“Take Courage”

 

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

 

Jesus tells us the truth about tribulation and persecution and rejection so that we may have peace. He says these things in the context of our Father’s abiding love for us, of the Vine and the branches, of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and of His overcoming the world and the enemy.

 

“These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their time comes, you may remember that I told you of them” (John 16:3 - 4).

 

“Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe” (John 14:29).

 

Jesus speaks to us of our hearts not being troubled (14:1, 27), of giving us His peace and joy and love (14:27; 15:9, 11). He speaks of the Trinty living within us (John 14:17, 23) and of us living in the Trinity (John 17:21).

 

Yet, He also tells us of persecution and rejection and the hostility of the world.

 

When we fail to teach the truth of tribulation in the world we not only fail to teach the Gospel, we fail those we call to know Jesus Christ. If we do not experience conflict with the world it is not likely we are living as disciples of Jesus Christ, for God’s ways are not the world’s ways, and when we come into conflict with the world’s ways we must be obedient to the commands and Way of Jesus Christ.

 

We fail those we call to know Jesus because we fail to inform them that they will have tribulation. We fail to teach them that, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).

 

“You [spiritual] adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4; see also 1 John 2:15 – 17 and our earlier reflections on John 15:18 – 16:4).

 

If we would call people as Jesus calls people (Mark 8:34 – 38), people would know what to expect for they would come into the Kingdom with a right way of thinking about life, about Christ, themselves, and the world. How foolish we are to be seeker – sensitive when we are called to be God – sensitive and to call all the world to be Christ – sensitive.

 

False teachers call us to make ourselves the center of life, Christ calls us to give our lives to Him and to others, to live as His brothers and sisters, laying down our lives for others. Christ calls us to the Cross as our Way of Life, and this Way is necessarily the Way of crucifixion and rejection…and yes…of resurrection. Football players are not surprised when they are knocked on the ground, soldiers are not surprised when they face the challenge of battle, marathon and ultra marathon runners are not surprised by the pain they must endure to finish the race – O but American Christians are surprised by the least amount of rejection or resistance or displeasure they encounter for Jesus Christ.

 

If someone at work makes a disparaging remark toward a Christian, that Christian often reacts as if he or she has faced the lions in a Roman colosseum. Why, we won’t even share Jesus lest there be a backlash, making excuse after excuse so as to avoid true identification with the crucified Lamb. We have no shame, do we?

 

Jesus gives us the assurance that in Him we can have peace. In Him! In Him! In Him! Not in “mindfulness,” not in “positive thinking,” not in “name it and claim it,” not in possessions or position or power or fame or in the esteem of the world, but in Him, in Him, in Him!

 

Jesus tells us that we can take courage for He has overcome the world. Why should we take courage in this? Because if our identity is in Jesus, if our life is in Jesus, if our hearts have been captured by an all – enveloping and all – encompassing love for Jesus Christ, then we are one with Him, we are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh and spirit of His Spirit – and nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 8:28 – 39).

 

Soon the eleven disciples will be cowering in the Upper Room. They will have deserted their Master. He has been betrayed by one of their own, tortured, crucified, killed, and buried. These eleven will have the door locked “for fear of the Jews [the religious leaders]”.

 

Look at the whole wide world and then look at this little Upper Room in comparison to it. This little room is nothing, these eleven men are nothing. Why these supposed friends of Jesus abandoned Him – they didn’t even attempt to care for His dead body.

 

Look at the population of the world at the time these eleven were cowering, but also consider all the people who have ever been born from the beginning until our own time – what significance can these eleven fearful men possibly have? If we were to search all humanity for eleven men to lead us, is it likely we would choose these men? Fishermen, a tax collector, an insurrectionist? What qualifications do they have? Cowardice? Unbelief? Selfishness (“we want to be first, sitting on Your right hand and on Your left”)?

 

Yet Jesus says, “Take courage; I have overcome the world.”

 

The inside of the Upper Room is greater than the outside, for the inside is a portal into the Holy of Holies, into the Presence of God the Creator of all, the Father who knows me, who knows you, who knows us (Psalm 139). Those eleven men, and others, have been chosen to lead humanity to the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ, and the names “of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” will be with us for eternity (Rev. 21:14) as foundational to that City.

 

In the midst of their fear, of the memory of their cowardice, these men can take courage; even when they have residual doubt after the resurrection, they can take courage, for Jesus is their Shepherd, and the sheep can trust the Shepherd to bring them back to Him, to call them, to love them, to protect them, and to equip them to join the Shepherd as the Lamb, to also be sacrificial lambs so that others may have life in Christ.

 

If you have never suffered for Christ, take courage. If you have never witnessed for Christ, take courage. If you have not responded to Jesus’ call of Mark 8:34 – 38 to take up your cross and follow Him, losing your life for Him and others, take courage. It is not too late for you to cry out to Jesus, asking Him to draw you to Himself, asking Him to live His life in you and through you, asking that you may be broken bread and poured out wine for others, so that they may live in Him.

 

O friends, whether we have labored in the vineyard a virtual lifetime or a matter of hours (Matthew 20:1 – 16), the Master calls us to Himself. I’ll tell you one difference between this parable and the way it is in the Kingdom, in the Kingdom those who have labored in the heat of the day rejoice when new men and women come to labor alongside them, no matter when they arrive, no matter when they arrive. A besieged army does not complain to reinforcements, instead it says, “We are thankful you are here!”

 

As you ponder the Upper Room, as you hear and see the words that Jesus speaks to us, of His love for you, His laying down His life for you, His desire for deep relationship with you – what will you do? There is yet more to come, there is the Holy of Holies of John 17, which we will enter, the Lord willing, in forthcoming reflections.

 

But let us make no mistake, there is the Cross, and the Cross must not be only external and seen in time and space; it must not only be seen as rooted in eternity – eternity past and eternity future, the Cross must be a living Presence and Reality within us, it must be our source of Light and Life, it must be the animating principle of our lives – in fact our very lives must be cruciform, shaped and molded and formed by the Cross of Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:20; 6:14).

 

Twice Peter wanted to spare Jesus from the Cross (Matthew 16:21 – 23; John 18:10 – 11). Peter would finally learn to embrace the Cross and to teach others the glory of this embrace (see the theme of 1 Peter). As we read the courageous words of Peter’s letters, let us recall that this was the same man cowering in the Upper Room.

 

Wherever you are, whether you are in your own Upper Room or on the Road to Emmaus or even on the Road to Damascus, Jesus Christ is calling you to come to Him, to be one with Him, to live in intimate friendship with Him…embracing the Cross, having courage, sharing in His ironic and irenic Resurrection Victory, and to experience the joy that can only be known in giving our lives for Him and others.

 

Wherever you are, Take Courage!