John the Evangelist, from the Rabbula Gospels, c6th century CE
Knowing your strength: Elaine Miles reads from the gospel of John
‘Jesus believed in personal responsibility.’
The authorised version of the New Testament of 1611 translates John 14: 16-18 as ‘And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter’. It then uses the word ‘comfortless’ in verse 18.
In 1611 the English word ‘to comfort’ had a meaning close to that of the Latin ‘confortare’. It did not mean ‘to hug you and make you feel happier’, it meant ‘to strengthen’. A better word than ‘comfortless’ would be ‘bereft’.
John was using legal language, because he believed in a day of judgement when one would account for one’s life. He described it as a court, with God as judge. The Greek word we translate as ‘comforter’ meant a legal assistant who supplied plaintiffs with material to support their case. So ‘advocate’, which we see in the New English Bible, is not a good translation either, because that suggests someone who will speak for you. Jesus, according to John, insisted that only you are responsible for what you do in life. But ‘if you obey my commandments’ you may be able to cite occasions when you acted as he would have approved. The spirit of Truth can be called on to help you to do better.
Jesus believed in personal responsibility. We tend to remember that Jesus’ main message was that we should ‘love one another’, but we overlook the other messages. John knew Jesus very well indeed, if only for his three years in Jerusalem, and there are other passages in John’s gospel, and in his first letter to his parishioners, which tell us some of them.
In chapter five of his gospel, John describes a man who was trying to get into the Sheep Pool in Jerusalem, where the sick gathered for its healing qualities. The man had been ‘physically weak’ (‘crippled’ is too strong a translation) for a long time. Jesus first made sure that he wanted to get better – yes he had the will – and then encouraged him to: ‘Rise to your feet, take up your bed and walk’. And so he did. Jesus had encouraged him to think that he could, but he never gave him any physical help.
We can all think of people nowadays who are convalescent, perhaps from a serious illness, who do not think they can get up and exercise themselves. Some need encouragement to make the effort to do so, and start their recovery. For example, doctors encourage those who have had a hip replacement to get out of bed as soon as possible, so that their joints and muscles start to recover their former use.
We are also beginning to realise that we have to take personal responsibility for doing the things which will help us recover from Covid. We cannot just take orders from the government (although we can be glad that, when it was uncertain what was the best course, we were presented with advice from top scientists in virology). Now the government – with us – can concentrate on the crucial problems of climate change.
