John 16

Thursday, February 28, 2013

John 16

This chapter, read straight through, is odd.  Jesus talks in his normal veiled language, then says that soon He won't have to do that, then that moment comes but...then we don't really get that conversation.

And I wonder just how human Jesus felt the night of the Last Supper.  I wonder if He felt what we all do when something hard is approaching - the need to reach out and touch others, to connect to them, and then a sudden surprise that we don't know what to say after all.

Then again, what Jesus does say simply is that the world will reject his apostles just as we rejected Him.  He warns them that tough times are ahead.  Perhaps it was that that they were not ready to hear - that they weren't going to be the heralded saviors of their people.  There would have been suffering along the path of freeing Israel from Roman rule, but it would have been of an entirely different kind.

Family and friends would not have turned on them and driven them out.  James would not have been stoned in Jerusalem itself. They would not have been scattered to the far corners of the wide world - alone until they spread the gospel.

Perhaps what Jesus had to wait for was for them to be ready to hear that they're lives would be hard - just as Jesus's life was about to get very, very hard.

That they would scatter and Jesus would die, but that it was okay.  He made sure that they knew in advance that they were forgiven, that it was okay, that they would find not only each other once again but that He would return.

If they could have believed that at last, they would have suffered less.  We are blessed to have the opportunity to know that this suffering is temporary, that we are scattered now but that we will be brought together and reunited with Jesus.