Homilies on John, Homily 79

“A little while, and you will not see Me; and again, a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father.” Then some of His disciples said among themselves, “What does He mean by this?” [And what follows.] [1.] Nothing brings down a soul in anguish and deep despair like continually dwelling on words that cause pain. Why, then, did Christ, after saying, “I go,” and, “After this I will not speak with you,” keep returning to the same subject, saying, “A little while, and you will not see Me, because I go to Him who sent Me”? After restoring their spirits with His words about the Spirit, He again discouraged them. Why does He do this? He tests their feelings, strengthens them through testing, and, by having them hear sad things, trains them to bear separation from Him courageously. For those who had practiced this when it was spoken about would likely find it easy to bear afterward when it actually happened. And if we look closely, this very statement, “I go to the Father,” is a comfort. For these are the words of One declaring that He will not perish, but that His end is a kind of passage elsewhere. He adds another comfort too. He does not merely say, “A little while, and you will not see Me,” but also, “A little while, and you will see Me,” showing both that He will come to them again and that their separation will last only a little while, while His presence with them will continue. They did not understand this, however. So we may reasonably wonder how, after hearing these things often, they are puzzled as though they had heard nothing. Why, then, did they not understand? Either because of grief, I suppose, which drove what He said from their minds, or because His words were obscure. For He seemed to them to be presenting two contradictory things that were not contradictory. “If,” one of them says, “we will see You, where are You going? And if You are going away, how will we see You?” That is why they say, “We cannot tell what He means.” They knew He was about to leave, but they did not know He would soon come to them. For this reason He rebukes them for not understanding His words. For, wanting to impress the teaching about His death on their minds, what does He say? Ver. 20. “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament”—this referred to the Death and the Cross—“but the world will rejoice.” Because they did not want Him to die, they quickly came to believe that He would not die. Then, when they heard that He would die, they struggled to understand what that “little” meant. So He says, “You will mourn and lament.” “But your sorrow will turn into joy.” Then, having shown that joy comes after grief, that grief gives birth to joy, and that grief is brief but the pleasure endless, He turns to a familiar example. And what does He say? Ver. 21. “A woman in labor has sorrow.” He uses a comparison that the Prophets also use continually, comparing distress to the intense pains of childbirth. What He means is this: “Labor pains will seize you, but the pain of childbirth is the cause of joy.” In this way He both confirms His words about the Resurrection and shows that leaving this life is like passing from the womb into the light of day. It is as though He said, “Do not be surprised that I lead you through such sorrow for your benefit, since even a mother goes through pain in the same way to become a mother.” Here He also implies something mystical: that He has loosened the labor pains of death and caused a new man to be born from them. And He did not say only that the pain will pass away, but that “she does not even remember it,” so great is the joy that follows. So it will also be with the Saints. Yet the woman does not rejoice because “a man has come into the world,” but because a son has been born to her. If the former were the reason, nothing would keep a barren woman from rejoicing over another woman who gives birth. Why, then, did He put it this way? Because He introduced this example only to show that sorrow lasts for a time, but joy endures; to show that (death) is a passage into life; and to show the great benefit of their pains. He did not say, “a child has been born,” but, “A man.” For in my view He is alluding here to His own Resurrection, and to His being born into the Kingdom, rather than into the death that suffered the birth pang. That is why He did not say, “a child has been born to her,” but, “A man has been born into the world.” Ver. 22, 23. “And so you now have sorrow—[but I will see you again, and your sorrow shall be turned into joy].” Then, to show that He will die no more, He says, “And no one takes it from you. And on that day you will ask Me nothing.” Again, all He proves by these words is that He is from God. “For then, from that time on, you will know all things.” But what does “You will not ask Me” mean? “You will need no intercessor. You need only call on My Name, and in this way obtain all things.” “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask My Father in My Name.” He shows the power of His Name, since even when He is neither seen nor called upon, but only named, He causes us to find favor with the Father. But where has this happened? Where they say, “Lord, look at their threats, and grant Your servants boldness to speak Your word” ( Acts iv. 29, 31 ), “and work miracles in Your Name.” “And the place where they were was shaken.” Ver. 24. “Until now you have asked nothing.” [2.] By this He shows that it is good for Him to leave, if until now they have asked nothing, and then they will receive everything they ask for. “Do not suppose that because I will no longer be with you, you have been abandoned. My Name will give you greater boldness.” Since the words He had used were veiled, He says, Ver. 25. “I have spoken these things to you in proverbs, but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in proverbs.” “There will be a time when you will know all things clearly.” He is speaking of the time of the Resurrection. “Then,” “I will tell you plainly about the Father.” (For He was with them and talked with them for forty days, gathering with them and speaking about the kingdom of God— Acts i. 3, 4 ,)—“because now, in your fear, you pay no attention to My words. But then, when you see Me risen again and talk with Me, you will be able to learn all things plainly, for the Father Himself will love you when your faith in Me has become firm.” Ver. 26. “And I will not ask the Father.” “Your love for Me is enough to plead your case.” Ver. 27, 28. “Because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world; again I leave the world and go to the Father.” Since His words about the Resurrection, together with hearing that “I came from God, and I go there,” gave them extraordinary comfort, He keeps returning to these things. He gave them an assurance, first, that they were right to believe in Him, and second, that they would be safe. So when He said, “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me” ( ver. 17 ), it was understandable that they did not grasp His meaning. But now that is no longer the case. What, then, does “You will not ask Me” mean? “You will not say, ‘Show us the Father,’ and, ‘Where are You going?’ For you will have all knowledge, and the Father will feel toward you just as I do.” This especially allowed them to breathe freely again: learning that they would be the Father’s friends. That is why they say, Ver. 30. “Now we know that You know all things.” Do you see that He answered what was secretly occupying their minds? “And You do not need anyone to ask You.” That is, “Before hearing them, You know the things that troubled us, and You have put us at ease by saying, ‘The Father loves you because you have loved Me.’” After so many great things, they say, “Now we know.” Do you see how incomplete their understanding was? Then, when they say, “Now we know,” as though doing Him a favor, He replies, “You still need many other things to reach perfection. You have achieved nothing yet. Soon you will betray Me to My enemies, and such fear will seize you that you will not even be able to retreat together. Yet none of this will bring any terrible harm to Me.” Do you see again how He adapts His words to their weakness? Indeed, He reproaches them for continually needing Him to do so. For when they say, “Look, now You speak plainly and use no parable” ( ver. 29 ), “and therefore we believe You,” He shows them that now, when they believe, they do not yet believe, and He does not accept their words. He says this to direct them to a later time. But the words, Ver. 32. “The Father is with Me,” He again added for their sake, for this was what they always wanted to learn. Then, to show that He said this to keep their minds from resisting, rather than to give them complete knowledge (for they were likely to form merely human ideas and think they would receive no help from Him), He says, Ver. 33. “I have spoken these things to you so that in Me you may have peace.” That is, “so that you will not put Me out of your minds, but receive Me.” So let no one force these words into a doctrine; they are spoken for our comfort and love. “For even when we suffer the things I have mentioned, your troubles will not end there. As long as you are in the world, you will have sorrow, both now, when I am betrayed, and afterward. But take courage, for you will suffer nothing terrible. When the master has overcome his enemies, the disciples must not lose heart.” “And how,” tell me, “have You ‘conquered the world’?” I have already told you that I have brought down its ruler, but you will understand later, when all things yield and give way to you. [3.] But we too can conquer, by looking to the Author of our faith and walking the road He opened for us. Then death will not gain mastery over us either. “What, then? Will we not die?” someone says. Why, this very thing makes it clear that death will not gain mastery over us. The champion will truly be glorious when he has grappled with his opponent and is not held by him, rather than when he has never grappled with him. So our struggle with death does not make us mortal; our victory makes us immortal. We would have been mortal if we had remained with death forever. Just as I would not call the longest-lived animals immortal, although they remain free from death for a long time, neither would I call someone who will rise after death mortal because death breaks down his body. For tell me, if someone blushes for a moment, would we say his complexion is always red? No, for an action is not a lasting condition. If someone turns pale, would we call him jaundiced? No, for the condition is only temporary. In the same way, you would not call someone mortal who has been in death’s hands for only a short time. Otherwise we could say the same of people who sleep, for they are, so to speak, dead and inactive. But does death cause our bodies to decay? What of it? This happens so that they may be made better, rather than remain in decay. So let us conquer the world; let us run toward immortality; let us follow our King; let us too set up a trophy of victory; let us despise the world’s pleasures. We need no hard work to do this. Let us move our souls to heaven, and the whole world is conquered. If you do not desire it, it is conquered; if you laugh at it, it is defeated. We are strangers and temporary residents, so let us not grieve over any of its painful experiences. For suppose you came from a renowned country and distinguished ancestors, and traveled to a distant land where no one knew you, taking neither servants nor wealth with you. If someone then insulted you, you would not grieve as though this had happened at home. Clearly knowing that you were in a strange, foreign land would persuade you to bear everything easily and disregard hunger, thirst, and any suffering at all. Think about this now as well: you are a stranger and a temporary resident, so let nothing disturb you in this foreign land. For you have a City whose Builder and Creator is God, and your stay here lasts only a brief, short time. Let anyone who wants to strike, insult, or abuse us do so. We are in a strange land and live humbly. The dreadful thing would be to suffer this in our own country, before our fellow citizens. That is where the greatest disgrace and loss would lie. For someone in a place where no one knows him endures everything easily, because an insult becomes more painful because of the intention of those who give it. For instance, if someone insults the governor knowing that he is the governor, the insult is bitter. But if he insults him supposing him to be a private citizen, he cannot even touch the person who suffers the insult. Let us reason in the same way. For those who abuse us do not know who we are either: citizens of heaven, enrolled in the country above, singing in the same choir as the Cherubim. So let us neither grieve nor regard their insult as an insult. If they had known, they would not have insulted us. Do they think us poor and lowly? Let us not count this as an insult either. For tell me, suppose a traveler had gone ahead of his servants and was sitting in an inn for a little while waiting for them. If the innkeeper or some travelers then treated him rudely and abused him, would he not laugh at their ignorance? Would their mistake not give him pleasure instead? Would he not feel satisfied, as though someone else were being insulted? Let us behave this way too. We too sit in an inn, waiting for our friends who are traveling the same road. When we are all gathered, then they will know whom they are insulting. Then these people will hang their heads; then they will say, “This is the one whom we” fools “ridiculed.” ( Wisd. v. 3.) [4.] So let us comfort ourselves with these two thoughts: that we are not insulted, because they do not know who we are; and that, if we want satisfaction, they will later give us a most bitter satisfaction. But God forbid that anyone should have a soul so cruel and inhuman. “What, then, if our relatives insult us? That is what is hard to bear.” On the contrary, that is easy to bear. “Why, please tell me?” Because we do not bear insults from those we love in the same way as insults from people we do not know. For instance, when comforting people who have been wronged, we often say, “It is your brother who has wronged you; bear it nobly. It is your father; it is your uncle.” But if the name “father” or “brother” makes you ashamed of your resentment, how much more will it do so if I name a relationship closer than these? For we are not only brothers to one another, but also members of one another and one body. Now if the name “brother” makes you ashamed, how much more the name “member.” Have you not heard the Gentile proverb that says, “We must keep our friends, faults and all”? Have you not heard Paul say, “Bear one another’s burdens”? Do you not see lovers? Since I cannot draw an example from you, I am forced to turn my argument in that direction. Paul does this too when he says, “Furthermore, we had fathers in our flesh who disciplined us, and we respected them.” ( Heb. xii. 9 .) Or rather, what he says to the Romans is more fitting: “As you offered your members as slaves to uncleanness and to lawlessness leading to lawlessness, so now offer your members as slaves to righteousness.” For this reason, let us confidently continue with the illustration. Now do you not notice what miseries lovers suffer when they burn with desire for prostitutes? They are slapped, beaten, and laughed at, putting up with a prostitute who turns away from them and insults them in ten thousand ways. Yet if they see even one sweet or gentle gesture, everything is fine with them. Everything that came before is gone; everything sails along with a fair wind, whether they face poverty, sickness, or anything else. For they consider their own lives miserable or blessed according to how the woman they love feels toward them. They care nothing about human honor or disgrace. Even if someone insults them, they bear everything easily because of the great pleasure and delight they receive from her. And even if she abuses them, even if she spits in their faces, they think, as they endure this, that they are being pelted with roses. And why be surprised that they feel this way about the woman herself? They think even her house is more splendid than any other, even if it is made of mud, even if it is falling down. But why speak of walls? Even the sight of the places they visit in the evening excites them. Now allow me to use the Apostle’s words for what follows. Just as he says, “As you offered your members as slaves to uncleanness, so offer your members as slaves to righteousness,” so I now say in the same way, “Let us love one another as we have loved these women, and we will not think we are suffering anything terrible.” And why do I say “one another”? Let us love God this way. Do you shudder when you hear me ask for as much love for God as we have shown a prostitute? But I shudder because we do not show even that much. And, if you are willing, let us carry the argument further, though what I say is very painful. The woman they love promises her lovers nothing good, only dishonor, shame, and abuse. For this is what waiting on a prostitute makes a man: ridiculous, shameful, dishonored. But God promises us heaven and the good things in heaven. He has made us sons and brothers of the Only-begotten. He has given you ten thousand things while you live, and resurrection when you die. He promises to give us good things beyond anything we can even imagine, and makes us honored and respected. Again, that woman forces her lovers to spend all their wealth on the pit and destruction. But God tells us to sow in heaven, and gives us a hundred times as much and eternal life. Again, she treats her lover like a slave, giving harsher commands than any tyrant. But God says, “I no longer call you servants, but friends.” ( c. xv. 15.) [5.] Have you seen how extreme the evils are on the one side and the blessings on the other? What comes next, then? For this woman’s sake, many stay awake at night and readily obey whatever she commands. They give up house, father, mother, friends, money, and support, and leave everything that belongs to them in need and desolation. But for God’s sake—or rather, for our own sake—we often refuse to spend even a third of our wealth. We see a hungry person and disregard him; we hurry past someone naked and do not even offer him a word. But if those lovers see even a little servant girl belonging to their mistress, even a foreigner, they stand in the middle of the marketplace and talk with her as though proud and glad to do so, spinning out an endless round of words. For their mistress’s sake, they consider their entire livelihood nothing and think nothing of rulers or authority (everyone who has experienced this sickness knows it). They thank her more when she gives commands than others do when people serve them. Is there not good reason for hell? Is there not good reason for ten thousand punishments? So let us come to our senses. Let us devote to God’s service as much as others devote to a prostitute, or half as much, or even a third. Perhaps you shudder again; so do I. But I want you to shudder at the actions, not only at the words. As things stand, our hearts are put in order here, but we go out and throw everything away. What do we gain, then? For there, if money must be spent, no one complains of poverty. He even borrows money to give her, perhaps even while being struck. But here, if we merely mention giving to the poor, they plead children, a wife, a household, financial support for others, and ten thousand excuses. “But,” someone says, “the pleasure there is great.” That is what I lament and mourn. What if I show that the pleasure here is greater? For there, shame, insult, and expense take away a large part of the pleasure, and after these come quarreling and hostility. But here there is nothing of the kind. Tell me, what could equal the pleasure of sitting in expectation of heaven, the kingdom there, the glory of the saints, and endless life? “But these things,” someone says, “are expected, while the others are experienced.” What kind of experience? Would you like me to tell you about the pleasures we can experience here as well? Consider the freedom you enjoy, and how you fear and tremble before no one when you live with virtue: no enemy, plotter, informer, rival in reputation or love, envious person, poverty, sickness, or any other human thing. But there, even if ten thousand things go as you wish, even if riches flow in like a fountain, the war with rivals, the plots, and the ambushes will make the life of the man who wallows with those women more miserable than anyone’s. For when that abominable woman is proud and insolent, you have to start a quarrel to flatter her. This is more painful than ten thousand deaths, more unbearable than any punishment. But here there is nothing of the kind. For “the fruit,” it says, “of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.” ( Gal. v. 22.) Here there is no quarreling, no ill-timed spending of money, no disgrace coupled with expense. And if you give even a small coin, a loaf of bread, or a cup of cold water, He will be deeply grateful to you. He does nothing to hurt or grieve you, but everything to make you glorious and free you from all shame. What defense, then, will we have? What pardon will we receive if we abandon these things, give ourselves over to their opposites, and willingly throw ourselves into the furnace burning with fire? So I urge those who suffer from this sickness to recover, return to health, and not let themselves fall into despair. For that son too was in a far worse condition than this, yet when he returned to his father’s house, he regained his former honor and appeared more glorious than the one who had always pleased his father. Let us imitate him too. Let us return to our Father, even if it is late, leave that captivity, and move into freedom, so that we may enjoy the Kingdom of heaven through the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, forever and ever. Amen.