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.
What amazing love Jesus shows his disciples, even in anticipation of their lack of faith and their varying degrees of betrayal. The same is true of us. Jesus anticipated every wrong thing we would ever do and still loved us enough to go to the cross.
Do you believe now?
We would prefer if our beliefs were strong enough that we could skip past infidelity to faithfulness. What is it about us that makes only able to learn some lessons the hard way? We see the love of Jesus for his disciples and for us, we believe what he tells us about himself, and yet we do not respond proportionately to those facts. We often let circumstances dictate our actions, as fear and disordered desires conspire to scatter us and draw us away.
But I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.
A partially correct interpretation of this passage is that Jesus knew what his disciples would do in advance and so they could be assured of his forgiveness when they returned from being scattered. But Jesus was speaking about something that should matter to us whether we are recovering from infidelity or not. He was showing us a perspective, which, if internalized, could prevent the need for us to ever wander in the first place.
In the world you will have trouble,
but take courage, I have conquered the world.
We allow ourselves to be scattered because we feel alone to begin with. Jesus was never pulled from the Father's plan because he knew he was never alone. He knew the reality of the Father to which he was connected was a deeper and more real one than the reality of the trouble of the world.
Jesus did not say, 'I will conquer the world', as we might expect, referring to his Paschal mystery. Although there was a sense in which his victory really was still future tense his connection to the Father was so strong that he could speak of it as already his own, and so he said "I have conquered".
Just as Jesus had peace in the Father, because he knew he was not alone, so too can we find a peace in our relationship with Jesus that the world can't take away.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you (see John 14:27).
There is a real sense in which circumstances continually collude to produce new and genuinely difficult forms of trouble for us. In response to these our victory is still a future tense reality. But if we stay near to Jesus we can be victorious even now.
The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne (see Revelation 3:21).
Unlike the disciples Paul found in Ephesus we did receive the Holy Spirit when we became believers. Yet, like them, he may not have had much impact on our lives yet. We may still be fearful like the disciples before Pentecost, still unaware of the gifts and mission we have been given. Compared to what he intends to give us this is true of everyone.
And when Paul laid his hands on them,
the Holy Spirit came upon them,
and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.
Altogether there were about twelve men.
The Holy Spirit is meant to make a profound difference in our lives. He has so much he wants to offer us that even Charismatic all stars could so benefit from opening their hearts to him, as though for the first time, that it might seem to them after that they had hardly known him until that moment.
Whenever the Spirit intervenes, he leaves people astonished. He brings about events of amazing newness; he radically changes persons and history.- St. John Paul the Great
Jesus spoke of peace in the Gospel reading today. How is our peace? Is it incrementally better than those who don't know Jesus at all? Or is it a peace that the world cannot give, to which the peace of the world cannot compare? Speaking for myself alone, my peace is often more of the incremental sort. But peace is just one gift that the Spirit of Jesus wants to give us. Fear is just one part of the fallen world that he has conquered, peace just one fruit of his victory which he desires to be ours.
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.
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