NOTES for Joh 12:19-36

When the Greeks come to Jesus, they ask Philip for help. For some reason he goes to Andrew. It is hard to think the apostle was afraid to approach the Teacher himself. It is just as unlikely that Andrew was Christ's personal secretary, in charge of the Teacher's schedule. The matter is something quite different.

Something unusual is happening. For the first time, other peoples responding to Jesus' preaching are mentioned, even if they believe in the same God as the Jews. The community of Christ's disciples is encountering something new. And therefore Philip behaves very naturally: he does not hurry to act on his own. Jesus sent the apostles out to preach not one by one, but two by two (see Mark 6:7).

Who knows: perhaps Philip went to Andrew precisely because he was "paired" with him? Besides, Philip surely remembers how Christ said, "Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am among them" (Matt 18:20).

The Lord lays the foundation of the Church in this way: not scattered believers, but disciples coming to Him together. When we do not understand what to do, when we want to know God's will, we should not rely exclusively on how we ourselves hear it. God has given us His Church to help us: He has given us elders, He has given us brothers and sisters with whom we can turn to Him together. And so His word is fulfilled: "If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven" (Matt 18:19).

There are turning points in human history that may remain outwardly unnoticed, yet still be the true cause of major historical events. When “some Greeks” ask the apostle Philip to arrange a meeting with Jesus, just such a turning point arrives, and the Lord says of it: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

The fact is that the entire history of the Old Testament religion unfolded amid a glaring contradiction between the universal character of the divine revelation given in it and the narrowly national character of the religion itself. To be a participant in the Covenant with God and to be a Jew by blood were regarded as one and the same thing. The prophets repeatedly proclaimed that the day would come when the Lord would call all nations to Himself, but this time was associated with the future coming of the Messiah. And now that day had arrived.

It is in this universal context that Christ’s words, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to Myself,” should be understood. This is why the Greeks’ desire to meet Christ becomes such a turning point in history.

Jesus’ words that the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified were spoken in response to the news brought by the disciples that the Greeks wished to see Him. The Evangelist mentions neither who these Greeks were nor whether the meeting took place; apparently, it did not. Most likely, this is one of the instances in which Christ does not give the answer expected of Him, but says what His listeners actually need to hear. It is possible that even at this moment the disciples do not fully understand that the Teacher must pass through suffering, and to them the Greeks’ interest is evidence of new opportunities for preaching. They think in quantitative terms, but Christ is preparing for the self-sacrifice that will change everything qualitatively. For the salvation of divided humanity, including the Greeks, He goes to His death, after which the disciples’ preaching will be able to succeed.

One might object to the words, “Now the ruler of this world will be cast out,” by saying that evil still reigns in the world today. But the forces of evil no longer possess the authority they had before Golgotha. The agony may be long and violent, but the enemy has already received the mortal blow.

We always think that before we can give, we must first receive something. The apostle Paul reverses this logic: it is given only to the one who gives. In this he follows Christ perfectly: in the Gospel of John, Jesus says very similar things. Do you want eternal life? Give up the life you have. Do you want the Father's reward? Begin by serving.

"And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to Myself." Strange words. John goes on to explain that this is about Jesus' Death, not about the Ascension. The word "draw" can be understood in very different ways, and both meanings are probably important. It can be understood as an expression of love. The Cross is the ultimate expression of God's love: God loves us unto death, even death on a cross. With these words Jesus in effect says to us: "I will draw you to Myself by My love, embrace you, take you by the hand, and lead you to the Father."

On the other hand, until Christ's Second Coming, while time has not ended and we live on this earth and sin, there is no other path for us: we too must pass through the cross. Christ has redeemed us, and after the Cross there will be Resurrection. But the path to resurrection and eternal life lies through Golgotha, where we will never be alone - Jesus will be beside us.

Jesus and the people listening to Him understand the Messiah's path differently. And the very image of the Messiah in the popular mind differs from what the Savior proved to be in reality. The main difference is that for the great majority of the people who listened to Jesus, the work of the Messiah was something purely external. The Messiah, or, as Jesus usually calls Himself in the third person, the Son of Man (this messianic image is taken from the Book of Daniel), has in the people's consciousness no ordinary human path at all.

He is not an ordinary man. He "abides forever." He comes to earth in order to accomplish something great, something that must end with the creation of the messianic Kingdom, a strong earthly state that this extraordinary King will head. His earthly path will be mysterious and unlike the path of an ordinary person, though Jews still do not speak of the Messiah's divinity in the Christian sense. And here it turns out that the Messiah still has to undergo some kind of glorification. There was something to think about. Jesus Himself, meanwhile, speaks about His real earthly path. About a path that includes death on the cross and the resurrection that follows. And also about the path by which one enters His Kingdom. About a path that requires a change of life. Not the restructuring of human life according to some special rules, but its change, complete and radical.

Such a change makes the limited and finite life of fallen man part of another life: that life of the Kingdom in all its fullness, which the Savior brought into the world. Without this change it is impossible to enter the Kingdom. It would seem that there is nothing complicated here. It is far simpler than the many clever methods for restructuring and remaking human nature that countless magicians and occultists have offered in every age. Yet precisely this kind of change sometimes proves completely beyond a person's strength. Because here one has to open one's hand. And, what is still more difficult, one's will. To let go.

And to let go of one's own life, that very existence with which one has grown used to identifying oneself, is not simple at all. It is easier to remake it in any way one wants, but by oneself, under one's own control, than to give up such control and allow Another to govern one's life. Here trust is needed, and it either exists or it does not. But if it does not, then hope for the Kingdom will have to be abandoned. For in the Kingdom where Christ reigns, one cannot live without trusting the One who rules that Kingdom.

The Lord mysteriously tells us, His disciples: "The light is with you for a little while longer." Yes, of course, this refers to His imminent death on the cross, for the Word, like a grain of God's sowing, must die in order to bear fruit. And He died - of this, unlike His resurrection, no one doubts - and the light He brought into the world went out forever for the world.

But not for those who believed Him! He promised that those who believe in Him would be sons of light, bearers of this light revealed to the apostles in the Resurrection. And this is both a promise and a task: not to remain in darkness despite His death, obvious to all; to "walk in the light," that is, to live in His presence, believing that He is alive. Then His death, through us - and this is astonishing - will bear much fruit for the world and open access for all to the Kingdom of Light...

Everyone is familiar with the situation when you offer someone something important, beautiful, valuable, necessary, or tasty, and the person refuses. One of the most typical reactions can be formulated childishly like this: "Fine then, I did not want it that much anyway," or even more cheerfully, "That means there will be more for me." But speaking this way, we pretend that another person's neglect does not touch us and that we are "free people living in a free country," that something of one's own can be dear to each person, and that we respect another person's choice.

In reality, beneath this showy calm lies hurt that what is precious to you turns out to be unnecessary to others. Gradually this hurt can poison life even more: it begins to feel as though it was not the thing offered that was refused, but that you yourself are not loved, not respected, not accepted. And then it begins...

Glory to God that He is not like that at all! When we refuse what He shares with us - not merely something important to Him, but also that without which no person will be truly happy - He still says that He does not judge us (see John 12:47). Then He will add that each person will be his own judge (see John 12:48). And this is an astonishing truth: the Lord cannot deprive us of salvation; only we ourselves can deprive ourselves of it. He not only does not condemn us, He does not even judge us for it. It simply hurts Him very much...

The evangelist describes the reasons for unbelief in Jesus quite exhaustively. He divides all unbelievers into two categories: those who do not want to see the truth and those who are simply afraid. The second case is more or less understandable: in every age fear and cowardice have been among the chief obstacles on the path of righteousness, preventing those who walk or want to walk that path from making the right decisions. The first category is more complicated. It is probably hard to imagine a person who in ordinary life voluntarily blinds himself or simply closes his eyes so that, no longer seeing the reality around him, he can replace that vision with fantasies. And understandably so: in everyday life the consequences of such an act can be most unexpected and unpleasant. Yet in spiritual life many people apparently make just this choice, and quite often, although the consequences here are hardly less serious. Why is that?

The Athenian philosopher Socrates, who lived five centuries before the birth of Christ, seems already to have understood the reason for such behavior. He said that people often take a small good for a great one and a great evil for a small one, as well as the reverse, simply because what is large looks smaller at a distance than it really is. This applies to spiritual life just as much as to everyday life.

Giving up comfortable and familiar views and a settled worldview, especially a religious one, is at the very least uncomfortable. The day of Judgment seems so distant, so small compared with this discomfort, that... it is disregarded—perhaps in the hope that by the time it comes, things will somehow have settled down, worked themselves out, and resolved themselves, and that we will somehow enter the Kingdom after all at little cost, without any particular sacrifice or loss.

And it is best to get rid of those who, as the saying goes, care far too much. There will be no quiet life with them anyway. How to get rid of them is merely a technical question.

By quoting the prophet Isaiah, the evangelist John lets us understand that there is nothing unusual in the unbelief of the Jews. Simple, understandable, and by no means honorable human reasons lead to it. What matters for us here is not to condemn those who do not believe, but to be penetrated by the spirit of Christ's words. Today the Lord speaks to us again about light. He is the light that came into the world so that those who believe in Him would not remain in darkness. This means that, knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, we ourselves can be filled with this light and see truth and falsehood, life and death, cruelty and mercy. And this gives us the opportunity to make a choice and follow the truth the Lord reveals to us.

As so often happens, among the people involved in events few understand what is taking place, and often no one understands at all. The crowds welcome the King, but those present at His entry into Jerusalem were hardly able to hear that His Kingdom is unlike every earthly kingdom and that Jesus has no intention of replacing one set of earthly rulers with another, equally familiar set. Were those who heard about the raising of Lazarus capable of understanding that what had happened was not an isolated miracle, but a pledge of the universal Resurrection?

It is difficult for us fully to understand the feelings of the people of Jerusalem and of the pilgrims gathered in the city, but they are clearly waiting for something other than what Christ is bringing. Yet He is going toward sufferings that many of those who first welcomed Him will not understand, and He knows it. Even a superficial acceptance of Christ, like the greetings of the rejoicing crowds, can become the foundation for a deeper understanding of what He has brought into the world. But it may fail to do so if that first approach to Him is mistaken for fullness of understanding.

Answering Judas's remark, the Lord says that, unlike the poor, He will not always be with the disciples. He went away, but He remained - this is the mystery of our faith. And He remained in those very poor whom Judas supposedly wanted to comfort ("What you did to them, you did to Me" Matt 25).

And there truly are many poor people around, and it is not only a matter of income or poverty - everyone lacks the living minimum of love. Are we not poor too?

And it is precisely thanks to this mystical presence of Jesus among us - on our streets, in the subway, in our homes - that we can follow Mary of Bethany, who showed mercy to her Lord by anointing Him with costly spices. To show love to those poor in love - this is our anointing too, for which Christ is always near.

Today's reading once again returns us to Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. Although he remains in the background, he nevertheless takes part in such events as the anointing of Jesus (vv. 1-11) and the Lord's entry into Jerusalem (vv. 12-19). At the beginning of the account we meet Lazarus in the house where the events unfold (vv. 1-2), and his presence draws many people's attention to what is happening when they might otherwise have noticed nothing (v. 9). According to the evangelist, even Jesus' triumphant reception in the streets of Jerusalem was connected to a significant degree with the rumors spreading through the city about the man who had died and whom He had raised (vv. 17-18).

Such attention to Lazarus and to everything connected with the miracle of Jesus raising him is, of course, no accident. For most believing Jews, the resurrection of the dead was a sign that the day of Judgment and the messianic Kingdom had arrived. Someone capable of performing such miracles was naturally regarded as the long-awaited Messiah. Jesus Himself, who had previously concealed His messiahship and revealed the mystery of His ministry to only a few, now bears direct witness to His mission: He accepts the greetings of the people gathered in the city streets, who welcome Him as the Messiah (vv. 12-15). Indeed, after so evident a manifestation of the Kingdom's power before everyone, it would have been utterly impossible to continue concealing His messiahship. On the other hand, Jesus now had very little time left before completing His earthly ministry, so He no longer needed to fear being drawn into religious and political games by being made the leader of yet another messianic uprising.

But even such plain evidence apparently did not convince everyone. Neither the Temple leadership (vv. 10-11) nor most of the leaders of the Pharisaic movement (v. 19) changed their opinion of Jesus. Yet this position can hardly have been determined by any evidence or arguments. Had arguments been at issue, one could scarcely find one weightier than the living Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised before a multitude of witnesses. But judging by the evangelist's account, the priestly circles' only response to this argument was a plan to kill Lazarus and thus rid themselves of him as living evidence that Jesus was right.

This is plainly no longer about evidence or theological discussion but about a political game whose outcome is known in advance. Those who play it have no need of the Kingdom. They need religious and political stability in society, which in their view justifies any sacrifice. If at first the issue concerned only One (John 11:49-50), it now concerns at least two. Such is the logic of earthly power when it opposes the Kingdom: unwilling to acknowledge the obvious, it merely multiplies its victims as it tries to eliminate everyone who might become a witness to the Kingdom. It is the logic of the powers of darkness that leads the Savior to the cross.