John 21: 21-23

When Peter saw him [John], he said to Jesus: “Lord, what about this man?”  Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?  Follow me!”  The saying spread abroad among the brethren that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” (RSV)

These words are among the most enigmatic expressions in the New Testament—the last words John quotes from the life of the Risen Christ: “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”

The fact that this sentence has caused misunderstandings and riddles is evident from the rumor that since then goes around among the disciples: “This disciple was not to die.”  No one has understood what Christ meant with these words.  The evangelist is silent about it.  Strangely, he merely repeats what the Risen One said.

Perhaps a tip of the veil that lies over these words is lifted when we recognize that this simple little word remain is one of the key words in the Gospel of John.  From the beginning to the end, the word remain sounds again and again, forty times.[*]  This is in contrast with the other Gospels, where this word is used only sparingly, mostly in the everyday sense of a stay in a city, a house, or by a lake.

But from the first time this word sounds in the John Gospel, something different from the physical world is indicated.  The Spirit, which descended on Jesus at the Baptism in the Jordan, remained on him (John 1:32).  Whereas the prophets of the Old Testament were at unexpected moments sometimes inspired, Jesus made no single step in His life without inspiration from the Spirit of God.

Again and again, seemingly monotonously, Christ speaks about the lasting connection between Him and us: “Abide in me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”  […]  Abide in my love.” (John 15: 4, 9)

And now, at the end of the whole Gospel, there is one disciple who remains, John, who has experienced the highest form of love, agape.  The others, even though their names may be great, such as Peter, the rock, or James and the other John, the Sons of Thunder, they are changeable just like us—wavering, then believing again; afraid, then foolhardy again.

But John, who remains united with Christ forever, in his Gospel wants to unite himself with the living and the dead—in order to enable us to share in God’s love, which to the end of the world remains.

[*] In the English Bible the word abide is also used in the same meaning.

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan

 

That looks like an impossible task in a world full of troublesome developments.  In times of harmony and peace it is not difficult to live without anxieties, but now?  Peace and harmony have been replaced by conflicts and chaos, wherever you look.

And yet it is Christ’s appeal not to be anxious about tomorrow—a task for all times, in well-being and adversity, in fortune and misfortune.  How do you do that?

One means to obtain trust in the future is the Act of Consecration of Man.  The more you become part of the joint prayer, the more you can carry and are carried.  Because for whom do we pray this intercessory prayer?

The offering gives an answer to this question.  With every step of the offering our prayer grows.  Not only the visible community, but also that of all true Christians and all those who have died are part of it.  And then we realize that there is another person who offers and prays with us.

This is Christ, who brings His offering anew in every service.  For that is how it is called: the Christ offering, even as it would come to life in us, through us.

How does our prayer get wings?  That happens because He prays with us, as He offers Himself with us.  In this awareness our trust can grow, for He goes with us in well-being and adversity, in fortune and misfortune.

Whoever has come to know the light of Christ in the Act of Consecration of Man will begin to recognize this light also in our daylight.

That is why we trust – also in tomorrow!

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, September 22, 2024

“He took him aside by himself, away from the crowd…” (7:33)

It is a well-known phenomenon that, as soon as we are surrounded by people and activity, we have the tendency to forget about ourselves.  In the worst case we forget what we came to do or wanted to say.  Without interruption the noisy world chatters into us, wants our attention and, in the end, makes us forget why we actually came to the earth. That phenomenon is as old as the world; however, in our time that world is so noisy that everything and everyone risks being drowned out by it.

Formerly, life was still ordered, more or less, according to the principle of “pray and work,” ora et labora.  Now there is nothing left that imposes the duty on us to turn away from the world at set times and go into our inner room.  But there is something else that has taken its place, something that in former times was not yet so obviously present.  That is loneliness.

Even when we are in the midst of a crowd, surrounded by distraction and diversion, we may experience a profound loneliness that throws us back onto ourselves.  Only, we often have the tendency to escape from such loneliness and drown it out.  We throw ourselves into the rush of things, into the whirl of life.  And then comes usually the hangover, the realization that we are even lonelier than before.

We can also choose a different way.  When we succeed in staying in the loneliness, a conversation may arise from it, a conversation with ourselves.  Then what was one is turned into two.  This is what Dag Hammarskjōld meant when he wrote in his diary: “Lonely. But loneliness can also be communion.” *

Even more than a conversation with ourselves, loneliness may become communion.  For Christ wants to be alone with us, away from the crowd, to open our ears to His voice.

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, September 1, 2024

* Dag Hammarskjōld, Markings.

When at the end of the day you look back and wonder: Where was I today? you most often come to many places, to a lot of busyness in many ways, but hardly to yourself. We are called from one task to another, or we simply let ourselves be led from one impression to another. But where was I myself?

There is only one place where I am completely myself, and that is in my own midst, a place where I am not more and not less than myself, where you can have a feeling of poverty and riches at the same time. On the one hand, you feel privileged because you are king in your own realm; I can myself decide to whom I open the door. On the other hand, you feel poor because you are impotently facing yourself and find that you hardly know who you actually are. I don’t know myself.

In this empty space I am alone with myself. Of old, this space has been called the hidden Holy of Holies—not only in the temple, but also hidden in the human being.

“In your midst stands one whom you do not know.”

With these words, John not only indicates Christ who is waiting for him in order to be baptized. He also indicates our midst, where Christ stands and waits until He may come into our hidden Holy of Holies.

– Rev. Bastiaan Baan, July 15, 2024

“I have made manifest your name to those human beings who have come out of the world to me through you.  Yours they were, and you have given them to me, and they have kept your word in their inmost being.  Thus they have recognized that everything which you have given me is from you; for all the power of the word which you have given me, I have brought to them.  They have taken it into themselves and have recognized in deepest truth that I come from you, and they have come to believe that I have been sent by you.  I pray to you for them as individual human beings, not for mankind in general.  Only for the human beings which you have given me, because they belong to you.  Everything that is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine, and the light of my being can shine in them.  I am now no longer in the world of the senses; but they are still in the world of the senses.  And I am coming to you.  Holy Father, keep, through the power of your being, those who came to me through you, so that they may become one, as we are one.”  *

The message of the High Priestly Prayer seems so simple: “They have kept your word in their inmost being.  Keep them through the power of your being.”

How do you do that—keep His word in a world of chaos and violence?  How do you create order in that chaos?  For us humans that looks like an impossible task.  It is even difficult to imagine that the angels will unravel all the knots.  They may have the patience of angels, but unraveling the chaos human beings bring about has to be a colossal job.  You can even imagine that the angels lose courage and sooner or later turn away from humanity with the message: “We can’t help you if you don’t help yourself and each other.”  In our time the danger arises that the angels will lose interest in human beings.

In the High Priestly Prayer, Christ prays for all who want to follow Him.  In this one sentence the task of all true Christians, wherever and whenever in the world, is expressed: “They have kept your word in their inmost being.”  Again, how do you do that?  For it can’t mean that we have to learn and remember every word in the Bible?

God waits and works in silence with more than the patience of an angel.  He works with divine patience to bring His word to manifestation in us.  No longer does He call us to order through commandments and prohibitions, but His word sounds in the still voice of our conscience, and in the strong voice of our destiny.  And even when this becomes fateful to us, even then it is still hiding the gift of the Lord of Destiny.

If we follow the voice of conscience, if we say yes to the voice of destiny, we have kept His word in our inner being and will be kept in the power of His being.

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, May 26, 2024

* From: The New Testament, a rendering by Jon Madsen.