Jesus' Last Lecture

In the Gospel of John, when Jesus gathers with his disciples in the upper room on the night of his arrest, John records the longest conversation between Jesus and his disciples of any of the gospels.

I’ve come to call it Jesus’ last lecture.

Breath and Fire by Lauren Wright Pittman, A Sanctified Art

Jesus’ words aren’t formal arguments with well-reasoned, linear logic. They aren’t a systematic treatise like we would find in John Calvin’s Institute of Christian Religion or Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics.

Instead, Jesus weaves together important thoughts that he urgently wants his disciples to understand. These are the last words he wants them to hear. He’s taught them all he can, but there’s so much more he wants to tell them.

We might think of these words as the last rambling of words before dropping the kids off at college, the last conversation over dinner with a soldier about to be deployed, or the conversation over the cup of coffee the day hospice has been called in.

It feels like the last chance to say something meaningful, to offer the last words of wisdom, to make sure that if they remember nothing else, they remember these words.

But for Jesus, there isn’t a well-planned celebration, this isn’t his surprise retirement party, instead these words are spoken just after Jesus bent down and washed the feet of each of his disciples before sharing a last supper with them. He’s just given them the new commandment to love one another, as they have been loved, and over the meal he’s predicted Peter’s denial, foretold Judas’ betrayal, and told his friends that he is about to leave them.

It’s a grim and somber night. Jesus knows what is coming; he knows that his betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion are just around the corner.

Even though his disciples don’t yet understand that, for them, I imagine, this night and this meal feel something like a cliff they are about to walk off. Except they have no ropes and harnesses, and they can’t even see the ground below.

Standing at the edge, the uncertainty fills the air as Jesus begins to speak, “Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I got to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

These words, and the whole conversation, are meant to provide comfort and hope as the disciples face the new thing before them. They are meant to be words that lead and guide them towards the future, even though that future is filled with uncertainty.

Grace and peace,

Kimmy