We're going to begin to look together at what is often referred to as the Upper Room Discourse in John. In ch.2-12, John has recorded many discussions Jesus has with individuals and crowds but, unlike say Mark, he has included to date very little of Jesus’ direct teaching to his disciples. In ch.13-17 that focus is going to change; from here on, it is the disciples who receive Jesus’ special attention.
These chapters are both precious and profound; there is much here to warm the heart and to inform the mind. What was for the disciples a special and significant time has become just that kind of teaching for us. We’re beginning today with 13:1 which functions very much as a scene-setter for what follows.
1. Jesus, the true Passover
John begins what is effectively a new section with a somewhat vague statement of time: “It was just before the Passover Feast”. The vagueness of what John has written and some of the details that follow have led to different conclusions as to whether the meal Jesus clearly shares here with his disciples is in fact the Passover or whether this takes place earlier in the week.
It’s no doubt for good reason that John writes as he does and the really important issue is not when this all took place but what John is intending to convey here. I think the answer to that lies not only in what he says here but in what he has said elsewhere in his gospel. John is writing so that people might believe that Jesus is the Messiah. He seems by and large to be writing for non-Jews, seen in his explanation and translation of various aspects of Jewish life.
In that context, John has been keen to show that Jesus, as a Jew, has come to be the Saviour of the world. The Messiah had to be a Jew since God had promised to sort out the darkness and distress of this fallen world through the family of Abraham.
With that in mind, it’s interesting to see John referring often to the feasts of the Jews, feasts whose meanings were now coming true in Jesus. Just as the miracles of Jesus functioned as signs, so too did the whole Jewish system of rites and ordinances.
And nowhere is that so clear and powerful as the Passover. Jesus has come as the true Passover sacrifice – the lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Someone has suggested that John is vague about the Passover for this reason: “Jesus does not eat the Passover, he is the Passover”; whether that is correct in detail, the general point is helpful.
Jesus is the one who will function as the fulfilment of all that God had promised and prefigured in the OT. He will lead the true Israel (ch.15) out of the ultimate bondage (ch.8). This idea will recur again and again in this talk with the disciples – even that famous phrase, “the way, the truth, the life” has a whole OT theology within it.
Now, this is an important point for us as believers today. It is vital that we know how to put our Bibles together, not for intellectual reasons but to understand God’s ways with the world and the true significance of Jesus. It is in him – and in him alone – that the age-old plan of God to rescue the world comes to pass.
God’s integrity and righteousness was on the line whilst ever sin and evil dominated in this world and whilst ever the covenant promises made to Abraham went unfulfilled. In Jesus, God is seen to be righteous and faithful, a God who keeps his word, worthy of our trust and the trust of every single human being.
2. The hour has come
John’s next step is to tell us that “Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father”. All through this gospel, Jesus’ hour has been highlighted and anticipated and, with the arrival of the Greeks in 12:20, Jesus knows it has come.
Everything is now moving inexorably to its all-along intended climax. This will be the time when Jesus will glorify his Father through his death and his Father will glorify him. It will be the time when the world is brought to judgement and the prince of this world driven out; it will herald the time for Jesus to be lifted up so that all may be drawn to him (12:27-32).
Could any hour hold more significance, for the world and humanity?
The thought of Jesus returning to his Father carries with it the suggestion that his task has been completed and that will certainly be the case. But in this time with the disciples Jesus will explain that this is really only the end of the beginning – as he was sent, so he will send them. And not only will he send them into the world but he will, when he has ascended, send his Spirit into them.
All this needs to be unpacked; the teaching about the Spirit is some of the richest in the whole gospel. For now, we need simply to recognise that fact and humble ourselves in readiness to address it, or, better, to be addressed with it. Jesus was returning to the Father – not simply going home after an interesting time away but with the whole future of the world opened up and ready for the climactic act of his ministry: to send his Spirit.
3. Loved to the end
As we turn our attention to the last part of this verse, we need to notice the connection with what John has just said. Jesus is aware of the hour and so, because of that, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he now loved them to the end”.
The NIV has here “the full extent of his love” which is fair enough but it rather masks the connection with the cry of Jesus in 19:30, “It is finished” (it’s for that reason I’ve quoted the TNIV). Yes, we will see the full extent of Jesus love but the term ‘end’ also carries with it a sense of purpose and completion.
Notice that this love is described in certain ways. Jesus “loved his own who were in the world”. In John 3:16 we’re famously told that God so loved the world that he gave his own Son, but that love was not indiscriminate and here we see the focus of that love: his own who were in the world.
The term ‘world’ as used here speaks of the whole order that stands opposed to God and decaying in its sin. The love of Jesus is not such that he will make life in this world a little easier for all who believe on him; rather, he will rescue them out of this world that they might be part of the new creation his resurrection heralds and inaugurates (see 20:1).
Jesus had loved his disciples and expressed it in countless ways but now he was going to love them to the end. How is that love going to be expressed in what follows? Let me suggest a number of helpful ways to think through this love of Jesus:
i) He will teach his disciples, in deed and in word. It’s interesting that the first thing he does it to act out something of the reality of his love in the foot-washing that follows. Not all teaching is verbal; some of the most powerful is Spirit-filled example.
But these next chapters are then full of verbal teaching of the highest order. In love, Jesus helps to prepare his disciples to face the grim reality of his death. They will indeed be sad; it is not loving to hide that from them. It would not be loving to pretend that all will go swimmingly for them and so Jesus warns them of persecution to come on account of his name. It is not loving to mask the moral imperatives of the gospel and so Jesus, in love, urges his disciples to genuine obedience and faithful following and promises them the help they will need to do so.
This is teaching for us, given in love by our Saviour. Don’t despise what he says to you, however hard it might seem – it is teaching full of love.
ii) In love, Jesus prays for his people – for the disciples and for all who will believe in him through them. What intensity there is in that prayer – because his love is intense and passionate for his people. And still today he prays for us – ever-living to intercede for his own as a great and sympathetic high priest.
iii) But, of course, the ultimate expression of his love for his own, and which is prefigured in the foot-washing episode, is the self-giving of Jesus to the death of the cross. On our behalf, he engages the powers of sin and evil; he faces our fears, he shoulders our sin, he absorbs our agony, in order to lead us to the unspeakable joy of the rescue and release of the true exodus from slavery.
Do you know of any higher love? Can anything else capture your heart so completely and so truly? “To the end”.
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