John 11:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Thus He says: while the "day" is still passing, that is, while the time of the Passion has not yet come, you will not stumble. You will encounter neither persecution from the Jews nor any other misfortune.

But when the "night" comes, that is, My Passion, then in confusion you will gather in one little house for fear of the Jews. From that time you will experience sorrows and pains, and many vexations and hardships.

When I, the Light, no longer dwell with you bodily, the night of sorrows will surround you.

Thus He indicates here that the time has not yet come to tear Me away from the Jews. Though they are impious, everything must still be done for their healing.

It is not fitting to subject them to punishment now, whereby the grace of God would withdraw from them like the sun. But as daylight does not cease until the twelve-hour span is fulfilled, so My illumination does not cease before the appointed time.

I remain with the Jews until the Crucifixion, sending them, as light, the understanding of the knowledge of God.

Since the Jews, He says, are in the darkness of unbelief and have stumbled over Me as over a stone, I must now go to them and illumine them, so that they may cease their God-opposing frenzy.

Or it may be understood thus. Since the disciples were forbidding Christ to meet with the Jews, not for their own sake but certainly out of pity for Him, He encourages them by a parable. He will never suffer anything against His will.

If the one who walks by day does not stumble, can He who sends light to all suffer any harm against His will? Or can He who reveals to all the hidden depths of wicked men Himself fall into them through ignorance?

Or He says this not of Himself, but of the disciples. They will suffer no danger while they are with Him who illumines all things, and who not only knows Himself but reveals to others the hidden designs of the wicked.

Therefore, by revealing the future to them beforehand in certain hints and enlightening them, He does not allow them to fall into stumbling when future events take place.

Even when Judas fell, Matthias at once came into his place, so that the number twelve was preserved. Therefore our Lord did not choose twelve disciples by chance, but to show that He Himself is the Day in a spiritual sense.

Let the hours be illumined by the light of the day, so that through the preaching of the hours the world may believe in the day. "Therefore follow Me," says the Lord, "if you do not wish to stumble."

Thus, when men decided to advise God, disciples the Teacher, slaves the Lord, and the sick the Physician, He rebuked them and said, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble" (Jn 11:9-10).

"Follow Me, if you do not wish to stumble. Do not give Me counsel, for it is for you to receive counsel from Me." To what, then, does this refer: "Are there not twelve hours in the day?"

To show that He is the day, He chose twelve disciples. One must remember that in antiquity day and night were each divided into twelve hours, independently of one another.

At every season of the year, even during short winter days, the day consisted of twelve hours. Their length differed from the hours of the night, except at the equinoxes.

Therefore both in the Gospel text and in blessed Augustine, the reference is not to twelve hours of the full day and night, but precisely to daylight without night.

"If," He says, "I am the day, and you are the hours, do the hours give counsel to the day? The hours follow the day, not the day the hours."

If they were the hours, what of Judas? Was he numbered among the twelve hours? If he was an hour of the day, he had light. If he had light, how did he betray the day to death?

But under this word the Lord foresaw not Judas himself, but his successor. After Judas fell away, Matthias took his place, and the number twelve was preserved (see Acts 1:26).

Thus the Lord did not choose twelve disciples merely so, but to show that in a spiritual sense He is the day.

Let the hours follow the day. Let the hours preach the day. Let the hours be filled with light from the day. Let the hours be filled with radiance from the day.

Through the preaching of the hours, let the world believe in the day. This is what He said in brief: "Follow Me, if you do not wish to stumble."

Therefore by night one may understand the darkness that covered the inward eyes of the Jews, who suffered from ignorance and blindness. For it is said of them: "They have neither known nor understood. They walk in darkness" (Ps 81:5).

They not only refused to look upon the Light shining in the darkness (Jn 1:5). Leaving other things aside, they did not even take into account the multitude of signs.

Therefore they are rightly likened to night. Because of their unbelief, Christ is rightly for them a stone of stumbling and offense.

For as it is impossible for one walking in a dark night not to stumble, so it is impossible for one who has not yet seen the divine light not to sin. Thus Christ the Lord says: "If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him."

By saying, "the light is not in him," He indicated the divine and immaterial light. No one can acquire sensory light and have it within himself.

Then, explaining the reason for the journey, He added: "Lazarus our friend has fallen asleep." Seeing that His disciples did not understand, He said plainly that he had died, and added: "I am glad that he died without Me. This is better for you, namely for your faith. Let us go to him. I will awaken him in your presence." Thus He showed that death is, as it were, sleep.

Joy at the death of a friend would be out of place, if some greater intention were not hidden in it. In these words, "I rejoice for your sake," the purpose is revealed.

This explains why the Lord did not give help to His sick friend during the illness itself, and why He was pleased to perform so great a miracle as He soon performed over Lazarus.

After the Jews had already twice sought to stone Him, the state of faith in the disciples required strengthening then, and still more for the great trials that lay ahead. But did they share the Lord's joy? No.

When they learned that Lazarus, Jesus' friend, had died, and that Jesus had allowed him to die without letting him see the glory of His Kingdom, they remembered His answer about Lazarus's sickness.

Then the Savior's demand that they go with Him to Judea involuntarily seemed to them a summons to go to His death. At least this was how they looked at it. They were accustomed always to act with caution.

Yet in their hearts they too were ready to follow Jesus. When they saw that His intention was unshakable, their feeling struggled with the fears of prudence.

They did not dare say anything to the Lord Himself. But they said to their fellow disciples: "Let us also go, that we may die with Him." They thought neither of Lazarus's resurrection nor of preserving their own life or the life of their Teacher.

Its inward meaning is this: while the time foreordained by God for the earthly life and activity of Jesus Christ continues, there is no danger for Him in going where He wills and doing what His calling requires of Him.

But here, too, a moral lesson is given to the disciples. Whoever acts in the light of God's commandments will not make mistakes, nor expose himself to the danger of death without need or benefit for himself and others.

But whoever turns away from this light and acts self-willedly is constantly threatened by such danger.

Throughout all this time, one may paraphrase the Lord's speech, we can go and make our journey without the least danger. The journey could be dangerous for us only if we prolonged it beyond the twelve daylight hours, when night comes and the daylight is no longer on the horizon.

But this will not be necessary, because, if they wish, they can reach the goal of their journey, Bethany, before sunset.

In the spiritual sense the Lord's answer means this. The time of our earthly life is determined by the highest divine will. As long as this appointed time continues, we may go without fear on the path appointed for us, that is, fulfill the works to which we are called.

We are safe, for the divine will guards us from every danger, as the sunlight guards those who walk by day. We would have to fear dangers only if night overtook us in our work.

That would happen if, arbitrarily and self-willedly, contrary to the will of God, we presumed to continue our activity longer than appointed. Then we would stumble, as people stumble at night when they do not see the daylight.

The application of this answer to the present circumstances is clear. The Jews cannot take from Me a single minute of the time foreordained for Me to fulfill My work. Therefore there is nothing to fear. I am still working by day, in the time foreordained for Me.

It would be untimely for Me to act if, as you advise Me, I failed to fulfill what has been appointed for Me. It would be so if I did not go now to Judea, avoiding danger, and did not receive what I must receive by God's decree.

Therefore let us work while our day lasts. Let us go into Judea.

In outward form and content, this whole saying resembles the one with which the Lord prefaced the healing of the man born blind (Jn 9:4). The difference is that there, in the evening, He says that one must not lose time for action.

Here, in the morning, He says that one must not self-willedly strive to act outside the foreordained time, contrary to God's will. Compare Theophylact and others.

Given the situation, danger for the Teacher was also danger for the disciples. The enemies of Jesus were no friends to His sincere followers. From Thomas's words (Jn 11:16), it is clear that, because of the Sanhedrin's bloodthirstiness, the disciples feared for their own lives also.

Christ Jesus says to them: "Are there not twelve hours in the day? ... Whoever walks at night stumbles." Whoever walks by day does not fear stumbling, for daylight shines. So the Son of Man knows the will of the heavenly Father and acts freely in the heavenly radiance.

How, in such light, could He not do the works of Him who sent Him? Jn 9:4. Let the disciples remain at peace. With Him they are safe.

It is different with those who go out to labor without being called from above. They wander at night, in darkness. The enemies of Jesus do not understand what they are doing.

Even if they wished, they cannot either hasten or prolong the time of the Son of Man's death. They are pitiable, because in darkness they prepare misfortunes for themselves.

All the disciples understood that when the Lord said, "Let us go into Judea," He was not speaking of the small, comparatively quiet and safe village of Bethany. He meant that He was going again into that hostile land where His murder was being prepared.

On the one hand, the Lord calms their fear. On the other, He points to the sense of duty, humanly speaking, which stands above everything. Yet at the same time He also reveals to the disciples the higher divine mysteries.

"I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world" (Jn 9:4-5).

The Lord is "the light of the world" (Jn 8:12). The same thought is repeated in verses 9 and 10 of the present chapter.

The Lord had to remain on earth only for a definite time. Within this brief epoch, or "line of time," appointed by divine Providence, the great events had to be accomplished which brought about the salvation of the human race.

In pointing to this brief time, the Lord also shows that humanity's future blessedness lies in this work, done while the light shines.

Only this time of the Lord's dwelling on earth poured upon all humanity's future life that bright light of righteousness, love, and faith which shines for us amid the night of this world.

It is very important to note the Lord's expression concerning the one who stumbles: "the light is not in him" (ἐν αὐτῷ).

The Lord did not say that he stumbles because there is no light in the world. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it" (Jn 1:5).

Rather, he stumbles because there is no light in the soul of the unbeliever.

Unbelievers have walked, and still walk, in the night of their soul. They stumbled, and still stumble, over that stone of stumbling and offense for them.

Yet that very stone became the foundation of the Church of God on earth. See Mt 21:42-44; 1 Pet 2:7; Rom 9, and in the Old Testament compare Ps 117:22 and Is 28:16.

Therefore, in speaking of day and night, the Lord means, on one side, eternal day and eternal light. On the other, He means the darkness of unbelief.

The brief sojourn of God in human form upon the earth is likened to a day. This day is eternal for believers. Those who walk by the light of this day do not stumble.

But in order to kindle this day forever, the Lord, during the comparatively brief time of His life, was creating a new life for man.

This He calls working. Man's walking in the day He calls abiding in the light of the day, so that he may not stumble.

But man's walking outside faith and outside the ways of God the Lord calls darkness and stumbling.

The most terrible moment of this darkness was the temporary permission, granted by the Lord, for the "power of the prince of darkness, the prince of this world" (Lk 22:53; Jn 14:30).

At that time the light of the world was not extinguished. It was only temporarily hidden from the people by the power of darkness, so that it might shine forth in the solemn, glorious, unflickering light of Christ's joyful Resurrection.