“Do you now believe?” Jesus asks His friends. “Do you get it? Do you understand who I am now?”

This is the question that Jesus has been working toward for the last four chapters since the beginning of the evening. Jesus understood the urgency of the moment, “that the hour had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father.” (John 13:1) With their time increasingly short, Jesus has but a few hours to spend with His friends before they will go through a trial more difficult than any of them could imagine.

Jesus knows what is about to happen to Him, and though He has warned His friends about what is to come, it is unclear if they understand. So, with one evening, one meal, one conversation before the events of His execution would be put into motion, Jesus wants His friends to understand one vital thing.

Jesus wants them to know who He is.

He starts by showing them. He takes off his outer clothing, wraps a towel around Himself, and washes His friends’ feet. “Do you get it?” He asks. “I am your Lord and your teacher, and yet I have made Myself your servant. Do you understand what this means for you?”

Then He tells them that in just a short while, He will be going away. He will be leaving them, and where He is going, they cannot come. So, He gives them a new command: Love each other as He has loved them.

When his friends start to get alarmed, Jesus delivers his thesis statement of the evening, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in Me.” (John 14:1) Take heart, He says. Do not be afraid. You believe in the Father. Now, believe in Me.

He tells His friends where He is going, and why — that He’s going to the Father, so that He can prepare a place for His friends. He reminds them that they know the way to get there because He is the way. That they have seen what the heroes of the faith have hoped and prayed for centuries — the glory of God in the face of Christ. They have seen the Father because they have seen His Son.

“Do you get it?” He asks.

Then He comforts His friends, telling them He must leave them, but He will not leave them alone. The Father will send them the Holy Spirit to be their advocate, their teacher and their peace.

Take heart, He says. Do not be afraid.

They leave to go to a garden, and Jesus tells them to remain in Him, like a branch remains in a vine. To dwell in Him, just as He dwells in them. To imitate Him — to live as He has lived, to love as He has loved. This is how they will show the Father their love for the Son — that they keep His commands, and that they love each other. Remain in Me, He says. Because apart from Him, they can do nothing. Only if they remain in Him, can they produce good fruit. More than that, they need to remain in Him so that they will not fall away. They will become outcasts in their community and outlaws in their country, and the only way they can endure is if they remain in Him. “I have to go away,” Jesus says, “and things are about to get really, really hard.”

“But I have to go away,” Jesus says, “so that the Advocate can come. And for you, that’s going to be better than having Me here with you.”

His friends confused, Jesus reiterates it all, that in a short while, He would have to leave them to go to His Father. The world would rejoice and they would grieve. But that grief would be temporary, because they would see Him again, and their grief would turn to joy. And He assures them that His Father loves them, because they love Jesus and believe that Jesus came from the Father.

“Do you get it?” Jesus asks his friends. “Do you believe that in your bones? Because in just a little while, you’re going to scatter. You’ll all be in hiding; you won’t be with Me anymore, and you’re going to need to hold onto this. You’ll have left Me alone, but I won’t be alone, because the Father is with Me.”

“Do you get it?”

Then Jesus closes as He began, saying that He told them all this, so that in Him, they may have peace. In just a short while, they would be going through the darkest hour of humanity, and they would need to believe what Jesus had told them. This world would be giving them trouble more than they could believe.

“But take heart,” Jesus says, “because I have overcome the world. I have already won.”