02/03/24 - [John 16:12-22] – Your Heart Will Rejoice –
PV – Our study today begins with a sense of foreboding. There is a growing hostility between the State of Texas and our federal government over the invasion experienced in Texas. Since Biden has taken office (three years) the US has experienced a wave of illegal immigrants entering the US, mostly through Texas. The daily number has now grown to 8,000. The death toll, rarely mentioned in the press, has now reached 1,399 souls.
That number caused me to look at the deaths due to armed conflicts around the world. The number is overwhelming. The Global Conflict Tracker claims 237,000 lost lives in 2022. The true number of military casualties in the major conflicts is difficult to ascertain. The combatants are reluctant to release such informat6ion for tactical and strategic reasons.
The Global Conflict Tracker listed 27 armed hostilities in the world in 2023. In 2024 that number could rise to 30. Sadly, they see no resolution to any of them. The question we have to personally address is: how do we apply what we learn in John to the above miseries inflicted on God’s people, often in God’s name, on God’s people? Please pray!
*How do we talk about things that are more than out of the ordinary? Those that possibly take one into an entirely new world? Perhaps, listening to sacred music. Human love set to music. The early church used music to say things they were unable to verbalize. Brahms set [John 16:22] to music in 1868. Read v. Brahms: Ich will euch trosten – “I will comfort you.” This is a soaring, powerful affirmation of joy coming through sorrow. He placed a rich embodiment, cherished by Christians at times of great stress and suffering. Many people are comforted without even knowing the words. The message simply flows.
What flow? For Brahms, it was God’s new world being born out of the womb of the old. Like Paul [Rom. 8] Jesus uses birth to express what is going to happen and invites His followers to prepare for sorrow and then lasting joy. Does this not copy a woman going into labor? Jesus' disciples are about to plunge into short, sharp pain – Jesus taken away. But they will see Him again. (Faith) His death and resurrection are necessary for He is ‘going' to His Father”. (Faith) And He is sending the Holy Spirit. (Faith) The world has (never) seen this before. How do the disciples prepare? Jesus warns them anyway.
Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, a new world is being born. John wants us to grasp that! This is not Jesus saying, "there is trouble coming, but it will be alright after-ward.” Jesus wants us to see ourselves, as we will see, a few chapters hence, at the foot of the cross. Then seeing ourselves with Mary Magdalene in the Easter garden. See and feel the significance. They are not merely strange, unique or shocking. They are the visible sign that God’s new world is coming to birth. There is yet another warning. There are other things Jesus wants to talk about, but they are not ready, they could not cope. It is too much [v.16-19] they throw His words back and forth. Wonderment. Lack of under-standing. However, the job of the ‘helper’ is to lead them to the truth. The Holy Spirit will remind them of what He said; nudge their minds; into ways of knowing; and to know what Jesus would have liked to say, but lacked time. The Holy Spirit will give us music to see the words in another light. Perhaps in a way the Father is glorified or a moment arrives that cannot be taken away or perhaps the start of the celebration.
[John 16:23-33] – Ask, and You Will Receive – How many people do we have to talk with before speaking with the number 1, if you make it at all. It is not like that in the kingdom of God. Some Christians have tried to erect a hierarchy to traverse rather than using the direct hotline. This passage means that Jesus’ people have instant, immediate, direct, valued access into the very presence of the living God. We are reminded by John’s gospel that praying to Jesus He prays to the Father on our behalf. No thing in that statement implies we cannot pray to God Himself, directly on our own account. Restated – the extra-ordinary relationship between Jesus and the Father (a secondary theme of the book) means that those who belong to Jesus, the branches of the vine, are given the same immediate access to the Father as has Jesus.
When we pray in Jesus’ name, that we are conscious of belonging to Jesus and what we are doing is for His glory. The Father welcomes us instantaneously and gives us whatever they ask for. Whatever, we see it written again. [v. 23] The reason is clear. [v. 27] The Father loves you! Time to discard the horrid medieval notion of an uncaring, distant, remote Father, with whom we plead and who was bribed with the blood of His own Son. All needed before He will think of doing something good for us. While discarding things dispel the notion of having to reach Him through a succession of saints and martyrs.
The great early Christians took promises like this at face value and were humble enough to believe them. It is pride that keeps us from accepting this gracious offer. The throne room door is open. Step across the threshold. Talk to the Father yourself. This whole passage is truly about the Father and how much He loves those of us who trust in Jesus, and how great are the promises that He makes, in Jesus, to us. The disciples and those listening to Jesus have a sense that Jesus is finally speaking clearly and understandably. This helps to clarify the relationship between Father and Son. They are now getting a glimpse of the truth, something they can hang onto for dear life.
This is a good thing, events are just about to get extremely turbulent. These horrible events that Jesus has been hinting about are poised to engulf them. They will naturally panic, trying to escape like sheep without a shepherd, without Jesus. They will be alone. Jesus will not be alone; what Jesus does on the cross He will do with and in the presence of His Father. Jesus’ last word is not a warning, but of good cheer. Despite the worst, yet to come, the disciples will have sufficient peace to carry them through. Hear Jesus say - He has already won and you (we) will have trouble in the world: but cheer up I have defeated the world..
Yes, the world that will hate, persecute and ridicule the followers of Jesus has not been downgraded or sidelined, but defeated. He burst through death into God’s new creation.
He challenged the power of corruption, decay and death in healing the cripple, the blind and raising the dead. He was establishing a new reality. From the humility of the cross and in His coming in three days He will set-up forever kingdom facts on the ground and within the history of the world establishing a new world order, the way all will be one day. AMEN
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