This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to reflect on John 16:12-15. These four verses lie within verses 16-24, to which the English Standard Version supplies the heading “Your Sorrow Will Turn into Joy.”
As I said last week, we’re in the part of John’s gospel in which he gives us highlights from Jesus’ farewell speech. He tells us Jesus spoke today’s words as he was walking with his disciples; after his last meal with them; less than 24-hours before he would be killed by crucifixion.
The disciples were deeply shaken.
For three years, they had abandoned their occupations and gone on the road with Jesus. They’d remained with him because of his magnetism, his love, his words of wisdom. They’d become convinced that he, with them, was going to replace the corrupt political and religious leaders.
Now, he was giving them his death-bed speech.
The darkness of the night reflected the darkness they sensed about their future. Jesus had made it clear that something very bad was going to happen to him: very bad when seen through the lens of the world.
Jesus understood how shaken they were. He held back from saying some things they needed to know, because it would be too much for them to bear. So, he told them something to encourage them.
He told them about the Spirit and his role.
Jesus said “the Spirit of truth” would soon come. This Spirit would guide them into “all the truth.”
Jesus wasn’t speaking about truth like “fire burns” or “water can be polluted.” He was speaking about spiritual truth.
He began with authority.
He said the Spirit would not speak on his own authority. He would speak only what he heard said between the Father and the Son. He would speak of “the things that are to come.”
What are the things that are to come?
It could be things which would happen to him over the next few days.
It could be everything which would happen until the Day of Judgment.
It could be specific to the lives of the disciples, as individuals and of the communities, the churches, they would form.
Most likely, it’s all of those things.
Twenty centuries have passed since Jesus spoke those words. Now, we know so much more than the disciples knew that night.
We know that Jesus’ kingdom of justice and peace is established not through coercion, but through example and persuasion.
John recorded today’s verses because he wanted to show us that Jesus had made provision for what we call the New Testament.
John also wanted to show us that Jesus told them how they would cope with the hatred and harm the world would soon do to them; for our verses are in a section which begins with Jesus saying they would be put out of the synagogues: rejected by their relatives and their neighbours.
History has shown us that the church grows through confrontation and persecution. The church grows as congregations of faith, hope and joy.
How did the cross change from a symbol of public shaming to a symbol of holiness and honour? How did night become light?
The answer lies in a word you’ve probably never heard: ascesis. [1] The Collins English Dictionary explains it well:
“Ascesis is the procedure of demonstrating self-control and determination of action and purpose.”
Ascesis is about living a disciplined, purposeful life, which when seen through the lens of the world, often doesn’t make sense.
Knowing the truth isn’t enough. We must compel ourselves to live in the truth. We must be doers of the word of truth. We must be disciples, guided and shaped not by ourselves, but by Another.
That “Another” is the Spirit of Truth, the one who hears the divine words, divine speech, which cause things to come into being. And transmits that speech to us. Notice that I say “transmit,” not “communicate.” Because transmitting involves more than words; it involves shaping, chiselling.
“Let the chisel perform its office,” wrote the priest Jean Pierre de Caussade, [2] in his book “Abandonment to Divine Providence,” which has become a spiritual classic. In it, he also wrote:
“Each blow of the hammer on the chisel can only produce one cruel mark at a time, and the stone struck by repeated blows cannot know, nor see the form produced by them.
It only feels that it is being diminished, filed, cut, and altered by the chisel. And a stone that is destined to become a crucifix or a statue without knowing it, if it were asked, “What is happening to you?” would reply if it could speak,
“Do not ask me, I only know one thing, and that is, to remain immovable in the hands of my master, to love him, and to endure all that he inflicts upon me.
As for the end for which I am destined, it is his business to understand how it is to be accomplished; I am as ignorant of what he is doing as of what I am destined to become; all I know is that his work is the best, and the most perfect that could be, and I receive each blow of the chisel as the most excellent thing that could happen to me, although, truth to tell, each blow, in my opinion, causes the idea of ruin, destruction, and disfigurement.
But that is not my affair; content with the present moment, I think of nothing but my duty, and I endure the work of this clever master without knowing or occupying myself about it.” [3]
Today is Trinity Sunday.
Today, let’s ponder the mystery of the faith: God is three, God is one.
Today, let’s admit that though we cannot explain the mystery of the Trinity, we can and have experienced the joy of the Trinity.
Today, let’s resolve to practice ascesis, the resolute, disciplined, moment-by-moment surrender of ourselves to the Trinitarian God.
Peace be with you.
[1] I learned about ascesis from Simon Chan’s 1998 book, Spiritual Theology, which is still available from IVP: https://www.ivpress.com/spiritual-theology?srsltid=AfmBOopy5Gz7bVw4oV7RnVq-6WQgQ_VC6QQzl01Ece7SJj7N5pA_Xr_Z.
[2] He was French. He lived from 1675-1751. The book was published in 1861. You can read about him here: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/decaussade.
[3] SECTION VI: The Duty of the Present Moment the Only Rule, https://ccel.org/ccel/decaussade/abandonment/abandonment.ii_1.ii.ii.vi.html.
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