APORIA? ROAD MAP?

James Tissot, "The Last Supper" ca. 1890, Brooklyn Museum

A night of the full moon in the South of France. Awake at 4 a.m., I do not hear but am filled with a group of words, a phrase of a great intensity.

I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.

I know this, of course: John 14:6. Yet I have never before thought it, meditated it, pondered it, let it echo, and pursue it to its reverberating depths. This time, it presents itself in the context of Benedict XVI’s saying, in his Jesus of Nazareth, that Jesus does not give or proclaim or write or promulgate a new Torah, but that Jesus is himself the new Torah. This is a concept of almost frightening density, rather like a Black Hole that swallows up all light and matter around it. Jesus is fully man; Jesus is fully God; and Jesus is the new Law, the new Torah for mankind. How does one respond to this? A simple WWJD (WhatWouldJesusDo?) in every circumstance is not enough.

I have written recently about the prayer of adoration as a form of energy. If Jesus is the new Torah, our proper response would be one of a focused intensity of which that prayer is only the faint beginning. To a devout Jew, the Law must not only be obeyed but it must be internalised: it must become part of you.

How I love your Torah!

I meditate on it all day. 

I am wiser than my foes,

because your mitzvot are mine forever.

I have more understanding than all my teachers,

because I meditate on your instruction.

I understand more than my elders,

because I keep your precepts.

I keep my feet from every evil way,

in order to observe your word.

I don’t turn away from your rulings,

because you have instructed me.

How sweet to my tongue is your promise,

truly sweeter than honey in my mouth!    (Ps. 119:97-103)

If Jesus is the new Torah, all the laws, the precepts, the ruling, the mitzvot, are all gathered into one – not one sentence but one human figure, just large enough to fill a cross. If we are to meditate on this, keep to it, observe it, not turn away from it, and eventually know it as sweeter than honey in our souls, we need to find a way of condensing all the energy of our spirit into a beam that circles until it suddenly, or finally, meets the opposing beam that is circling seeking us, and the two fuse into one along which angels rise and descend.

So here I was with John 14:6 echoing in my moonlit head.  I AM THE WAY. Whither? He explains it: no one comes to the Father save through me. The way to God the Father. But what this time struck me utterly was the verb. I do not tell you the way, as a philosopher or a theologian might. I do not show you the way, as a spiritual guide, a Christian Vergil, might. I do not even accompany you upon the way, as if you were Clopas trudging to Emmaus.  I AM the way. And the verb is the Name of God. Your mind is kicked smartly and completely off its normal path. If you ARE the way, how do I walk you?

I AM THE TRUTH. I do not tell you, show you, or guide you to the truth: I AM the truth. (And the verb is the Name of God.) One of the great philosophical problems of our age – and perhaps the great one – is that we no longer believe that if A (unproveable) is true, then B (the opposite of A but equally unproveable) must be false. Yet at the same time we have no philosophical theory for reconciling incompatible factors as both “true”. In the normal sense, for instance, Christian theology of the afterlife is incompatible with Buddhist reincarnation; so if one is true, the other is false. Since we now tend to count respect for others human beings as more crucial than being right about metaphysics, we have learnt to fudge such questions and treat them as irrelevant. But if Jesus Christ IS the truth, the whole question is yanked out of its tired ruts and reconfigured as a spiritual laser beam. I AM the truth then means: there is no truth outside me. And when we think about it, we realise that there is no logical opposite to the statement, at least beyond the childish tu quoque “No you’re not.”  The apt response to this saying is Thomas Didymus’ falling to his knees and breathing “My Lord and my God!”

I AM THE LIFE. Again, this stills arguments, not only among theologians but within ourselves. What is the proper Christian life? we worry. Is it active or contemplative? Helping the helpless or praying in a Carmel? Is it compatible with – divorce, abortion, homosexuality, serving in a war, being a banker? What is eternal life? Pie in the sky when you die? The timeless, endless presence of God’s love? Or simply an extra dimension to this life on earth? These are arguments we have with ourselves as much as with others. Yet they are stunned into silence when Jesus says I AM the Life. (And the verb is the Name of God.) No, we are not to live like him. We are to live him. What does that mean? Rationally, we do not know. But there are things that pull us out of rationality: the recent Feast of the Transfiguration was such an occasion. So if we know we are to live him but we cannot get our minds around that, the message is perhaps quite simply that we had better start trying to do so, with all the urgency and focusing we are capable of.

It is all a little beyond us; yet he himself said it clearly and unambiguously to eleven not terribly sophisticated men (and to Thomas in particular). Two codas help. In the first place: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” And finally: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” That last passage I have always found utterly moving.

PASSOVER IN A TRICLINIUM

It didn't, probably, look like Leonardo's version.

It was not a seder – the Temple was still standing and in operation. So it was the traditional Passover meal, with sacrificial lamb, bitter herbs and unleavened bread. (The Children of Israel were told to sprinkle the lamb’s blood on their door-posts in Egypt, so that the Angel of Death would ‘pass over’ them: they, too, were ‘saved by the blood of the lamb’.) The lamb was likely served roast and cut, in or with a sauce. The set-up was probably the triclinium, with the diners reclining around a central space with tables and room for serving. Hence John’s position, reclining next to Jesus, in the place of honour. In such a position, a murmured word could be passed confidentially without attracting everyone’s notice.

Jesus’ mood is fascinating, and moving. This is the only time he admits out loud to his disciples that he is scared. There is a sadness, but also a faintly bitter irony – “All very well, and yes, you love me and support me; but I also know that one of you is going to give me up.” It makes me think of the Occupation during WW II. He loves them, he has chosen them, he is going to die for them, but he is under no illusion whatsoever.

I’d always wondered about John’s question and Jesus’ reply. The whole, murmured quietly. “Who is it?” “The one to whom I’m going to give the next piece of lamb.” (Which suggests that Judas was close physically also.) Why, I always wondered, did John then not instantly warn everyone and stop Judas? He appears to do nothing; he even lets Judas leave when Jesus has said, sadly: Go do what you have to do, do it now.

But I think I may have found an answer. If Jesus had murmured this to Peter, Peter would have jumped up, shouted “Traitor!”, and tied Judas up in an instant. But John, I suspect, was the only one (and this was in part why Jesus loved him) who had understood that this had to happen. It had to be played out all the way. After all, Jesus could have stopped it. Many times, say the Gospels, he had simply slid away when a crowd tried to hold him. But he knew it had to happen. And so, I think, did John.

Which accounts also for the fact that he left (‘fled’ say the Gospels unkindly) with the others at Jesus’ arrest, and (unlike Peter) does not appear again until the actual crucifixion, when he is the only one of the disciples present. 

Postscript: Was Yeshua gay, in his human form? It’s of no importance, but it’s not impossible: it might account for the fact that, though a nice well-brought-up Jewish boy, he reached the age of 30 without being married, which surely was unusual. And although in the Jewish religion it was a sin, it wasn’t in the surrounding Roman-Greek world, and one might very well have the bent without living it in practice. I don’t think his relation with John (Jochanan) was a gay one, any more than I think he married Mary Magdalene. He had neither time nor space for such relationships in his life. But I think he loved them both very much, as he loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus (Miryam, Marta, Eleazar).