I Give You MY Peace
John 14:23-29
It was a confusing time. Jesus with the disciples had come to Jerusalem. They had seen the joyous crowds a few days earlier on Palm Sunday, Their expectations of the disciples that Jesus would immediately take charge and set up the Messianic Kingdom and take the throne. They had seen many miracles and signs. They had seen Him escape the wrath of the Jewish leaders time and again. They had seen the 5,000 fed. They saw Him clean house in the Temple. Their expectations were high. All that was left was to jockey for the cabinet positions.
But Jesus seemed to be on another page. He did not affirm their expectations. In fact, He kept talking about His suffering and the disciples carrying crosses behind Him. Nothing could have been more contrary to their expectations. They were disturbed when Jesus wept bitterly over Jerusalem and prophesied the city’s destruction. There would be no Messianic king ruling in that Jerusalem.
At the Last Supper, Jesus told Peter that He would deny Him three times that very night. He told the disciples that one would betray Him to the authorities. The rest would scatter in fear. these are hardly the words they wanted to hear, so they tried to ignore them and concentrate on the business of who would be the greatest in the Kingdom. Jesus had to rebuke them as well as shocking them by washing their feet. Jesus Himself seemed to be disturbed as to what awaited Him. He knew. they didn’t.
When we come to the beginning of Chapter 14 in John, we come to what is called Jesus’ Farewell Discourse” which serves as a sort of last will and testament. Jesus tries again to explain what was about to happen to Him and what it truly meant, ending in chapter 17 with a beautiful prayer for them, John 14:1 shows that the disciples were troubled, and Jesus answers this by telling them to stop being afraid but rather trust in both the Father and in Himself. This is followed by the promise of a better Kingdom than the one they were expecting. He was returning to the Father to prepare a dwelling place for them. At the end of time, He would return at receive them unto Himself as the groom who comes for his bride when all was prepared. He came from the Father’s house, and He was the only one who knew the way back. He had come to earth to call a people to be His bride and sealed the promise of engagement with His blood which would ratify this new covenant as well as purify the sins of His beloved.
In this morning’s text, Jesus shows that there are conditions. He says that if anyone he will keep His words. He adds that then the Father will also love Him and that the Father as well as the Son will make their dwelling place with Him. The one who does not keep Jesus’ saying does not love Him. He also tells the disciples that what He just said was not His words alone, but the Father’s.
This brings up a question. Does not John 3:16 affirm that “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son?” Does not the Scripture also say in 1 John 4:19 that our love for Him is based upon the fact that He first loved us? But here it seems that God’s love is conditioned upon our loving Him and keeping His words. How do we resolve this?
First of all, it is clear that God acted out of love by sending Jesus. This love can be seen in the Scripture all the way back to the Book of Genesis. God in cursing man for his disobedience also gave a promise of redemption. He could have destroyed Adam and Eve in His wrath, but did not. HE is the one who came to seek them out. Man hid, and did not seek as they knew and feared what God might do to them. They were greatly troubled and his themselves. They tried to cover their own nakedness which was futile, It was God who concealed the shame of their nakedness by providing animal skins from a slain beast, a type of what He would do in sending His Son. Even though Israel constantly strayed after other gods, Yahweh pleaded with them to return as One who was deeply hurt by their rejection. They did not keep His commands but went a whoring after other gods. God punished them severely by sending them into exile. But He did not destroy them. This is indeed love, and it is offered unconditionally by the grace of God.
But the love of God abides alone until it is returned by the beloved. We all have heard stories and songs of someone who deeply loved another person, whose offer of love was spurned. We hear these tomes with sadness. Love is only ultimately fulfilled when the unconditional love is returned. Then there is joy for both the love and beloved. The promise of the Kingdom and dwelling is only for those who return this love. And the demonstration of this love is shown by obeying His commandments, the first of which is to love God with all one’s heart, mind and strength and the second to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. This theme of the command to love occurs throughout the Farewell Discourse. God loves all, but they must come to Him. And they must come to Him through His Son.
Jesus now turns their attention to the coming of the Holy Spirit as our advocate whom the Father would send in His name. Jesus was going away to prepare a place for the believers. He would show Himself alive after His resurrection for a period of forty days, not to return for a long time in our time-bound way of thinking. Jesus had protected them from harm while He was physically with them. He was there to comfort and advocate for them, which we have noticed already, even at the very beginning of the discourse. He was more concerned that the disciples were troubled than Himself. How were they to get along when He was no longer with them? Who would teach them? Who would encourage them? The answer is, the Holy Spirit, the Third member of the Trinity.
John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Actually, the translation of the Greek word is more properly “tabernacled.” This is shadowed by the Old Testament tabernacle where the presence of God dwelt in the middle of the People of Israel. It was the presence of God demonstrated by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night who guided Israel on their perilous journey through the wilderness to take them to a land they had never seen before. In a sense, if we don’t take this analogy too far, Jesus guided them by day, and not the Holy Spirit would guide them by night, the very presence of the same God. It is interesting that at Pentecost, cloven tongues of fire came upon the 120. John the Baptist talks about the baptism which Jesus would bring through the Spirit as a baptism of fire and not water.
Paul talks about the role of the Holy Spirit several times using the Greek word “arrabon.” This has the idea of both adoption as God’s children as well as a pledge of the fact. the Holy Spirit acts as a down payment that the promises which Scripture as well as Jesus has promised. The presence of the Spirit in our lives is this living pledge that God’s words and promises are true. So, our hearts should not be troubled either, even though things in the world are quite unsettled today. We have every earthly reason to be troubles, even as the disciples were that very night. God is with us by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit continues the ministry of Jesus to and in the believers. He brings to remembrance everything Jesus taught and the promise of the Scripture, both “Old” and “New” Testaments. A testament describes the will of the testator concerning who gets what of his possessions when he dies. Withing 24 hours, Jesus would lay in a borrowed tomb. As far as earthly possessions are concerned, all He left of His earthly possessions was the clothes he wore, which were left to the soldiers who crucified Him. The inheritance Jesus leaves, though, to His followers, is quite rich, indeed. The testament was indeed put into force by His death with one major difference. He arose! He Ascended! He is coming for us! The testator is no longer dead, but alive, who has the keys of death and hell. In the meanwhile, we have the presence of the Spirit which is the promise that our eternal inheritance is sure.as seated.
So instead of sorrow, the disciples were to rejoice that Jesus was returning to the Father. First of all, this was necessary so that the Spirit would come. Secondly, as seated in the heavens at the Father’s right hand, He has a full perspective of what is going on without the physical limitations of the flesh. He sees the full picture. Thirdly, He is where we are all going to. He will make one more trip back to receive us when all is ready.
Because of this, Jesus reiterates what He said at the beginning of the discourse. They are to stop being troubled and afraid. He had one more great gift to bequeath to them, the gift of peace. This is not the peace that the world vainly seeks after. Peace like that is very fleeting and disappointing. There was at one time it was said that the First World War was the “war to end all wars.” World War 2 changed this cynically to “the end of war until the next war.” Jesus clearly tells them that they would have great tribulations in “this world.” But as Jesus would overcome His coming suffering, so they would ultimately be delivered. This type of unconditional peace is comforting. This peace, He leaves.
The world remains troubled. People worry about the economy, inflation, famine. pestilence, and most of all, death and what comes next. We live in a world of agitation. The solutions that men devise fail. Drugs don’t help. Psychology doesn’t help. We as Christians are not to be troubled at these matters. But we do, and need to constantly remind ourselves of who we are, Whose we are, and the future that our Lord has prepared for us. But, more importantly, we realize that besides the common plagues of mankind is the spectre of persecution for being followers of Jesus. We who proclaim the only way to peace, which is in believing on Jesus, are constantly rejected and buffeted by the world for telling them the truth. The disciples needed peace in the face of the coming arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. they certainly did not have peace but were overcome with fear, even though Jesus told them beforehand, This is because we cannot come to peace through our own means, Peace is a gift bequeathed by Jesus to us. So in all our troubles, forget not to pray and ask for Him to give you peace.
