John 13:36-38

Hey everybody.

Thanks for joining us.

Welcome back.

We're, wrapping up chapter 13 today.

And given that it may be a week before we're together again,

we may hold off on 14.

So we're just probably a quick study today.

Maybe a little bit of, reflection on where we are so far in this gospel.

But let me jump in here.

We're at verse 36.

A follow up conversation where Jesus told the disciples

that they have a new commandment and that he is about to be glorified

and that they cannot go where he's going.

And Peter, who in the disciples always has the role of kind of the

the one who asks questions,

he follows up with Jesus, and which is what we read now.

So Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going?

Jesus answered, Where I'm going.

You cannot follow me now, but you will follow.

Afterward Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now?

I will lay down my life for you.

Jesus answered, Will you?

Will you lay down your life for me?

I tell you the truth.

Before the rooster crows, you will have denied me three times.

A story that in all of the Gospels,

the idea that Jesus is not only betrayed, but he's denied.

He's abandoned by the disciples.

That ultimately, when Jesus is on the cross, he is alone.

He is forsake King.

He he is, abandoned and left to his own.

Here we have,

I don't know, Michael.

I feel like in many of those stories, Peter comes across

as kind of overconfident.

Here we have I think this is a toned down version of it, you know,

he says, I will lay down my life for you.

And in other words, I love you.

I'm willing to die for you.

And that Jesus, you know, then predicts this scene

that we're well aware of in the Gospels that before the morning,

before the rooster Peter will have denied Jesus.

In John is a kind of a passing story.

This story gets dug into more deeply in the other gospels.

But John is

kind of checking the boxes as we move toward.

And it's going to be a while now before we move toward the actual events

that are going to facilitate that.

But here, again, I think John is preparing us for the

that moment where Jesus really is by himself.

He is alone in the fulfilling of his, of his mission here.

This is, interestingly connected text to both what comes before and after.

In some ways, I think it is a transition text in the Gospel of John.

It provides us with an opportunity to see

what is the fallout that comes directly

after Jesus's naming of his accuser.

And what we had yesterday, of course, was this admission that really

that there's a lack of understanding,

you know, we have this idea that,

well, and really, that was that

last study was the one before where we were talking about how there's

this question of, you know, why is Judas leaving the room?

Right?

And what is this whole thing mean about the person who's going to betray him?

Then we have this teaching that we just went

through yesterday of the new commandment.

We're talking a little bit about this idea that the

the command to call us to love one another.

Now we skip forward to today.

And I think what we see here is

in some

ways a just a tough transition piece for Simon Peter says, where are you going?

Where, where we haven't up to this point have any reason

to think that Jesus is going somewhere necessarily.

But here we've got this transition which allows us

then to see the question that there is a going happening.

Jesus is preparing to do a thing and then it provides opportunity

for this teaching.

You cannot follow, but you will follow after.

And Peter, I think you're right to point out, Clint, in lots of times we see

Peter portrayed with hubris or arrogance, or at least a desire to reach.

In this case, there's no reason to think that,

this is told in any way other than Peter is asking Jesus, what do you mean?

Why can't we follow you?

I'm truly here to be connected to you and ultimately,

I think what we see is, even in the face of the command,

that great command to love one another, Jesus is making it clear at

what could be a mountain

top revelation experience for all of those people gathered there,

that what's going to be followed by this experience Jesus already knows

is going to be not just betrayal, but it's also going to be denial.

Jesus is not just going to be turned in, but the people who have no part

in turning him in are going to be the very people who fall back,

back into the crowd and give people and give Jesus up to the accusers.

And I think, Clint, that that's a very kind of sober

and yet also a helpful way of framing the story, because John helps

us see that in the midst of both the the evil of the four coming betrayal,

also the amazing mountaintop of Jesus revealing this, this commandment.

Right? How will you know one another? Will by love.

And then now, as Peter follows this up, will I, you know, essentially

between the lines, I love you so much, I will lay down my life for you.

Jesus is making clear that no human love is going to be perfect.

No human love will will go to the end in the way that Jesus's love will do.

There's some hope in that, I think, because Jesus is naming

right off the bat, right off of the backside this commandment

that Jesus knows that perfect following of that law

is not going to happen, and he just brings that right out to the forefront.

I think in all the Gospels, there is a sense in which Jesus

simply cannot be fully known before the cross.

Who made the revelation of who Jesus is

and what he does is a revelation

that is confirmed and informed by Easter.

And so

there's no reason to think that Peter doesn't have the best of intentions here,

but it it's simply not a thing that is his to claim at this point.

He just yeah, he isn't able to understand and and in

you know again you could read this last verse as criticism.

I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you deny me three times or

there could be compassion in that.

You know,

you would lay down your life for me, you know, before the morning.

You're not even going that you're going to even say you don't know me.

And so I, I think

that idea of fear

and loss and what it is going to do

to the disciples before the experience of resurrection

and what that is going to do with them, you know, you can't follow me now,

but you will follow afterwards.

That's the afterwards.

There is a reference to the glorification of Christ.

He just has used that language being glorified.

And until that happens,

Peter's best intentions are well intentioned,

but empty and shallow and,

you know, short sighted.

And so I think this is a I think there's a lot here for a short passage.

I think maybe it's also a good time.

Michael, to just since we are going to have next week off.

And then I think it makes some sense to keep chapter 14 together.

I think maybe this is a good

opportunity to just pause and say, as readers of this gospel,

as we move to the end of the 13th chapter,

which is also sort of a transition to dialog,

we now have a couple of chapters of dialog and prayer.

What have we learned?

What has John told us about Jesus?

And we start with the light has come into the darkness.

And in the beginning was the word.

We have word and light.

Then we we've seen that confirmed by John the Baptist.

We've seen Jesus perform signs.

We know at this point, John, we've said this John is keeping no secrets.

Jesus is the Messiah, is the Son of God, has now been betrayed.

Or at least the betrayer is off to do that.

This is a poignant moment

in the gospel, and I think John has equipped us,

maybe more so than the other gospels.

The way that John tells the story is to tip his hand

and we essentially, at this point in the story

now we're going to learn some things in the dialog that follows.

But at this point, we know

essentially everything we need to know

to be ready to hear the rest of what happens.

Well, even if we didn't have chapter 14 and everything that's going to follow it,

even if this is where the story ended, I think you can see a kind of summation

in the text that we have for today, because Jesus is making it clear

that he's going to go to a place the disciples cannot go.

And that's a really critical statement that maybe it seems obvious,

obvious to us, but ultimately, Jesus is making it abundantly clear that

what he is going to accomplish is not something

that other people with good intentions could accomplish by themselves.

And the disciples have been the closest ones.

They have been in Jesus's inner circle.

They've seen the man who is blind be healed.

They've seen the water turned into wine.

They've seen the teaching of the Samaritans.

They've seen Jesus at work in these spectacular ways.

Right.

And yet these individuals,

even the chief leading voice amongst them,

who pledges his love and loyalty to Jesus,

these will not be able to do the thing that Jesus has to do.

And why?

Well, because Jesus is the Son of God

and John, like you say, has not hidden that throughout any of this text.

So therefore, what we see even now, without the glorification to come,

what we see is that Jesus is representing and incarnating would be the

theological word God in the world in such

a way that what he can do is

substantially different than what his followers can do.

Jesus has to go first, but don't miss the good news in that

if Jesus chooses to go first as we know that he will,

then that opens the door for everyone who follows him to go first.

And don't miss the power of Peter's question here.

Why can I not follow you now?

And I submit to you that's a little bit

of every Christians quandary, even to this day, right?

Oh, why can't we come now? What?

Jesus? Why can't this be resolved?

Because we're waiting.

Because we are not the ones to make the first move.

That that's Jesus and His prerogative.

I think,

though, it's not the direct intention of the text.

I think John here is trying to give us

some narrative boundaries in which to understand Jesus's teaching.

I think that the the voice of Peter and the desire of Peter

continues to live in the heart of Christians today,

as we want to sincerely love others as as Jesus calls us to,

we sincerely want to follow Jesus where he calls us.

And yet we know how often we find ourselves making the wrong choice,

or choosing the wrong path, or failing in the moment when our faith gives out.

And I just think that there's a beautiful kind of once again, grace and the text.

Like this. Clint.

I'm not sure that I would have noticed it.

My God,

I don't

think of, you know, the idea of the 13th chapter versus the 14th chapter,

the 12th versus the 13th, possibly,

But it's interesting if you look,

if you look at the flow of the story

from here on out, Jesus miracles are done.

Jesus is not going to do another thing.

He's not going to preach again.

He's not going to argue with the Pharisees again.

There there is a sense where maybe and maybe the right line

is the 13th chapter versus the 14th.

But there is a sense in which at the point that Jesus says

this thing, these things, his work kind of is done with the exception

of remaining faithful and facing the cross.

But so many of the things that have been important in the first

half of this gospel are really there now behind us.

And it it changes now to,

dialog and teaching and prayer and then ultimately standing

before the authorities and being sentenced to death.

But but this is it.

This is an internal transition in that way,

the way that Jesus, that John tells a story

which has most of those things far earlier, allows him

to kind of draw a line there and say, okay, now Jesus has done all that he's

going to do in regard to preaching and miracles and fighting with Pharisees.

Now, what comes next?

I think that's an interesting,

aspect of this, of this gospel.

Well, and don't forget that where we are going to end here,

today is actually in some ways a bookmark to the end of this gospel clean.

And we'll come back and we'll remember to mention this moment.

But it is striking that Peter gets an opportunity

to respond to this conversation about love that he has with Jesus on this night

later in the gospel, in fact, the very end of the gospel, Peter

is asked three questions by Jesus.

And I think so here Jesus is predicting a betrayal.

And there's going to come a time when Peter receives reconciliation

for that betrayal.

And this, in some ways, is the first word

that sets off how the gospel is going to end.

I do think there's a moment here where John is recognizing

that Jesus's ministry,

in a public sense, has concluded all those things

that, you name it, now remains in the private sense.

The disciples,

the inner circle will still be taught by Jesus and prayed for by Jesus.

And then ultimate.

When Jesus makes this very public self-giving,

then following that, his ministry will broaden out

that to not just the inner circle, not just to those people he's had conflict

with in the end that, you know, individual healings and the teachings.

But it's going to be the whole world would be cosmic, too.

And I do think that that flow in the stories on purpose.

And I actually think it helps us understand the extent to which

Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God is doing the work of God in the world.

This is cosmic level stuff.

And and yes, we see it told in these individual stories,

but there's always more beneath the surface.

Yeah, I like the way that John does this.

It gives it a sense of immediacy.

I'm going, I'm going somewhere and you can't follow.

And then he almost puts that on pause

for a moment as we get these coming up conversations

about what it will mean to follow later and what it will look like to be faithful.

This, this is a really interesting moment in the Gospel of John.

So as has been alluded to a couple times here, grateful for all of you

who join us regularly for these studies.

We're just going to be off on break next week.

We'll be gone for

just Monday through Thursday next week and then back the week following.

So hope that you all do well.

If you've missed some other episodes next week would be a great time.

Be caught up on it.

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and we look forward to seeing you all then. Thanks everybody!