Jesus answered them, “Do you believe now?
There are different degrees of belief. It is one thing to acknowledge that Jesus is from God and knows everything. It is another to live on the basis of that knowledge. There are the facets of belief that we accept. But they prove whether or not they are real to us when we are tested. When the hour comes, do we flee? Are we scattered? Or does what we believe about Jesus cause us to hold our ground and remain near him? We remember his exhortation, "Remain in me", precisely here, when we considering doing otherwise. In the moment of testing everything in our flesh tells us it is unwise to continue trusting Jesus. It may seem that he is calling us to persist at a hopeless task or to win and unwinnable battle. It may seem like Jesus alone is not enough to face the very real problems of our lives.
But I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
Jesus is not alone, because his Father is with him. It may seem as though Jesus is the one at a disadvantage, and if we believe this it will make us afraid. But if we believe that everything is in the hands of the Father, playing out according to their shared plan for the world, we can have peace. This is why Jesus tells us in advance that we will have trouble in the world. Not simply so that we can brace ourselves for it. But so that we can believe that his providence extends even so far as that. He is not surprised. The troubling circumstances of life do not put his plan at risk of failure. The victory is in fact already his. From the divine perspective he shares with the Father he already possesses it even before everything finishes playing out here on earth.
take courage, I have conquered the world.
Our beliefs may remain at the level of mere data, without practical consequences in our lives, without the Holy Spirit connecting our heads to our hearts by deeper revelation. We can be like the disciples in Ephesus who had done all of the proper preparation that could be expected of them, but had not yet experienced the power of the Holy Spirit. We have been baptized with a baptism of a different order from that of John. But even so, the full power of that baptism has probably not been fully unleashed in us, or, for that matter, in anymore. It is basically an infinite power source. There is always more. That is why the infilling of these disciples in Ephesus through the laying on of Paul's hands is supposed to be more than a pleasant reminder of our own experience of sacramental confirmation. Rather, we are meant to see how the Holy Spirit filled them in a way that clearly transformed them. And, we are meant to hunger and thirst for more of that transformation in our own lives. As we approach Pentecost there is no better time to seek it. The great feasts make the grace of the events on which they are based present again in a special way. Not that the Holy Spirit is limited to one weekend a year. But there is one weekend a year when he characteristically goes out of his way to make himself as available as possible to us. This is what we've been leading up to all Easter. Let's brace ourselves for his coming and expect to be changed by the wake of his drawing near.
Rend Collective - More Than Conquerors
No comments:
Post a Comment