already/not yet of the kingdom of God that is present throughout John’s Gospel.
• “I am the way…” is one of the “I am” sayings in John’s Gospel (cf. 6:35; 8:12; 9:5; 11:25; 15:1). “I am” is a reference to God speaking to Moses at the burning bush, I am who I am (Exodus 3:14).
• “The way” (v. 6) is a many layered image in ancient near East culture. In the Jewish wisdom tradition, “way” (derek in Hebrew) denotes the lifestyle of the wise. In the Psalms, “way” is a metaphor for life lived according to the law and/or to the will and desire of God. Similar to John 10 (I am the Good Shepherd, I am the gate), by describing himself as the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus reveals himself to be both access to and embodiment of life with God.
• Reading v. 6 is complicated in modern context, because it has often been used as a bludgeon against other religious traditions. O’Day reminds us that “It is important to try to hear this joyous, world-changing theological affirmation in the first-century context of the Fourth Gospel. This is not, as is the case in the twentieth century, the sweeping claim of a major world religion, but it is the conviction of a religious minority…who had discovered that its understanding of the truth of god carries with it a great price.” It is problematic to read this section as exclusionary, because that is outside the worldview of the writer of the Fourth Gospel, who was writing to a community who was being excluded. Says O’Day, “The Fourth Gospel is not concerned with the fate, for example, of Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists, nor with the superiority or inferiority of Judaism and Christianity as they are configured in the modern world. These verses are the confessional celebration of a particular faith community, convinced of the truth and life it has received in the incarnation.”
• V. 12-14 link the believer’s work and Jesus’ own work, just as Jesus’ work was God’s work. The disciples’ work will be greater (v. 12b) not because of any intrinsic value of the disciples, but because Jesus’ work will be finished whereas theirs, to build on the foundation which Jesus created, will continue.
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
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