The atmosphere clears now. That black cloud shifts. The pressure is relieved. The air changes. Breathing is easier. Jesus did His best to keep Judas in by trying to have him turn something -- some one -- out. But the something that held the some one is kept within, so the man goes out. That inside air was getting a bit thick for Judas. Love's tender pleading unyielded to makes breathing difficult.

Again Jesus begins talking in the cleared air. The hour had full come. The character of the Son of Man would now be revealed,[111] and in being revealed God's character would also be understood, and God Himself would show what He thought of Jesus by His personal recognition and acknowledgment of Him, and He would do it at once. The clock is striking the hour. Now He was going away. They would not understand.[112]

Then Jesus strikes the great key-note of their future conduct as He goes on. The thing is this: love one another. This is the badge He gives them to wear. It will always identify them as His very own. Peter picks up the one bit he understands, and is told that he cannot yet follow in the tremendous experience lying just ahead for Jesus, but some day he can, and will. And then to Peter's blundering self-confidence comes a plain tender reminder of his weakness.[113] So that wondrous fourteenth chapter that Christendom loves begins back in the thirteenth.

And Jesus goes quietly on as they still linger about the table.[114] He had been sorely troubled,[115] but He would have them not troubled by their doubtings regarding Himself. It is true that they were outcasts with Him, from their national home, but He would provide them a home, and a better one. They did believe in God. They should believe Him just as implicitly. This is the warp into which is woven the whole fabric of that evening's talk. The whole talk is a plea for their trusting loving acceptance of Himself as fully as of God. This word "believe" changes its outer shape three times during that evening, making four words in all, but it's always the same thing underneath.

So now the teaching goes on in freest exchange of question and answer. What a picture of how we may talk everything out with our Lord and get fully answered. Thomas' question helps Jesus to turn them away from thinking of a roadway of clay and sand to a Man. Philip's helps Him to insist on the presence of the Father in a distinctive sense within this Man so familiarly talking with them. And then four times over He rings out that word believe.

Then by a subtle turn He changes the word, though not the thing, to help them understand better: "If ye love Me."[116] That puts the thing at once up on the heart level. Believing is a thing of the heart. Their heads were bothered. He said in effect, -- all your head questions will be answered in good time, but this thing is higher up than that. It's a matter of your heart. And so that word believe becomes love, its second shape. And with that is quickly coupled obey, the third outer shape He gives the word believe that night.

It is all the same thing underneath. Love is the heart side of believe, the inner side. Obey is the life-side of believe, the outer, the action side. The love looks out the window of the life and then comes out and walks down the street on an errand. Love doesn't simply love: it loves some one. Love that simply loves isn't love. Love comes to life only in the personal touch.

And love keeps in perfect rhythm of action with the one loved. That is the other way of saying obey. Obedience is the music of two wills acting together. Believe me, love me, obey me, -- this is the three-noted music of the upper room; three notes but one music; a fourth note to be added later. This is the wondrous closer wooing.

"I go to the Father. We, the Father and I, will send the Holy Spirit to you. He will come in through this opened door of obedience. He will abide in you, come in to stay. He will be everything and do everything that you need in every sort of circumstance. Keep in closest touch with Him: this is to be your one rule. Your part is simple. Believe; that means love; that means obey."

So they talk around the table. Then there's thoughtful silence, which the Master breaks by saying, "Arise, let us go."