“From the great wealth of material contained in John 17………

“To begin with, there is verse 3: “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

“The theme of “life” (zoe), which pervades the whole Gospel from verse 4 of the Prologue onward, is bound to feature also in the new liturgy of atonement that is realized in the high-priestly prayer. The thesis of Rudolf Schnackenburg and others that this verse is a later gloss, on the basis that the word “life” does not recur in John 17, seems to me to arise-just like the separation of sources in the chapter on the washing of the feet-from the kind of academic logic that takes the compositional form of mod­ern scholarly texts as the criterion for something so utterly different in its expression and thought as John’s Gospel.

“Eternal life” is not-as the modern reader might immediately assume-life after death, in contrast to this present life, which is transient and not eternal. “Eternal life” is life itself, real life, which can also be lived in the present age and is no longer challenged by physical death. This is the point: to seize “life” here and now, real life that can no longer be destroyed by anything or anyone.

“This meaning of “eternal life” appears very clearly in the account of the raising of Lazarus: “He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” Jn 11:25-26). “Because I live, you will live also”, says Jesus to his disciples at the Last Supper Jn 14:19), and he thereby reveals once again that a distinguishing feature of the disciple of Jesus is the fact that he “lives”: beyond the mere fact of existing, he has found and embraced the real life that everyone is seeking. On the basis of such texts, the early Christians called themselves simply “the living” (hoi zontes). They had found what all are seeking — life itself, full and, hence, indestructible life.

“Yet how does one obtain it? The high-priestly prayer gives an answer that may surprise us, even though in the context of biblical thought it was already present. “Eternal life” is gained through “recognition”, presupposing here the Old Testament concept of recognition: recognizing creates communion; it is union of being with the one recognized. But of course, the key to life is not    any kind of recognition, but to “know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (17:3). This is a kind of summary creedal formula expressing the essential content of the decision to be a Christian — the recognition granted to us by faith. The Christian does not believe in a multiplicity of things. Ultimately, he believes, quite simply, in God: he believes that there is only one true God.

“This God becomes accessible to us through the one he sent, Jesus Christ: it is in the encounter with him that we experience the recognition of God that leads to communion and thus to “life”. In the twofold expression “God and the one whom he sent”, we hear echoes of a constantly recurring message, found especially in God’s words in the Book of Exodus: they are to believe in “me”, in God, and in Moses, the one he sent. God reveals his face in the one sent — definitively in his Son.

“Eternal life” is thus a relational event. Man did not acquire it from himself or for himself alone. Through relationship with the one who is himself life, man too comes alive.

“Some preliminary steps toward this profoundly biblical idea can also be found in Plato, whose work draws upon very different traditions and reflections on the theme of immortality. His thought includes the idea that man can become immortal by uniting himself to the immortal. The more he takes truth into himself, binds himself to the truth and adheres to it, the more he is related to and filled with that which cannot be destroyed. Insofar as he himself, as it were, adheres to the truth, insofar as he is carried by that which endures, he may be sure of life after death — the fullness of life.

“What these ideas explore only tentatively shines forth without a hint of ambiguity in the words of Jesus.  Man has found life when he adheres to him who is himself Life. Then much that pertains to him can be destroyed. Death may remove him from the biosphere, but the life that reaches beyond it — real life — remains. This life, which John calls zoe as opposed to bios, is man’s goal. The relationship to God in Jesus Christ is the source of a life that no death can take away.

“Clearly, this “life in relation” refers to a thoroughly concrete manner of existence; faith and recognition are not like any other kind of human knowledge; rather, they are the very form of man’s existence. Even if we are not yet speaking of love, it is clear that the “recognition” of him who is himself Love leads in turn to love, with all that it gives and all that it demands. “ **

–**Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Holy Week, (San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 2011),  Jesus of Nazareth, Holy Week,