NOTES for Joh 5:30-6:2

And indeed, we search the Scripture as the key to salvation. It seems like a thick instruction manual, and by following it we will finally gain eternity. It is enough simply to understand what is permitted and what is not, how to act in one or another situation, and everything will work out. But that is not what the book is about.

However people may try to reduce Revelation to Law, that is not the meaning. God reveals Himself; He comes, and it turns out that there are no rules. Even judgment for us consists in the fact that the Light has come into the world, and we begin to see that our deeds are evil. Scripture speaks of Jesus; we read what is written for only one reason: to know Him, understand Him, hear His voice. And, recognizing that the Bible speaks of nothing else, we must read precisely this way the centuries-long history of God's Revelation to people. A Revelation with which it is so difficult to agree, because it overturns our usual ideas about the structure of the world.

Christ's words that those who do not receive Him, who came in the name of the Father, the true God, will receive another are often interpreted to mean that all religions apart from Christian ones are from the devil. Since they do not receive Christ, so the argument goes, they have received "another," and this "other" can only be Christ's opponent. Yet Jesus Himself is not speaking at all about formally acknowledging or not acknowledging Him. Leading people after Himself is not an end in itself for Him. The goal is to lead them further, to the Father. But one can come there only through Him, with His help, by sharing in the fullness of His life.

It is not important to Him what people think about Him: He only wants everyone to be saved. But declarations alone are not enough for this. Spiritual work is needed. After all, He is not creating a new religion for which He is seeking adherents. His task is to make it so that the one who began his path into the Kingdom here will be able to complete it, reaching the end. And to come into the Kingdom, finding salvation there. The question of faithfulness to Christ is not religious or doctrinal. It is a question of faithfulness to God and His Kingdom.

Inner faithfulness most of all. "You do not believe Me because the word of God is not in you." Of course, this is not a matter of knowing sacred texts. "You have neither heard My Father nor seen Him." Here is the answer to all the questions. The matter is not where and when a person was born, what cultural and religious tradition he belongs to, or what sacred texts he has read. The only question is whether he has ever, at least once in his life, encountered the living God.

Not the descriptions of God that can be found in abundance in religious literature and sacred books, but God Himself. If he has, Christ was present there, whether or not the person experiencing the encounter knew of His presence. And if the encounter changed the life of the one who experienced it, if after it the person began to think seriously about spiritual life and the spiritual path, Christ will not abandon such a person. But if a person does not need spiritual life, if for him it is reduced to religious life, he will not see the Messiah.

Even if he is an observant Jew. Or a fully orthodox Orthodox Christian, Catholic, or Protestant. Correct concepts about God and about Christ do not yet guarantee real communion with God and with Christ. And knowledge of the correct texts, for example the Pentateuch of Moses, will then lead only to the author of those texts becoming a witness for the prosecution on the Day of Judgment. For whoever knew more will be asked more.

What an interesting situation: Jesus crosses to the other side of the lake, and a crowd of people follows Him. To put it in ordinary human terms, these people tagged along after Him to see something interesting. One might say: they chose to tag along; Jesus did not invite them, so why on earth should He worry about feeding them? Let them go to the nearest villages or, in the end, sort things out for themselves however they wish. They should have thought ahead before setting out to who knows where; they could have taken care of their own food. But Jesus apparently does not frame the question this way at all. He sees people who have followed Him and, for some reason, considers it necessary to provide them with food. Why? Did He invite them? Did they ask Him to give them food? No. But they followed Him, and for Him this is the main reason to care for them... On the one hand, this is a lesson for us—a lesson about responsibility for those “whom we have tamed.” On the other hand, it is a great consolation: if He is so merciful, then He is just as open to our needs when we turn to Him for help.

Today's reading helps us better understand what is usually called Jesus' "messianic secret." In speaking of it, people mean the fact that Jesus Himself, until the last days of His earthly ministry, almost never spoke directly about His messiahship, at least not openly. The evangelist's account takes us back to the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves (vv. 1-14). And the reaction to it, as we can see, was an attempt to proclaim Jesus "king," to make Him the leader of a new messianic movement (v. 15). This is no surprise: according to the commonly accepted ideas of that time, the Messiah was to become king, restore an independent Jewish state, and introduce in it laws corresponding to the Torah. But Jesus, of course, was not going to become the leader of any religious-political movement.

But Jesus had another, more important reason to conceal His messiahship. He Himself speaks of it directly to those who went looking for Him in Galilee: most of the people seeking a meeting with Him did so not because they thirsted for the Kingdom, but because they wanted, in time of need, always to be able to receive free bread (v. 26). Jesus, however, speaks with them about eternal life and about the main thing without which one cannot partake of it: trust in the One whom God sent into the world to give people the Kingdom (vv. 27-29).

But they do not understand Him. They ask Him: where are the proofs that Your words are true (v. 30)? And at once they give an example of what proofs would convince them: manna from heaven, as in the days of Moses in the wilderness (v. 31). Jesus again tells them that the Kingdom is greater than any miracle, and that the bread of the Kingdom is more important than manna (vv. 32-33). And again they do not understand Him.

His listeners cannot grasp that with the Savior's coming into the world a new era has begun, and that what happened to them on the shore of Lake Gennesaret was not a miracle in the sense in which manna was a miracle. Simply by being with Jesus, they found themselves in the Kingdom and lived for a while according to its laws, but, as we can see, they did not understand fully what had happened to them. That is why they ask Jesus for bread and expect to receive it just as their fathers once received manna from God (v. 34). And Jesus again and again tries to explain to them that the point is not bread, but the Kingdom and that fullness of God's life which is given there to everyone, so that no manna will be needed there anymore.

A miracle is the Kingdom's invasion of our world, the manifestation of its laws where completely different rules usually operate. But now the Kingdom is entering the world, transforming it, and the times of miracles are passing. The time of the Kingdom is beginning - open to everyone who seeks it and wants to enter.

Is it not strange that the One who comes from heaven takes care to feed crowds of His listeners and followers with bread? Is that what He came for? And yet the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves for five thousand people is the only miracle described by all the evangelists, and that means it is especially important. It is this miracle that serves as the starting point for the conversation about the true bread by which a person truly lives, the bread of life.

We have heard since childhood that a person does not live by bread alone. But if we try to understand what makes up our spiritual diet, will we find in it what can truly satisfy the heart, rather than a substitute that leaves only a hangover and nausea?

The Lord offers us this kind of bread. It is not teaching, not commandments, not faith in God - the Jews already had all this, and it exists in many spiritual schools and religions. Jesus speaks of the bread that truly comes down from heaven and gives real, eternal life. It is He Himself.

"The hour is coming and is now here" - in John's Gospel we hear these words when the Lord speaks about His mission on earth. The first Christians often understood the promises of the Lord Jesus as a description of what was soon coming: the Day of the Lord, the end of this world, when He would judge the living and the dead after the general resurrection in the flesh. But if this event is assigned to the future, near or distant, then first, it is unclear what it means that the hour "is now here," and second, words about the future can be important as a promise of our resurrection, but not as a description of what is really happening now.

And yet the Gospel is a very real book. It was written so that we may have life now, not merely be frightened by the future Judgment and begin to behave well. If this is so, then acquittal at the judgment of the Son of Man and the eternal life of the Father are already active, already taking place in the life of the one who has believed His words, and His voice even now gives life to those "who are in the tombs."

Today's reading helps us better understand the essence of Jesus' conflict with that part of the Synagogue which rejected and condemned Him. He Himself speaks of this quite clearly: the chief problem of His opponents is that they never knew the real, living God (vv. 37-38). At first glance, such a statement can appear strange, since both supporters and opponents of Jesus were, for the most part, deeply religious people, familiar with Scripture and, at least in words, awaiting the Messiah and the Kingdom. Yet religion, as we can see, had turned for them from a means into an end in itself. The Savior characterizes this situation in one short phrase: you seek glory from one another, and not from God (v. 44).

Every religion is the work of human hands. Of course, the revelation given by God often needs a religious covering in order to be preserved and handed on to coming generations, but its role here is purely auxiliary; religiosity as such has no relation to revelation. Yet, like every human work, religion gives broad scope for creative self-expression, since such different forms of culture as science, art, and ascetic practice are united in it. And, like every human work, religion can capture a person completely. More than that, as nothing else can, it can influence the formation of the value system both of individuals and of entire communities.

It is no surprise that every religion, and especially one such as Judaism, whose foundation is a centuries-old tradition connected with revelation given by God, sooner or later closes itself within its own boundaries and becomes self-sufficient. Then its followers have to make special efforts to break through their religiosity toward God. But Jesus' opponents, as we can see, were not at all inclined toward such efforts. On the contrary, all their strength was directed toward maintaining the religious covering which, in principle, was supposed to protect the revelation once received from God, but in reality had long since ceased to fulfill that function. It is not by chance that Jesus says that the Torah itself, given through Moses, will become their judgment (v. 45): for keeping faithfulness to the Torah means keeping faithfulness to God and to the One whom He sends, not to religious tradition as such, even if that tradition owed its origin to the Torah (vv. 46-47).

And the point is not that the Lord is offended by those who do not receive Him: in general He cares little for glory or fame (v. 41). The point is that the time of Judgment is already near, and He wants everyone to enter the Kingdom (v. 34). For Judgment places everyone before the choice between life and death. And no religion can help anyone here. Only the One who brought the Kingdom into the world can help.

The Lord again speaks about the judgment that awaits all human deeds. This was probably discussed more than once during Christ's earthly ministry, and all the evangelists in one way or another pass on what the Teacher said. Unlike the lengthy parable of the Last Judgment recorded by the evangelist Matthew, the evangelist John gives here a revelation about the authority that the Father has given to the Son.

The Lord says that the Heavenly Father has given Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man. On the one hand, this refers to the Messiah, whom Holy Scripture often calls the Son of Man, and so we may understand the Savior to mean that judgment has been given to Him because He is the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. On the other hand, let us remember the words of the apostle Paul: "Therefore He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because He Himself suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted" (Heb 2:17-18).

John of Damascus says the same thing in the irmos of the resurrection canon in the first tone, addressing Christ with the words: "You alone know the weakness of human nature and, in compassion, took it upon Yourself; gird me with power from on high..." The Son, in the thought of the apostle Paul and of St. John, alone knows all our weakness, and therefore He is given the right to judge us: He Himself drank our cup to the bottom.

It is striking how differently we can perceive what we read, how differently we “hear.” Perception would seem to depend on the time of day, the reader’s physical condition (quite simply, whether or not one has had enough sleep), and the desire to receive information. Yet there is One in this world who can turn everything, including hindrances, to good (see Rom 8:28). In verse 24 Jesus speaks astonishing words. But even these words can be heard in different ways. Sometimes, by God’s grace, something flares up within us in response to what we have read. He grants this either when we ask for such hearing or when He Himself very much needs us to hear. This is probably the attentive listening and response to His word of which Jesus speaks—not something achieved by our human strength alone. It is no accident that He repeatedly said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” (Matt 11:15). Who, then, does not have these ears? Yet only the Lord can open them. So let us ask God for the gift of hearing, so that the words “whoever hears My word” may apply to us.