Having set in motion the final act of His mission, Jesus told his disciples that His time to go had come; that He had little time left with them. Therefore, He needs to prepare them; and the first part of that preparation was giving them a new commandment: to love everybody the way He loved everybody. Of course, the culmination of that love – the cross – has not happened yet. So, they cannot possibly understand the full implication of that commandment. But, characteristically, they accept it as if they had understood and move on to that which seems easier to understand.

John 13:36 Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.

John 13:37 Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake.

John 13:38 Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice.

I wonder how often we act like Peter. The truly critical thing that Jesus is trying to tell us has been laid out before us: “you must love like I love.” But we don’t stop to ponder it. I don’t stop to ask, “what is it that I am missing?” “What is missing from my heart today, that You have to tell me this?” “Is this possibly one of those instances where You have told us to count the cost?”

In other words, if Jesus is taking one of the last precious moments He has left to spend on this Earth, to give me this new commandment, it cannot be obvious and trivial. But maybe I have understood. After all we know all about that conversation with Nicodemus… We know how God so loved the world…

Maybe it is fear of accepting what I think it requires of me that moves me to argue with Him instead.

Isn’t that what Peter is doing, arguing? Jesus says: “I have to go”. There was no directive there for me or you or any of the other disciples. It is clearly something He has to do. Yet, Peter wants in on it. And so, as Jesus has done more than once, He pivots the conversation into a teachable moment:

“Oh, Peter, you trust so much on your strength… Don’t you know that the rooster will not crow until you have denied me… three times?”

The way that Greek sentence is written has been translated in various ways. The Greek of the time had no commas or other punctuation marks. It often is rendered that the rooster will not crow until Peter has denied Jesus three times. But it could also mean that the rooster will not finish crowing (and you know what that means if you have ever heard a rooster crow; it isn’t just one note) until Peter has denied knowing Jesus… and this will happen three times.

I wonder how Peter felt after Jesus said that. He could have felt devastated if that had been a rebuke. We would have had to be there to see his face and Jesus’ face to really understand how it was said and how it was received. But Jesus leaves nothing open to misunderstanding, He says immediately:

John 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

Have you ever heard the saying: Speak the Truth in Love?

Sounds right, doesn’t it? Even sounds noble. But think about what that implies of the situation or think about how you feel when you imagine yourself acting that way in some hypothetical situation.

Doesn’t that admonition presuppose that I know the Truth and the other person is misguided? Doesn’t it somehow imply that I am superior in my knowledge of the truth and therefore it is reminding me to be gentle, even condescending, as I reveal it to that other poor misguided soul? “It is my duty to speak the truth even if it hurts you… but I am doing it in love.”

I don’t know that Jesus ever spoke that way.

By definition, everything He said was Truth… because, as the Son of God, He could not do otherwise. Look up the several times He says in the gospel of John that His Father is True (John 3:33, 5:32, 7:18, 8:26, 17:3). But what those that listened to Him heard most of all was that He spoke Love. Everything that He did, everything that He said was testifying to Love, True Love.

Here is an example, in this conversation with Peter. Peter is missing the point of what matters most, and he is even misjudging himself, his strength; and that can lead to disaster. Just consider Judas, who witnessed the power-filled ministry of the Messiah for three years and yet still found a way to lose his soul. So, Jesus is determined to keep Him strong.

Yes, He told him he would deny Him; but he did not belabor the point or rebuke him. Instead, He told Him what he would need to remember at that fateful moment when that awful truth was fulfilled…

John 14:1-3 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. 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.

“Peter, no matter what happens, remember this: I am going to My Father… and it has been my plan all along to take you all there with Me. The thought has never crossed My mind to abandon you. No, this is My plan, and I will carry it out. And to fulfill it, I will come back.”

It is all comfort, motivated by Love; and it is all True. He has there briefly told them what He has told them before in part and will have to tell them again: The cross will not be the end… “But I have already told you the end:”

John 14:4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

Again, this is no rebuke. Jesus knows how hard it is for us to take our eyes off this physical world and focus them on the true reality of the Kingdom of God. Hasn’t it happened in your life? I know it has in mine… That more than once, maybe over and over again, a Truth that I believed in, that I knew that I knew, deep in my soul, gets tossed aside, fallen by the wayside, in the midst of a storm. But that doesn’t make it false… just momentarily forgotten.

Jesus has already told them in various ways that He is going to return to where He came from. So, they know; even though as He looks around at their faces, He knows they are all as puzzled as Peter.

John 14:5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Thomas is still stuck in worldly thinking; he is imagining that there must be a map, a path to follow to where Jesus is going. But Jesus just told them: “You know the way to go to the Father.”

They were there when He talked about being the good shepherd:

John 10:7-11 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

Surely, they understood that day that he was not talking about literal sheep or literal pastures. Surely, He had been clear that He was claiming to be the door to God’s Kingdom where all that enter have eternal life. Surely, they understood then that to accomplish all that would come at a great cost… to the shepherd.

“Thomas, don’t you get it, yet? I am not going a way, I AM the Way. I am not telling you truths, I AM the Truth. I am not talking about earthly life, I AM eternal life.”

John 14:7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

In other words, “all these things that you know are in the Father, the way of salvation, the Truth of His Word, the Life everlasting, they are all in Me… Haven’t you noticed?”

But it is not just Peter and Thomas that are being extra dense that evening. (And, aren’t you glad that they could be just as clueless as we are sometimes? It means there is hope for us…)

John 14:8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.

I hope this makes you laugh. No one can see the Father… But Philip is so confused by this point that he’s not making any sense. And Jesus, in His infinite patience says it all over again:

John 14:9-10 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

This is the difference between “speaking truth in love” and speaking Love in Truth: Love never gives up trying. Love will keep digging the soil of that heart looking for the smallest seed that is still there and, finding it, feed it, nurture it, until it brings forth life.

Jesus’s proof that He and the Father are absolutely and inseparably connected is a fact that Philip and the rest of them have all come to recognize over these three years, they cannot misunderstand that: It is the fact that Jesus is carrying out the mission that God the Father gave to Him. The works of Love that Jesus has been performing day in and day out are the unmistakable proof that he has been doing the Father’s work.

Please note that the word John uses there in Jesus’ statement is erga = works. John is not using the word semeion=signs which he uses every time he is referring to Jesus’ miracles. The work of God is the work of salvation.

John 6:28-29 28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Those works are all the proof we need to believe on Him and be saved.

John 14:11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.

And it is for that same work that He has called us to follow Him:

John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

That is our calling, that is our mission. How will our works be greater? The word doesn’t just mean bigger or larger it also means more. Jesus only had three years of earthly ministry, and He was only one person.

Can you imagine the works of Love a Church of believers could accomplish over centuries?

And it all is enabled by what started this whole line of questioning: the fact that he is going back to the Father.

Now Jesus, having made everything as clear as possible gets back to what he needs to do: prepare them, prepare us, for what is to come: The fact that He will no longer be here physically means that the Father’s works are meant to continue here through us; and therefore He will give us the power to carry out the work:

John 14:13-15 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 anything in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Notice how Jesus bookends this section of teaching with the key messages that he wants them to remember. It all started last time when He said: “I am going; the end is coming; and therefore God is glorified.” Therefore…

“Obey my commandments – especially, including, that new commandment of agape Love; so that you may be able to continue the work. Remember I am not abandoning you, in fact, I will be supporting you all the way so that your works give Glory to the Father the way my works did.”