Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

Footnotes

1. John 14:1 Facing the death of Jesus, or facing our death, we might be shaken by fear. After all, without God is not existence for us a flight from the useless to nothingness? We have, then, to meditate on this chapter 14, where the themes are intermingled too numerously to discern the whole universe of meaning each verse opens to us. Yes, there is fulfillment, but it comes from God; it is abiding in God, truth in God, life from God. The symbols tell us that the fulfillment comes about in the communication of life from the Father, from Jesus, and from the Spirit.
2. John 14:1 The departure of Jesus ought not to become a time of discouragement amid hostility or uncertainty. The departure opens to all people the possibility of being in communion with God. Jesus gives the disciples the light and the life to enter this communion: he is the way not only through his teaching but also through his presence and his being—but what do we call the way and the goal of life for us?
3. John 14:1 You place your trust in God: this could also be translated as an imperative: “Place your trust in God!”
4. John 14:6 We can reflect upon the mystery of God to struggle to develop a better understanding of our life and the meaning of the world. But our power to discern cannot establish any certainties on our own. To know the Father, to discover what he wants for us, and to enter into his communion, we first have to look on Jesus, on his work, and on his love. Only the gift of the Son reveals the love of the Father in its fullness.
5. John 14:12 Here is a beautiful hymn on what it means to be Christians. They are not nostalgic survivors of a great experience that is past. In daily life, with its insults and interrogations, they remain in true communion with Christ and continue his work—i.e., they bear in his name the testimony of salvation and the testimony of truth. This communion, unceasingly renewed, gives them strength to cope with attacks of despair, falsehood, incomprehension, and nothingness—what John often calls “the world.”
   In this effort, which is never finished, they are uplifted by a new and constant presence of God: the Spirit. It is the Spirit who gives Christians the power to experience the divine presence in their inmost being, because the Spirit makes them live in the participation of God. It is the Spirit who gives Christians the courage to obey, as Christ did, the will of God, who is love, truth, testimony. It is the Spirit who makes them penetrate the heart of the words and acts of Jesus in the questions and debates of life.
   The Spirit is the consoler of Jn 16:5-13. The Greek word Parakletos means an advocate, one who aids by his power and advice. In the situations and struggles of living as a Christian, the Spirit supports us so that we may remain united with God and bear witness to him before the world.
6. John 14:22 Judas (not Judas Iscariot): Jude Thaddeus (see Mt 13:15).
7. John 14:27 Christ’s departure is imminent. Is the triumph over evil that the Passion effects merely a spectacle? No, this departure expresses Christ’s free decision to do the will of the Father and to be at the Father’s side, which is his true state of being. Such is God’s peace, whose way and meaning are opened for believers. Yes, there is a fulfillment and a happiness for us—it is this that the word “peace” evokes in the Bible. It is not found in the satisfaction of the passions. True peace is a divine gift, to which Christ gives us access in our communion with God.
8. John 14:28 The Father is greater than I: this does not refer to the trinitarian relation between the Father and the Son. It probably refers to the fact that Jesus was sent by the Father and that the messenger (in the Hebrew mentality) is inferior to the one who sends him.
9. John 15:1 To the Lord’s testament (farewell discourse) were added new instructions, as though to complete it. No doubt people did not want to lose other words of the Master, often meditated on, to explain the condition of the Christian community.
   It is the life of the community on which these chapters throw light. In this group of texts, chs. 13 to 17, none of our usual words are pronounced; People of God, Body of Christ, Church, congregation. The words preferred are: to abide in, to love, to testify. In ch. 16, an image is used that suggests this mystery: the image of the vine and the branches. In these texts, love is above all a characteristic of the community itself. It is the Spirit who gives these groups the strength to exist as people of love and as witnesses of Christ.
10. John 15:1 Every reader of the Bible knows that the image of the vine suggests not only the union but also the tragic relationship between God and Israel. The Prophets rebuked the people of the Old Testament for not producing the fruit God expected of them, for being a spouse often unfaithful to her calling to bear witness to God among the nations (see Isa 5:1-7; Jer 2:21; Ezek 19:10-14; Hos 10:1). Jesus is the new Israel, the only vine that the Father has planted. This means that the radical, constitutive reality of the Church is her inclusion in Christ through Baptism, grace, and close attachment, and that any fruitfulness the disciple may have depends on this union with Christ.
11. John 15:12 There are many reasons for people to regroup: affinity, interest, defense. But the Christian community has only one reason: Christ and his choice of us. It also has only one way of life: to love like Christ, who went so far as to give his life. To have Christ’s love is a gift. Then prayer is not a delusion; then the Christian community’s mission can bear fruit. The fruit has already been given: God’s love for us. In Christianity all is a gift.
12. John 15:18 The trial of Jesus, which the fourth Gospel unveils all through its pages, will not cease until the Father, to whom he is going, will have rendered justice to him in glorifying him. This drama, which people sometimes would like to conceal through reassuring words and sentiments, will not cease until the end of time. Persecution awaits Jesus, not because of some fatal error but because Christianity is different from what we want and claim it to be.
    The early Christians were excluded from the synagogue; hatred and violence were stirred up against them under the guise of religion. Blindness and stubbornness: this is the world in the Johannine sense, the world of the persecutors. The Spirit is the strength and the light that assists the persecuted to hold fast in this affront, which no doubt also comes to pass in the heart of every believer.