The musings of Peter

John 14 — True North

John 14 is important because Jesus is promising a change—something that will fundamentally reorient His followers and give them a True North pointing toward the Father.

And I don’t mean that symbolically.

Jesus isn’t simply giving us a better philosophy or another collection of moral teachings. He is promising that something will actually happen within us.

Listen carefully to what He says: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth…” And then comes the remarkable distinction: “You know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you.”— John 14:16–17 With you. In you.

Something is about to change.Jesus makes it even clearer a few verses later: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”— John 14:23 God isn’t merely going to teach man from the outside. God intends to dwell within him.

That changes everything.

Two Different Orientations

Look at the world around us and you can see something interesting. Human societies have always created laws. They have to. Even societies with little or no Christian influence develop rules against murder, theft, fraud and violence because civilization requires order.

Human reason is capable of recognizing much of the natural moral law. St. Paul himself acknowledges this when he speaks of the law being “written in their hearts.”

So the difference between a baptized and unbaptized people isn’t that one group contains good people and the other contains bad people.

It isn’t even that baptized people are necessarily holier.History would quickly disprove that.

The difference I’m talking about is orientation.

A society operating principally from human reason eventually asks questions like:Does this work? Does it reduce suffering? Does it preserve order? Does it increase individual freedom? Does the majority approve of it?

Those aren’t necessarily bad questions. But Christianity asks a question that comes before all of them: What is man?

And Christianity gives an extraordinary answer.

Man is created in the image of God.

His dignity isn’t granted by government.

His worth isn’t determined by usefulness.

His humanity isn’t dependent upon whether someone else wants him.

His life doesn’t become worthless because he is suffering.

His dignity doesn’t disappear because he is old, disabled, unborn, poor, imprisoned, inconvenient or dying.

He belongs to God.

That changes how we see everything.Consider abortion. Someone reasoning strictly from circumstances can construct what appears to be a logical argument: a pregnancy may create hardship; the child may be unwanted; the mother may be frightened; resources may be limited; therefore ending the pregnancy may appear to solve the problem.Christianity sees all those circumstances.

But Christianity also sees someone else.

A human being.A person formed by God and possessing a dignity that neither a parent nor a government has the authority to give or take away.

That doesn’t mean every baptized Christian recognizes this. Obviously they don’t.

But here is the important distinction:The baptized Christian has been given something that he can either cooperate with or resist.

Scripture actually gives us the language: “Do not quench the Spirit.”— 1 Thessalonians 5:19

We can resist Him.

We can ignore Him.

We can rationalize around Him.

We can become so accustomed to the thinking of the world that His voice becomes difficult for us to hear.

But through Baptism something real has happened to us.

Baptism Is Not Just Membership

Sometimes we speak about Baptism almost as though someone joined a club.

That isn’t Catholic Christianity.

Baptism does something. Original sin is washed away. We receive sanctifying grace. We become adopted children of the Father. We are incorporated into Christ. We become temples of the Holy Spirit. There is an ontological change in us—a change in what we are. Suddenly Christ’s final command to His disciples makes enormous sense: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit…”— Matthew 28:19

Now go back to John 14.

The Father.

The Son.

The Spirit.

Jesus tells Philip: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Then He promises the Spirit. And then He says: “We will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” This isn’t merely Jesus explaining the Trinity. He is describing what Christian life is going to become. God dwelling in man. And perhaps that’s why Jesus begins this whole discourse with one of the most famous statements He ever made: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”— John 14:6 Notice what He doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, I know the way. He doesn’t say, I will show you the way. He says:I AM THE WAY.

Christ Himself becomes our True North.

So What Are We Supposed to Do?

This is where John 14 stops being theology that we study and becomes Christianity that we have to live. Because if the Spirit actually dwells within us, then something should happen. We should begin seeing as Jesus sees. We should begin desiring what Jesus desires. We should become uncomfortable with things that don’t bother the world. And we should become concerned about things that the world considers none of our business. Especially other people. Christ desires every person we encounter to spend eternity with Him.

Do we?

Because if I genuinely believe that the person standing in front of me was created for Heaven, then his salvation cannot be completely irrelevant to me. That might mean taking chances. It might mean saying something when silence would be easier. It might mean talking about our faith when doing so feels awkward. It might mean forgiving someone who doesn’t deserve forgiveness. It might mean defending someone who cannot defend himself. It might even mean becoming slightly annoying because of our persistence and consistency. We have become far too timid about our Faith. And maybe that’s why the image of Peter walking on the water matters so much. Peter didn’t stand in that boat calculating whether walking on water was reasonable. It wasn’t reasonable. It was impossible. But Christ said: Come.

And Peter stepped out.

For a moment, Peter wasn’t governed by what the world told him was possible. He was governed by where Christ was calling him. That is Christian life. We have been baptized. We have received the Spirit. We have been shown the Way. We have been given True North. The great danger isn’t that we don’t know where God is pointing. The danger is that we spend our entire lives safely sitting in the boat, admiring the One standing on the water.

John 14 tells us something astonishing: God has made His dwelling within us.

Maybe the question we should ask ourselves is very simple:

Can anyone looking at the way I live tell that Someone lives there?