It is necessary to pay attention to the following two verses: "Therefore, if I, the Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also must wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you" (John 13:14-15). The Greek word "paradigm" is used here, that is, "example"; an example of what Jesus gives us as His disciples. An example of love that is expressed in the service of the disciples, when Jesus, from a teacher to a servant for everyone, unites them, and consequently us through His service, into a single whole. The Last Supper can also be called a triumph of love, for here Jesus, through communion from one bread and one cup, also unites His disciples into one whole. "There is one bread, and we, many, are one body," says the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 10:17), for we all partake of the same bread." This is also stated in one of the prayers of the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great: "And we all partake of the one bread and chalice, unite to one another in one communion of the Holy Spirit"...

Washing the feet of the apostles, Jesus does not yet speak of this love, but only hints at it. He speaks of it in a farewell discourse, the tone of which is set by verses 34 and 35 of chapter 13: "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."

As we ponder these verses, it is important to understand that this commandment is new not because it is opposed to some old commandments; for the same thing, in general, is spoken of in the Old Testament. Already in the book of Leviticus we read that we must love our neighbor as ourselves, that God loved our fathers and that the love of God dwelt on earth in time immemorial. The theme of love is already one of the main themes of the Pentateuch. In the New Testament verses quoted above, the word "new" has a completely different meaning: it is not "new as opposed to old", but "always new", that is, not obsolete. The New Testament, therefore, is not opposed to the Old, Old Testament, it is New for a completely different reason, because it is always new. St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, once said it well, showing that Christianity is distinguished by a very significant feature: it is always fiercely modern and is not perceived as something outdated, ancient, taken from the darkness of centuries.

Christianity answers the questions that today's person asks it, concerned about his current pain, today's troubles, and does not lead him somewhere into the distant past. At the heart of most religions is a departure into the past, into some ancient rituals, customs and ceremonies. This was the case with both the Egyptians and the Greeks. The Greeks who lived in the time of Jesus, a little earlier and a little later, and even in the time of Plato in the fourth century B.C., understood that all the rituals that they performed according to the law of their religion were only a tribute to the past, a pious memory of what was once sacred to their ancestors. They were well aware that these rituals had their roots in the distant past, that they were necessary by tradition, mainly because it was established by those who founded their cities and laid down the basic principles in their laws. Because their great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers wanted it.

And in general, turning to the past is characteristic of most religions. And Jesus makes an amazing reversal. He creates what Fr. Alexander Schmemann said: "This is not religion, this is something else." Indeed, Christianity is life, because it is always new. It does not lead a person into the past, but roots in the present. Christianity makes us contemporaries of our century, people who really live in today's world, in order to understand this world and defeat not some abstract evil, but precisely the evil that today destroys us, the people around us, society, the world, and so on.

The commandment of love that Jesus gives us is always new because it does not become obsolete. Everything that Christ teaches us applies to today and tomorrow, to which we must follow Him, although this is terrible. In the Gospel of Mark, we read that the apostles hurry after Jesus. He is in front, they are afraid to follow Him, they would like to stay where they were. Going back to the past is always easier than going to the future. But Jesus is leading us along the road that looks to the future. He teaches us not to immerse ourselves, like the pagans, in the myths and legends of the past, but to have the courage to live in the present, in the present day. "Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead" (Matt. 8:22). And perhaps this is the real victory that Jesus wins.

After the end of the farewell talk, during which the features of daring to live in the present are outlined and take concrete forms, guards and soldiers come to seize Him. Then there are arrests, interrogations, the road to Golgotha, execution, the Cross, at which His Mother and disciple stand, His word: "It is finished!", the last breath, the descent from the cross and resurrection. It would seem that this is where the Gospel should end, especially since at the end of the 20th chapter (verses 30-31) it says: "Jesus did many other signs before His disciples (in the Synodal translation of "miracles"). — G.Ch.), about which it is not written in this book. And this is written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing, ye may have life in His name," and the Evangelist, as it were, puts an end to it. However, unexpectedly, the next, second epilogue is added to this epilogue. It contains two episodes.

Jesus appears to His disciples on the Sea of Tiberias in the pre-dawn morning mist (beginning of chapter 21). They pull out nets full of fish, although they have not caught anything before, working all night. An attentive reader of the Gospel remembers that this has already been told in the New Testament, in the 5th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. There this scene is described in almost every detail: the disciples, together with the Risen One, experience what they already experienced when they followed Jesus during His lifetime. And through this scene at the beginning of chapter 21, we also become participants in the Gospel events. For just as the disciples experienced the miraculous fishing for the second time, together with the Resurrected One, so we together with Him for the second, third, and hundredth time experience what is described in the Gospel. It can be said of these verses: this is the door through which one can enter into the Gospel, in order to live no longer outside, but inside it.

The resurrected Savior is waiting for his disciples on the shore of the lake. He said to them, "Come and take this food." "And none of the disciples dared to ask Him, 'Who art thou?' knowing that it is the Lord" (John 21:12). And He takes bread and gives it to them. Eucharist. Just as in the Gospel of Luke the Resurrected One celebrates the Eucharistic meal together with His two disciples at Emmaus (chapter 24), in the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John, the Resurrected One celebrates it on the shore of Lake Tiberias together with the Galilean fishermen.

Thus Jesus appeared to His disciples for the third time. And He appears to us countless times in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Jesus' question to Peter, "Do you love me more than they do?" begins Jesus' final dialogue with Peter. With this dialogue, in fact, the narrative of the Gospel of John ends. Attention should be paid to the last two verses of the 21st chapter: "This disciple also testifies to this, and wrote this." This is a kind of second epilogue written on behalf of the evangelist. And then come the words: "And we know that his testimony is true." This (third!) epilogue was written by the community, the disciples, or the Church. The verb oidamen – "we know", to which commentators usually pay little attention, has a very deep meaning. This is a kind of seal that is put on a document and gives this document significance and power. Together with the first disciples of Jesus, we join the Oidamen in this, because if we read the Gospel of John to the end and experience it, we not only have an idea of what Jesus said and taught—and what He continues to teach us—but we know it from our own experience. This knowledge differs from the knowledge of mathematics, physics, biology, etc., in that knowledge in the field of any science can be transferred, it can be taught. The knowledge that we receive in the process of our spiritual life, during our stay with Christ, comes only through personal experience and is simply not perceived from someone else's words.

Chapter 3.

"THERE IS SOMEONE STANDING AMONG YOU"

The prologue of the Fourth Gospel, that is, the first eighteen verses of its first part, is a hymn almost unrelated to the main text, so to speak, a theological synopsis of the entire Gospel, based on the mention of its main themes and fundamentally important points. The text itself begins with the story of John the Baptist. In this sense, the Gospel of John is no different from the three previous ones, where the beginning of Jesus' preaching is also necessarily preceded by an account of how John began his preaching.