Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me — Jesus addresses the turmoil that has seized the disciples with the imminent knowledge of his departure; his command (mē tarassesthe—let not your hearts be troubled) is not to suppress emotion but to reorient trust away from circumstance toward the person of God and Jesus himself. The dual imperative—believe in God and believe in me—shows that faith in Jesus is inseparable from faith in God; to trust him is to trust the Father who sent him. This is the paradox of faith: in the face of abandonment and death, the disciples are called not to deny reality but to trust the transcendent reality that encompasses and transforms it.

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