John 16:25-33

08/01/10
John 16:25-33
Hudson UMC

In this passage, we have the very last conversation that Jesus has with his disciples before He is crucified and resurrected. All of chapter seventeen will be the prayer of Jesus, but as soon as that is over, Jesus will be betrayed and taken captive. The disciples will not have any more opportunities to interact with their Lord. These words are the last things we hear the disciples say to Jesus until after the resurrection. Though Jesus’ words are comforting and powerful, we might wish that the disciples had made a better showing.

“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but will tell you plainly of the Father.” What things has Jesus been saying in figures of speech? He has been speaking of being in the Father and the Father being in Him, He has spoken of how He will not leave the disciples as orphans, He has spoken of the bond between Him and His disciples as if it were like branches on a vine. He has said many things figuratively and, because we live on the other side of the resurrection, because we live in an age where the Holy Spirit has been given, we can probe into those figures of speech and begin to make sense out of them, where the disciples were clueless at the time. Jesus is saying that there will come a time when He will speak and there will no longer be need for figures of speech. As we will see, clearness of speech is all that the disciples wanted, or at least, all they thought they wanted.

“On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” This is really a marvelous promise for us. It would be one thing to say that Jesus will ask the Father for us because He is the Son of God who must seem a whole lot more important in the eyes of God than ordinary folks like you and me. In fact, since Jesus has shown us how much He cares for us, it really wouldn’t be that bad a thing at all to have Him ask the Father for us for whatever we need. And yet, Jesus wants to make it absolutely clear to us that He is not the only one who is loved by the Father. The Father loves us, too. It is true that, when we pray to the Father, we do so in the name of Christ because, as Paul says, Christ is the one mediator between human beings and God; however, we get to pray to God and God has promised to hear our prayers. God is asking for us to pour ourselves out to Him in prayer. We do not need to worry that we are not good enough because, as we are united to Christ, we are loved by God with a love that will not let us go.

“I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.” This is one of those times where Jesus explains, just a bit more clearly, who He is and why He matters. There have been several times when Jesus has made statements like this and the Jewish authorities wanted to have him killed on the spot, because He was making Himself equal to God. He had said things like, “Before Abraham was, I am,” taking the divine name from the Old Testament upon Himself. “The Father and I are one,” which made the people take up stones to kill Him, saying that they were stoning Him “for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” If Jesus had said this in public, that He came from the Father and has come into the world and that He was leaving the world to go to the Father, the people would surely have tried to kill Him again. People just don’t say these kinds of things. For someone to say things like this is to say that they have some kind of special connection with God. This simply did not fit in with the Jewish mindset.

“His disciples said, ‘Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.’” This sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Isn’t this a great declaration of faith, of confidence in Jesus? It sure seems to be, and it seems to be clear that the disciples thought so as well. They are so proud that they finally get it, that they finally can see clearly who Jesus is and why He has come among them. They realize now that, as the one who has come from the Father and is returning to the Father, they have no business questioning Him, making Him answer their questions, as if they held any kind of authority over Him. Now, the disciples are absolutely convinced and certain that Jesus is not just an ordinary man, but one who has come from God to them.

And yet, in spite of how good this confession seems, in spite of all the good things the disciples have to say, in spite of the overwhelming faith and piety they seem to have, Jesus is not totally convinced. “Jesus answered them, ‘Do you now believe? The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone.’” Another one of the things that Jesus has done several times throughout the gospel of John is allow people to make claims that show that they think that they or their circumstances are not really so bad and then respond in such a way that shows that Jesus knows the truth and knows it better than the others do. He does this when He asks the Samaritan woman at the well to bring her husband. She says that she does not have a husband and Jesus responds, saying, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband;’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

Another wonderful example of this kind is when the Jewish leaders were challenging Jesus. Jesus tells them that they should do what they have heard from the Father. They respond by saying, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus corrects them a bit, saying, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did.” They back and forth a bit more and finally Jesus comes out and says, “You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires.” Even though the leaders truly thought they were the rightful heirs of Abraham, they behaved as though they were the children of the devil. Jesus knew what the people could not.

The same is true with what He says here to His disciples. The disciples truly thought that they believed that Jesus was the one who came from God. To their credit, they probably were more convinced of this at this moment than they ever were before. To them, it seemed like a total life-changing revelation to have Jesus speak plainly for once. And yet, Jesus knows what the disciples could not. “Do you now believe? The hour is coming, indeed, it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone.” Jesus calls into question the faith that His disciples think they have. Do they really believe that Jesus is from God? Do they really? If they really believed that Jesus was from God, would they run away from Him in His darkest hour? Would they scatter, each one to their home in fear, if they really believed that Jesus was from God? If Jesus was from God, there should be no need to panic because God is greater than the schemes of human beings.

Jesus is saying that, in spite of their own diagnosis, the disciples do not really believe like they think they do. The pressure will come and, instead of standing strong in faith, truly being willing to share in Christ’s sufferings, even here and now, it will be revealed that they are weak and broken people like you and me, who are afraid of trouble, who do not want to suffer, and who do not always follow through on their promises.

It is easy for us to romanticize the apostles, who first took the word of God to the people. We read about their ministries in the book of Acts where we see them healing the sick, raising the dead, and standing boldly before mighty leaders, declaring the good news to them. They endure beatings and hardships the like of which we have never seen. It is easy to marvel at their faith, to think that there is something about who they are as human beings that makes them so faithful, so responsive to God’s call. However, the gospels tell us over and over again that the disciples who followed Jesus were nothing special. In fact, they might even have been less qualified to be leaders of God’s people than most. They had no formal training, they were not well-known for their deep spirituality, they were not particularly outstanding at anything. And yet God took people like that, people who were no better than us, and transformed them into His messengers, into people who would carry the Word of God to the nations and transform the world by their witness. When we see the apostles doing their miraculous ministry, we should be encouraged because there is nothing about you and me that would stop us from doing the very same things, because we, too, are disciples of Christ, who are filled with the Holy Spirit and bound to Christ like branches on a vine.

One of the glorious things about the gospel is that it shows us that the moments where human beings come off at their worst are the very same moments where God comes off at His best, and, because God’s grace has penetrated into the very depths of humanity and raised it up to new heights of glory, it ends up being the best thing for humanity. It sounds somewhat paradoxical to say that, when humanity is at its worst, it ends up being the best for humanity, but it is true. If the good news of Jesus Christ came to us in such a way that we were not exposed to the depths of our evil and shown to be not as good as we try to convince others that we are, we would always be in doubt as to whether or not God meant to make those promises to us. So long as we think that there are skeletons in our closet, so long as there is still a doubt as to whether or not God really knows how bad we can be, there will be doubt as to whether God’s grace really covers all our sins.

It is important to notice that this is exactly what Jesus is doing here. He is pointing out that they do not have nearly as much faith as they think they do, but He is not mocking them, He is not poking fun at them, and, perhaps most important of all, He is not disappointed in them, as if He expected them to have gotten it by now and that they are failing Him and letting Him down in that failure. Jesus does not say that they will scatter to their houses and leave Him alone and so prove to be unworthy of Him. Instead, He says that, even though His disciples, His closest friends, will leave Him alone, He will not truly be alone. “Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.” Even though it will seem, to all observers, that Jesus will be completely and totally abandoned, it is not so. Jesus knows that, even when the best that humanity can offer fails, God is still strong, God is still faithful, and God will be with Him, even when His best friends aren’t.

Listen to the last thing that Jesus says here. “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” Let us take this bit-by-bit. Jesus is saying that He has told His disciples that they were going to fail, that they were not even going to be able to keep the promises they made so confidently that very night in order that, in Him, they would have peace. Even though the disciples are still convinced that they are going to be strong enough, Jesus knows better. He knows that they are going to fail and He wants to make sure they know that ahead of time so that they do not lose hope when they do fail. He says that it is in Him that they are promised peace. They are not granted to have peace in themselves, as if they could have peace in the face of their failure. Instead, they are granted peace because they are in Christ and Christ is victorious in spite of our failure.

“In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” This must have sounded odd in the ears of the disciples, who were just told that Jesus was going away to die and that, in spite of their best efforts, they could not prevent it. I wonder if these words rang in their ears when they saw Jesus on the cross. What a paradox, to have a man who is actively dying at the hands of his enemies, assuring his friends that he has conquered the world. And yet, in spite of this foolishness, this is exactly what Jesus is saying.

I think that we need to hear the words that Jesus shared with His disciples today. We live in a culture that measures us by how well we achieve, by what we accomplish and by our reliability. If we make too many mistakes with too many people, people begin to get the idea, for right or wrong, that we cannot be trusted, that we might let them down and we become something of an outsider. We want to make sure that we are seen as reliable, strong and committed people. If we promise something, we want to make sure we can follow through with it. We get offended if anyone calls our sincerity or faithfulness into question. And yet, this is exactly what Jesus is doing here. He is calling the faith of the disciples into question. In a sense, He is actually undermining their confidence in themselves. But He does not do that to depress them or to make them feel like they are failures. Instead, He does this to make them redirect their faith and hope. It is as if Jesus is saying to the disciples, “You think that you really believe now, but you will all run away. Don’t feel bad, but take courage because I have conquered the world! Therefore, put your trust, not in yourself, not in your ability to do good or to stand strong, but in me, even when I appear crucified before you, for though I will die, I will be raised from the dead and the Advocate will continue my ministry in you.”

What a blessing and a relief to be included in a promise like this! What a relief to know that our standing in the eyes of God is not dependent on how well we get our act together, but on the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. What a joy to know that we have been united to Christ, who has already conquered the world. He was the victorious one even before He was crucified, even when it looked like He was defeated. In the midst of this world of space and time, where it so often feels like things are against us and that we have nowhere to look for hope, we can cling to the fact that our Lord has conquered the world, even when He is hanging on a cross, so that, in spite of our failures and shortcomings, in spite of our desire to do more and our constant disappointments, we trust that our victory is not in us at all, but in the one who has bound us to Himself with a love that will not let us go. Let us leave this place and live lives of praise for the one who calls us to do the impossible and then does it in and through us. Let us pray.

AMEN