Take Courage

The disciples said to Jesus, “Now you are talking plainly, and not in any figure of speech. Now we realize that you know everything and that you do not need to have anyone question you. Because of this we believe that you came from God.” 

Jesus answered them, “Do you believe now? Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived when each of you will be scattered to his own home and you will leave me alone. But I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” (John 16:29-33)

Yesterday’s Gospel spoke of the world.  Today, Jesus tells us the world causes us trouble.  Clearly, it does especially because we are constantly accosted by powers, principalities, thrones and dominations – all words used by St. Paul to describe the devil.  According to Father Rohr, “these are premodern words for what we now call corporations, institutions, nation states, and organizations that demand our full allegiance and thus become, in many ways, idolatrous…”  

Jesus tells us to “take courage” because he has “conquered the world.” How so?  A clue might be that he claimed, according to John, that the Father was with him.  Peace was the result – peace he offered to his disciples.

Perhaps Paul’s letter to the Romans (8:35, 37-39) helps us understand.  He said: “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?...

No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

For the love of God we deal with and overcome the world.  That’s our constant source of courage Jesus demands.

Deacon David Pierce