The Da Vinci Code is a hugely popular work of fiction but it's not historically correct. Find out how the books of the New Testament came to be chosen as the Christian canon on SIW today.
Unable to grasp that Jesus’ departure from them is his return to the glory rightly his, by way of the cross and the tomb, the disciples wallow in their misery, fearing they are about to be abandoned. We, too, may sometimes slither around in the slough of despond and feel abandoned; but the situation in John 13 and 14 is unique. The sense of abandonment experienced by the disciples was prompted by an unrepeatable event in the history of redemption: the physical departure of Jesus by way of the cross. Therefore, although the disciples needed the general exhortation to trust in God and to trust in Jesus, they needed something more: they needed further instruction, more detailed explanation of the significance of the events to take place. Even if they remain unable to absorb all the details until after that epochal weekend had passed, Jesus’ words provided not only some immediate relief, but the framework ultimately made sense of the most important events in all history.
In other words, the Farewell Discourse must not be treated simplistically, as nothing more than Christian comfort designed to console defeated saints. Rather it is first and foremost an exposition of the significance of Jesus’ ‘going away’ to his father via the cross. It is elemental theology; and only as such does it offer encouragement and consolation. For troubled Christians there is little genuine comfort that is divorced from the significance of the events of that one weekend in Jerusalem and its environs almost two thousand years ago. This was especially true for those first believers, whose anguish was made particularly acute by the fact that they themselves participated in those events and were engulfed by them. But modern believers, too, best discover renewed faith and fortitude, not by clinging to isolated spiritual aphorisms and evangelical clichés, but by returning to a deep understanding of the historical and redemptive structure of their faith.
Within this framework, Jesus provides some content for his followers to believe (14:2-7); he enunciates truths they must believe if their faith is to be triumphant, their spirits tranquil. Unfortunately, the disciples grasp little of this, because they have already misjudged who Jesus is. The profound implications of the exhortation, ‘Trust in God; trust also in me’ (14:1) have quite passed them by; and therefore Jesus must review some of his earlier teaching and provide a lesson for slow learners concerning who he really is (14:8-14).
