Like whiplash, it must have been. Like déjà vu.
—I love you. Remain in me, and I’ll remain in you.
—I am going away.
—Remain in me.
—I am going away.
Surely, it wasn’t the first time. No, it wasn’t the first time they had heard it, the promise of challenge and hatred and peril and death. Not just Jesus’s death. Their death too. So why did it hit particularly hard here, so hard that his best friends couldn’t ask about the finer point he was making, the “great underscore,” the drumbeat of hope that pulsed through it all? But I will send you the Advocate – the Spirit of truth. Why, in this moment, did the tunnel vision surge, and the panic, and…the grief?
5 “But now I am going away to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I am going. 6 Instead, you grieve because of what I’ve told you.
The time is coming when you will be killed. When you will be put out of the synagogues. When you will be hated because of my name.
It had to have been like a bell tolling, like a drone stuck in their heads, an earworm they couldn’t wriggle away from. You will be killed. You will be put out. You will be hated. No one asked him where he was going. No one asked him what the destination was, what the point of it was, what would be the final word, too focused were they on the proclamation of pain.
Can you imagine if they had asked? (And if they had seen him in that moment, in the moment of his deep pain, to be the friend to him he had always been to them?)
But wait, Jesus, where are you going?
—Remember how I said to the officials, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come?’ Now I say to you, where I am going, you will certainly be. Remain in me, and I’ll remain in you.
But you’re going away. Where? How do we go there, too?
—Remain in me.
But where?
—Remain in me.
It was the answer to the question they weren’t asking. But what if they had?
7 But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate[c] won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you.
Jesus, don’t leave. Please don’t leave.
—It is best that I go.
What a statement. There is nothing better than you, Jesus, nothing more precious than your presence, than your friendship in the flesh, than your God-with-me-ness, than your hands washing my feet, than your thumb wiping mud across my eyes, than the power of your audible voice saying “Rise, take up your mat, and walk” to my once-dead legs…
—But there is.
No. I can’t believe that. I can’t.
A gift they couldn’t receive.
8 And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. 9 The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me. 10 Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. 11 Judgment will come because the ruler of this world has already been judged.
Don’t you see? Didn’t they see? All the pain, the persecution, the gossiping, the hatred, the misunderstanding, the isolation, the rejection…everything they would experience would die before they did.
Because he was leaving. Because he was leaving. The blessing of his coming was so clear: Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey.
But the blessing of his leaving…was greater. Somehow it was greater. Somehow, it would bring works they had not seen, works by their hands, a widespread outpouring of peace in the midst of pain, of hope in the midst of dashed dreams, of beauty in ashes before the embers had even let go of their last pulsing light.
And the judgment of Death itself. Forever.
12 “There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now.
The withholding of words. Oh, how painful. What his spirit must have wanted to say, but couldn’t, because it couldn’t yet be held. What love that would have been—because before he spoke, he saw.
El Roi.
Jesus, tell us.
—You cannot bear it now.
I must know. I have to know. I can’t take this anymore. I can’t take this grief, this pain, the unknown, what might come and what might not come and oh Jesus I do not understand how the withholding of Truth would somehow be good for me—
—I love you. Remain in me.
Because the Truth will not be withheld forever.
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.
I don’t understand.
—Right now you don’t understand what I am doing. But someday you will.
Jesus, please don’t leave. I want to talk to you.
14 He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me.
He will talk to me?
—He will.
Is this a prophet? Are you bringing another John? Another Elijah? Jesus, I just want to talk to you. You can’t come and then leave and then expect me to not miss you…to not yearn for you, even more than I’ve yearned in the years before I truly knew you…
—Remain in me.
I don’t want a messenger. I don’t want an Advocate. Jesus, don’t leave and send a prophet in your place…
How confusing it must have been. Why now? And how could that be a gift? He was saying that he had a gift that was better than his very heartbeat. Impossible. That they would do greater works than he, because he was going to the Father. Every word he had said he had fulfilled—so why was this so incredulous to behold?
Because they loved him. They loved him. And the promise of what they saw as a substitute couldn’t have been enough. Not when they were losing the friend they’d grown to love.
But there was something better. They couldn’t receive it then. They couldn’t see it then. But the words of Jesus were true: There was something better.
15 All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’
The third person of the Trinity. A third way to be in relationship. They had only known two before—the Father and the Son.
A threefold chord isn’t easily broken. It is finished, now. Cemented in—You are mine. Forever.
—Remain in me.
The Voice of God. Living in them. The Peace of Jesus. Living in them. The Hope of Eternity. Living in them.
The blessing of his coming. The blessing of his going.
—There is so much I want to say, but you can’t bear it now.
The gift they couldn’t receive. Not then, but soon. And when it came, oh what joy.
22 So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy. 23 At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything. I tell you the truth, you will ask the Father directly, and he will grant your request because you use my name. 24 You haven’t done this before. Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy.
~
And this I know
The Love of my Lord
Lives in my heart
And speaks to my soul
And brings me to Truth
Which is always producing Life
In me and in those I love
All for his glory
And my good
So when I grieve
For the gifts I can’t yet receive
I trust the promise of a Savior
Who loved me enough
To withhold what I can’t yet bear
And in the midst of it
Whisper what I can hold onto:
Remain in me.
Lake Superior, McQuade Harbor, Duluth, MN - April 2023
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