6. Keeping the Word

Judas (not Iscariot.)

14:22-31

Why show yourself to us?

the word of me he will keep

14:22-31 Then Judas, not the Iscariot, says to him (Jesus) "Lord, what has happened that you are about to show yourself (as you really are) to us and not to the world?" Jesus answered and said to him "If anyone loves me he will keep my word." My Father will love him. We will come to him and we will make an abode with(in) him. The one who does not love me does not keep my word. The word that you hear, is not mine but comes from the Father who has sent me. I have spoken these things to you while remaining with you. But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, which the Father will send in my name, that one, will teach you everything and remind you of everything that I

told you. I leave peace with you. I give you my peace. It is not as the world gives peace that I give this to you. Do not let your heart be troubled. Nor let it be fearful. You heard that I told you, that I am going and yet will come (back) to you. If you loved me you would have been happy that I am going to the Father because the Father is greater than me. So now I have told you (all this) before it happens, so that when it does happen you may believe. I can no longer tell you about many things for the ruler of the world (Satan) is coming. He does not have any thing (power) in me. But so that the world may know that I love the Father and I am doing as the Father has commanded me get up and let's go."

As Jesus challenges his disciples to identify with himself consider an area that until now the Gospels do not appear to have come to terms with. Recall 'the line of logic' as set out in Reality Search. It claims that in the underlying structures of the gospels the two societies - one based upon time and the other upon place are brought into a kind of dialectical relationship with each other. In John's gospel one is challenged to think of such societies as co-existing, not only under the one roof of the emerging church, but within the one person, that is within oneself, the "every man" There is some of the disciple (c/f law) and some of the kingdom figure (c/f order) within all those who pattern their lives on that of Jesus. A focus on 'the one' brings the reader back to the last Section of Mark's gospel where he

sets out the sorts of things that 'the one' has to deal with in life. Not only does the individual have to deal with the various forces operating both for and against him (or her) in the wider world. They have to try to establish peace (c/f the peace of Jesus) within themselves.