“Where I am going, you cannot come,” Jesus says to his disciples in today’s gospel (John 13:31-35). It’s the night of the last supper and Jesus knows his time to depart this world has come. “Little children,” he says to them, “I am with you only a little longer.” 

Peter wants to know where Jesus is going and why he can’t go with him. (John 13:36-37) Thomas sounds scared. “Lord, we do not know where you are going,” he says. “How can we know the way?” (John 14:5) The rest of the disciples don’t say anything but I don’t think they are silent. What do you imagine they’re feeling? What questions might they be asking within themselves? What do they need to hear and know?

And what about Jesus? It couldn’t have been easy for him either. I wonder if his words are as hard for him to say as they as for his disciples to hear. I wonder if he is talking to himself as much as he is to his little children. I wonder if he is gaining clarity for himself and committing again to his decision, the path he will walk, and the place he is going. 

You probably know what that’s like. I do. Haven’t there been times in your life when you knew what you must do and you also knew no one else could do it for you? It was yours to do, and yours alone. When have you faced a decision that no one else could make for you? When have you chosen a path for your life knowing it was your unique and solitary path? 

How about your life today? What is being asked of you? What is the action, decision, or journey that only you can do, make, or take? What is it today that you must do for yourself?

This isn’t about rugged individualism, the refusal or inability to ask for or receive help, or having no need of others. It’s taking responsibility for our own lives. It’s opening to the life that wants to be expressed through us. It’s responding with authenticity and integrity to what is being asked of us. It’s committing to a truth that lives within us but is also greater than ourselves. Isn’t that what we see throughout the life of Jesus? What does that look like in your life today?

I remember when Cyndy and I said to our two sons, Brandon and Randy, words similar to what Jesus said to his disciples. She and I would be moving out of state for me to attend seminary and as much as we wanted them to go with us, they couldn’t. The circumstances of our lives and family situations wouldn’t allow it. But we couldn’t not go.

In many ways it felt like a rejection or abandonment of our boys. It wasn’t. It was creating space for something new to arise. Maybe that’s what’s going on in today’s gospel, not only for Jesus but for the disciples too. Maybe they need to hear Jesus’s words as much as he needs to say them.

Jesus trusted that they already had what they needed. He told them that they already knew the way. (John 14:4) They had a path before them, so did he, and they each had to take their own path. 

Today, twenty-five years after telling Brandon and Randy that Cyndy and I were going to seminary, I hear Jesus’ words in relationship to you and me and my upcoming retirement. Where I am going, you cannot come. And where you are going, I cannot come. We each have our own path. Something new is arising for both of us. 

Just as Jesus did with his disciples, the very next words Cyndy and I spoke to our kids were words of love. That’s what would fill the space between us. It’s what would fill the space between Jesus and his disciples. It’s what will fill the space between you and me when I retire in a few weeks.

Think about the leavings in your life; times when you left a place or person and they could not go with you, times when another left you and you could not go with her or him. 

It might have been the death of a loved one, a friend moving away, or the end of a relationship. Maybe you moved to a new place, took another job, or made a change so big it felt like you were leaving your old life behind. Maybe the leaving was as significant as the day your child moved out of the house or you moved out of another’s house to claim your own life. Maybe it was as routine as going away for the day or saying good bye at the end of a phone call or a visit with another. 

What do we say in those moments? What’s our hope for the other as well as ourselves? What is the one constant we want when everything is changing? What are the last words we want to speak and hear? Love. It’s always love. 

Love abhors a vacuum. 

Aristotle said, “Nature abhors a vacuum,” but I think he was wrong. How’s that for some arrogance? It’s love that abhors a vacuum. It wants to fill every space.

That’s why in today’s gospel Jesus tells us, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” It’s why in the other gospel accounts Jesus tells us to love God, love our neighbor, love ourselves, love our enemies. It’s why, for Jesus, love is the first and greatest commandment. 

He wants no empty space within us or between us. He knows that love is the raw material from which the new arises and sometimes that new can arise only when we go where another cannot come. 

That is not the end of love. It is the entrusting of ourselves and the other to love. I think that’s what Jesus is doing when he says, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” That’s what Cyndy and I wanted for Brandon and Randy. It’s what we want for you all.

It’s what we will do in just a few moments when Paige and Roan are baptized. We will entrust them to the waters of God’s love. We will entrust ourselves to that same love as we renew our own baptismal vows. 

I wonder what your best prayers, hopes, and wishes are for Paige and Roan? What’s the new you hope will arise for them? Don’t you want them one day to find a life so full and authentically theirs that they say, “Where I am going, you cannot come”? What does it look like and mean for you to support and love them into their future? 

And what about you? What needs making new in you today? What is the new you hope will arise in you today? In another? What space needs filling with your love? What is being asked of you today that only you can do?

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Image Credit: By Shakko – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.