1. What is the author's main point in this passage? (MAIN POINT)
The parts that stand out for me are ... Jesus is leaving ... the relationship between the disciples (us) and God is now complete ... Jesus is concerned about how the disciples will manage once he's gone.
2. What new light do I find in this particular reading of this passage of the text? (NEW LIGHT)
Jesus (God) is affected by us ... it matters to him if the disciples believe in him ... he doesn't want them to feel bad later, after they've run off and left him to face death alone ... he wants them to find courage and peace after his death.
3. Is this passage true to my experience? (TRUTH)
I do find Jesus (in prayer) to be vulnerable and affectable and concerned.
4. What are the implications of this passage for my life? (IMPLICATIONS)
Big time implications. The God I've been getting to know is changed by me as much as I am by him. I know he's supposed to be immutable but nothing changes a person as much as being in love ... I'd like yo believe, as Fr. William Barry writes in one of his books, that God is madly in love with us.
5. What problems do I have with this passage? (PROBLEMS)
There seems to be the implication that God loves us because we love Jesus ... but I think/hope God loves eceryone.
How does this passage agree with or differ from the beliefs or practices of other religious groups in my experience? (OTHERS)
I don't know enough about other belief systems to answer this ... but I do think there are those, like Deists, who thaink God is remote and uncaring ... Yikes! :-)
8 comments:
There seems to be the implication that God loves us because we love Jesus ... but I think/hope God loves everyone.
Well you have just unpacked the paradox at the heart of the doctrine of Trinity (say the secret woid and win $50).
According to orthodox/traditional Christian doctrine we relate to God through Christ alone -- it is through Christ that God sees us hears us and we know God. But also and at the same time Christ is God.
Have fun puzzling it out. Or don't bother and accept it. Or don't bother and reject it. Your choice.
its kind of neat how we can both try to answer the same question -- what is the main point? -- and find ourselves in different places. You see the human situation between Jesus and disciples and go through that to the spiritual situation between God and us. I see the abstract conceptual stuff.
Hi David. You siad ...
According to orthodox/traditional Christian doctrine we relate to God through Christ alone
... is that so? I'm not up on my doctrine, but what about universalism?
Here's kind of an interesting article by a Jesuit, at the Quaker Universal Fellowship site :-) ... Revelation and the Religions
PS David - about your other comment, that I go from the personal to the theorhetical ... you would too if you'd learned to be a christian from the Jesuits, who see the whole thing as a relationship ... theology is what comes after, they used to say, to explain your "experience".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I gathered that David intimated that he does not (necessarily) subscribe to all "orthodox/traditional Christian doctrine".
It would take a gigantic jump to make many of us "subscribe to all orthodox/traditional Christian doctrine". For me it would involve an abrogation of all of my critical faculties.
Hi Larry ... yes, to subscribe to strict orthodoxy, one would have to check one's brain and heart at the door, IMHO.
Universalism is not traditional orthodoxy by any stretch of the imagination.
Don't mean it ain't so.
...orthodoxy, tradition, trinity, doctrine, universalism... so many words. These are the ones I like best:
"God is madly in love with us."
How beautiful is that???
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