Love and Trust and Courage

In John 13:34 Jesus tells his disciples,

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. (KJV)

Jesus' discourse continues for a few more chapters, but takes a turn when he says, "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.  If ye were of the world, the world would love his own...." (15:18-19).  This follows immediately after Jesus says,

These things I command you, that ye love one another. (15:17)

Between "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another" and "These things I command you, that ye love one another" fall some of the most crucial statements of Jesus, and they deal in pivotal fashion with love, trust, and courage.

Simon Peter asks, "Lord, whither goest thou?"--he wants to know the goal, or--as Thomas says more completely--the way: "Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?"

Simon Peter asks, "Lord, why cannot I follow thee now?"--he wants to know the truth, as does Judas (not Iscariot): "Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not unto the world?"

Simon Peter declares, "I will lay down my life for thy sake"--he wants to know for what he might exchange his mortal life, as is implicit in Philip imploring, "Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us."

The disciples are asking about the way, the truth, and the life, and Jesus is answering with love, trust, and courage.

The disciples are asking about the way, and Jesus responds about love:

I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.  And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. (14:2-4)

As for the "way,"

If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (14:23)

There is no "way", as we might understand it, and no destination other than as a metaphor.  The way is love--to search for the way in love.

The disciples are asking about truth, and Jesus responds about trust:

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God; believe also in me. (14:1)

and

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. (15:7)

and most pointedly

And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.  If ye love me, keep my commandments.  And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. (14:13-17)

There is no "truth", as we might understand it, and no way that this world can accept a truth that does not conform to the world's expectations.  Anything is possible for God, and any truth that comports with God's nature can be made by God to be a truth in the world by simply--if necessary--altering every molecular vibration since the beginning of time.  Mountains can be made to leap into the sea, and if God so chooses such a phenomenon can play out in a world that God alters to naturally embrace leaping mountains.  Trust in God requires us to understand that objective truth is a plaything to a God who can alter the entire framework upon which objectivity rests.

The truth is trust--to search for the truth in trust.

The disciples are asking about life, and Jesus responds about courage:

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue you ye in my love.  If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.  These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.  This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.  Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. (15:9-14)

There is no "life", as we might understand it.  The only way to live for the one who died for us is to die for the one who died for us.  We are to die for each other as friends and to die to ourselves to remain in that friendship.  There is no valid way to embrace our life on earth and--as Jesus at the last revealed in his agony--no way to embrace the meaning of the sacrifice of this life for the next.

The life of humanity is courage--to search for the courage to live, and to die.

So the disciples have asked about the way, the truth, and the life.  Jesus' response has two main aspects.

First, Jesus shows that the way, the truth, and the life are more properly subordinate to love, trust, and courage.  This is all very important, but it is subordinate itself to the great, abiding message of the discourse.  This second and more crucial teaching is that all of the elements of our experience are dependent on the person of Jesus, the Jesus who--as a full expression, embodiment, and participant in the divine--is the lord of all those elements.

Jesus is not the "Way" in terms of the idea of a correct "way" among many false ones.  Jesus is the lord of the very phenomenon of people moving through their lives.  He tells us over and over again that the proper direction is love, and that a person who embraces love is on the invisible and unfindable way.

Jesus is not the "Truth" in terms of the idea of a correct "truth" among many falsehoods.  Jesus is the lord of the very phenomenon of people considering and understanding what they can.  Jesus tells us over and over again that the only truth resides in a God who can be trusted.

Jesus is not the "Life" in terms of the idea of a correct "life" that stands out from false lives.  Jesus is the great warning against the very falsehood of individual lives.  Jesus tells us over and over again that life is found in contributing to the lives of others and participating in the eternal life of death always embraced--death to the self on this earth, and death as a participant in the sacrificial death of Jesus throughout every aspect of the universe that was created through him.

Most crucially, the perennial mistake of the denominations--to assert that Jesus as the "way, truth, and life" is a statement of his religious exclusivity--reduces Jesus (and therefore God) to an element of preeminence within a universe of analyzable criteria.  Jesus as the counterpoint to false ways, truths, and lives seems at first to be a figure of great reverence.  This is a horror.  Jesus is not some great figure or great deity standing tall next to lesser beings.  Jesus is being itself.  God is being itself.

"Way," "Truth," and "Life" are parts of us as we understand existence.  We conceptualize them, and we Capitalize Them.  When Jesus says that he is the way, the truth, and life, he is telling us to look at him, and we ought not to be surprised if "way, truth, and life" pale and shrivel.