“I am going away … . If you loved me, you would rejoice …” (John 14:28).

Poet Rainer Maria Rilke offers a musical metaphor to address the interplay of life and death. The rest — silence -- is the necessary “dark interval” between notes that makes the song possible.

“I am the rest between two notes, / which are somehow always in discord / because Death’s note wants to climb over— / but in the dark interval, reconciled, / they stay there trembling. / And the song goes on, beautiful.”

The final discourses in John’s Gospel (Chapters 14-18) prepare the disciples for Jesus’ departure and for the crucial transfer of his identity and mission to them by the sending of the Holy Spirit. The dark interval following his death will be terrible. But if he does not go away, the Spirit cannot come. Everything will depend on how they interpret the silence.

John’s Gospel was composed between 90 and 110 C.E., almost three generations after the events it reflects on. It is the most mystical of the four accounts and emphasizes that faith is necessary to enter the mystery of God revealed in Jesus. Those who believe without seeing are blessed, but this has always been the case. Even the first generation of believers could not grasp the mystery of Jesus without eyes of faith.

John, called the “Beloved Disciple” because he made love the foundation of faith, wrote for us, who live two millennia after the historical events that initiated the community, creed and cult we adhere to. We are confronted with the same dark interval between good bye and hello that bridges our life experience to the paschal mystery of Jesus. Our faith invites and enables us to see our joys and hopes, suffering and losses as our share in the death and resurrection of the Lord. Without faith, Death’s note would climb over, but with faith, the song goes on, beautiful.

“Why are you putting God to the test by placing on the shoulders of others a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?” (Acts 15:10).

Paul and Barnabas, after their first missionary journey among the gentiles, returned to Jerusalem to put before the elders the question whether converts to Christianity needed first to take up the full burden of Jewish practice, including circumcision and dietary restrictions. James, called the “brother of the Lord,” after listening to their reports about how the Holy Spirit was being poured out on the gentiles, said, with some qualifications, that the answer was “No.” This decision opened the way for the church to grow beyond its original Jewish identity into a universal faith open to all.

The term “yoke” is used to describe the full requirements of the Mosaic Law. Jesus used the same term (Matt 11:29-30) to invite people into relationship with him. We often hear this image explained as a double yoke used to link two animals, but the term also had deep resonance in the Jewish memory of slavery in Egypt and exile in Babylon. Slaves wore neck yokes and chains and were ganged together by being attached to a long pole over their shoulders (Isa 10:27). This same method was used to round up and move African slaves to ships for transport to antebellum America. Stephen Spielberg’s 1997 film “Amistad” graphically portrays the horror and humiliation of such bondage. Enslavement, whether for the economic benefit of the United States or as the foundation of Greek and Roman culture, remains one of the great ironies in the history of Western democracy.

Paul’s argument to the Jerusalem church was that Christ has set us free from the yoke of external rules and physical rituals by incorporating us into himself by baptism and the Holy Spirit. If we are yoked with him, love becomes our teacher and guide. Laws may prepare us for freedom, but life in the Spirit is what God intends for us and will always prompt us to freely choose what is most loving.

In today’s ongoing debate over church practice, obedience and conscience, whether it is about the requirement of celibacy for the priesthood or strict adherence to every official teaching, exercising freedom with love remains the defining image and real challenge of discipleship.

“I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming” (John 14:30).

Parish healing services or special blessings for the sick take on an extra intimacy when the community is invited to extend its hands over the person or persons. Or, if the group is small enough, people actually gather around and touch the person while praying for them.

A friend once revealed that a decade earlier when he was in college, in a moment of careless excitement during a pheasant hunt, he had accidentally shot and killed a companion. Terrified, he made up a story that lessened his blame for the death. Years later, while participating in a training program for hospital chaplains, he felt able to disclose the lie he had been carrying. The group gathered around him, prayed for him, then lifted him bodily into the air, holding him over their heads while they sang “Amazing Grace.” It was the beginning of his healing, which included going to the parents of the man he had killed to tell them the truth about what had really happened that afternoon in a corn field.

Jesus’ final gift to his friends was the gift of peace. He knew that when the shepherd was struck, the sheep would scatter and the Prince of Darkness would rule for a brief time. They would survive the coming storm of confusion and shame only by gathering in a circle around him, the Son of Man, touching him and one another as he was lifted up. They became in that moment his body in the world, a body able to absorb any tragedy, any evil or violent rejection of God’s amazing grace. By baptism we have entered that circle, and it will never let us down.

“I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev 21:1).

Imagine a Rubik’s cube with 12 squares down and across for a total of 144 squares X six sides. The number of variables would be staggering, and the puzzle it would present would interest only the most obsessed right-brained gamers with access to university-scale supercomputers.

Literal readers of the Book of Revelation meet just such an astounding cube in the description of the New Jerusalem descending from heaven. Its dimensions are given as 1,380 miles high, wide and deep, or 1.9 million square miles total area. It would overshadow the north American continent from the Rockies to the Appalachians, from Minnesota to Mississippi. Its four sides face the four winds, its foundation blocks are huge precious stones and its 12 gates -- for the tribes of Israel and the Apostles -- are immense pearls guarded by angels. Its numerical perfection represents God’s presence with the human race, and its beauty symbolizes a bride prepared by God for the Lamb, her bridegroom. The whole structure is lit from within by the glory of God and contains a garden with the Tree of Life at the center, out from which flow rivers that give life, health and joy forever.

This vision of heaven coming to earth is the last chapter of the Book of Revelation (Rev 21), which was composed at the end of the first century to strengthen and comfort a community enduring persecution. The nuptial imagery is a song of triumph in the face of martyrdom, announcing that "Love is stronger than death." This is a great paradox, which is why only poetry can express its ineffable truth.

In John 13, at the beginning of his final discourses to his disciples, Jesus also captures and conveys the same mystery in a way so simple and so challenging that we fail to understand it unless we are ready to embrace it. The Rubik’s cube of Christian discipleship is the command to love one another. And, more specifically, to love one another as Jesus has loved us. Anyone who has known the challenge of this kind of unconditional love, as a parent, spouse or friend, knows that the variables are astonishing. The coming together of separate wills is a dance so intricate and challenging that only grace can sustain and eternity complete the communion and community it sets in motion.

But those who dare to commit to giving and receiving such love also know the presence of God in the world and have seen heaven come to earth.