01/06/24 – [John 14:12-21] – Another Helper – Deep in your heart, what would you have done then about Jesus - if you worked, had a family and only saw him periodically? Remember some of His travelling friends betrayed and denied Him (even John) Some thought Him mad, others were puzzled. He is now promising to be ‘around’ and maybe it will be easier. His people may be able to do more. This will be explained in the next two chapters and in [v. 16] He will send another helper and one who might be able to do more.
But whoa, how will He be around? He has promised to send a helper, His own spirit, His own inner life. We have to translate helper: to wealthy and multisided. The helper will be more than one who helps do things. He will give God’s people energy and strength to do what they must do. To live for God and witness His love to the world. He will also ‘help’: 1) As comforter, have we ever noticed that often things just seem better, easier if a certain person is present. Nothing else changes; a tragedy is still a tragedy, but some folks seem to increase our ability to cope. 2) As advocate’; one who pleads a case. Jesus knows His followers will find themselves on the wrong side of the law. He knows this from centuries of Jewish persecution (WWII/Now). Jesus is saying if we end in court God will be present, He will know of our plight and the advocate will plead our case. The Holy Spirit will plead on their behalf. Paul says so also [Rom. 8:26-27]
As a result of this promised spirit of Jesus Himself, Christians today are better off than His first followers. (San Diego Ten, 1972) His original followers were able to do amazing things; Jesus had given them power. [Luke 9:1-6; 10:17] However, as they followed Him they were stymied by some perplexity in His absence, they could not do much. [Mark 8:18, 28-29] But, now, by the spirit, they will be able to do all manner of things. Key: When Jesus ‘goes to the Father’ – when he defeats the power of death through His death and resurrection – all sorts of new pos-sibilities will be opening for them. Jesus talks of the works that He has been doing as evidence of His Father at work in Him. Now they will be able to do even greater works.
Starting with prayer, “Whatever you ask in my name , I will do it.” The operative phrase, ‘in my name - Jesus’. Be careful here, if we add: stupidity, selfishness or hurtfulness; we assuredly will not receive His grace. In many cultures, ‘name’ reveals character. Thus, our prayer “in Jesus’ name’ means we have to allow ourselves to know Jesus and to be drawn into His life, love and sense of purpose. We will then see what needs to be done; where we should be aiming within our own sphere of possibilities and what resources we may need. And THEN, when we ask, it will be in Jesus’ name and to His glory and through that to the glory of the Father Himself [v.13] When all this is understood, we should not go soft on the word anything: - He said it, He means it.
The last three verses [19-21] are a wonderful circle of promises that are ours because of Jesus being with us by the spirit. We will plainly see Him through faith. We will live with His new life. We will know the deepest theological knowledge of all: that He and His Father are in each other and that we are ‘in’ Him and He is ‘in’ us. And we will be joined to Jesus and the Father by an unbreakable bond of love. This leads back to where the sequence began: He will show Himself to us. All the main themes of the gospel are for what they are: truths about the inner life of Father and Son; truths which turn to fire and love, to warm ourselves within their innermost circle.
[John 14:22-31] - My Peace I Give to You – When good things happen, we want everyone to know. Think of your contact list and speculate how far past the first message your ‘news’ will travel. That is the world. When something bad happens that is embarrassing, we do not want the news to travel far. We suspect strangers are talking about us. In this case the world is a large, dangerous mass of people – out – ‘there’. Most peoples and cultures, and individuals when think-ing ‘us’ and ‘the world’ will think in terms of friendliness or with suspicion or confrontation. When Jesus speaks of the world, He thinks in the latter sense. [Prologue 1:10] He was in the world, the world was made by Him, but the world did not know Him. What is the ‘world’ here?
It is the whole created order and the people who have inhabited it and who have rebelled against their Creator. However, Jesus came into the ‘world’ [1:9]; God loved the world so much [3:16] that He sent His Son ‘to rescue the world’. Confusing? It is not John, nor the theology, it is hu-man wickedness distorting everything. God’s answer is: He rejects wickedness and remains op-posed to it and He loves the world and the people despite the wickedness. Jesus’ coming into the world, as we have seen, brings both of these divine answers onto the human stage of history. He comes as the light of the world, that we can have the light of life , but many prefer the darkness.
This fact is why the Discourse chapters [14, 15, 16] say much about the world - a place of dan-ger and darkness. It is here the disciples find themselves after Jesus has gone. They will know Him but ‘the world’ will not [v. 22], because they will love Him and keep His word (helped by the Holy Spirit bringing things back to their memories). ‘The world’ by contrast will do neither of these. [v. 23] There is no attempt to make the kind of compromise that many Christians settle for, bending over backwards to find places where they and ‘the world’ are not so far apart. This may be the right thing, but the fact is that much of ‘the world’ to this day, does not love Jesus and does not keep His word. To pretend otherwise would be folly.
There is a distinction between the followers of Jesus and ‘the world’. When that is recognized can we understand what comes next, another spectacular promise. Those who hold fast to Jesus, refusing to settle for second best – compromised discipleship, shall find that His peace comes to them as a gift. A peace, of the kind that ‘the world’; can never deliver. [v. 27] This peace will in-form them of His presence and support, making them happy with the knowledge that the Jesus they know and love is one with the Father. The way to this peace is through the sharp conflict that is about to come. The ruler of this ‘world’ is on the way to arrest Him. Who is this ruler?
At one level, it is Caesar, whose soldiers, some hours later, will take Jesus to His death. At another level it is the dark power that stands behind Caesar, the spiritual force of wickedness seen so briefly in the preceding chapter, now using Judas as an accomplice. The phrase ‘the world’ gets its negative force from the fact that the present world, loved and claimed by the Father, derives its strength from the dark lord. Jesus’ death and resurrection will inflict a huge wound on this rule, but the disciples are to be sent into a world where the opposition is deadly. Their courage and confidence will be sustained by remembering what Jesus had done. He did what He did so the world would know that He loved His Father. Called to follow Him we are to act in a way that ‘the world’ will know we love Him. The strange command [v. 31c], “Get up. Let us be going.” Jesus led His disciples to Gethsemane. Perhaps the few chapters that come next may well have been spoken as they traversed the darkened streets. But if John left this vague let us be assured as we ‘hear’ this passage as we walk the dark streets of, ‘the world’ following the one true light. AMEN
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