that pesky, blessed 5%

Monday of the

Seventh Week of Easter

May 25th

READING: John 16: 29-33

His disciples said, “Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

~~~

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

REFLECTION

John will later use Jesus’ strong affirmation of those who of us whose task it has been to believe without seeing. Many of the communities addressed in the New Testament writings were struggling with questions around believing by word alone, rather than by eye-witnessing the Jesus events. That, and the thwarted expectation of Jesus’ imminent return. Both remain issues for believers today, disturbing some more than others.

John has no hesitation then in depicting the disciples with brush-strokes that makes them appear, well, at times a little dull. He probably was one, the beloved disciple so-called, so he is allowed to. His point is theological: without the invasion of the Paraclete-Spirit we lack the eyes of faith and therefore are a little dull. We may have doctorates in astro-physics or theology, be masters of quantum theory or epistemology (and it really doesn’t matter at this point what that might be): without the eyes of faith, eyes re-calibrated by the invasion of divine breath (John 20:22) we are not going to get this.

Even if we have the eyes of faith, or at least even so in in my experience, much of our faith will seem weirdly unbelievable. That is why I often describe myself as 95 per cent atheist, or at best 95 per cent agnostic. But oh, the 5 per cent! That 5 per cent is held to tenaciously by God, and God ain’t letting go.

In the five per cent, where God is allowed to break in and cling tenaciously, there dwells the peace that Jesus speaks of. The peace that is the foretaste of the coming Reign of God. The peace that passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7). The peace that is present when we glimpse an eternity in which “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:7). The peace that is a glimpse of the view no longer through a darkened glass (1 Cor. 13:12). The peace when God shall be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28 – and that’s a phrase well worth experiencing if you want to explore a doctrine of universal salvation).

“Take courage: I have conquered the world.” The world of suffering, injustice, ecological collapse, economic exploitation, disease, death … “I have conquered the world.” We too must work to overcome (“we shall overcome”) but Jesus hints ahead to a more complete overthrow of all that is evil. More than we can imagine (1 Cor. 2:9).