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John 14:26-27, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things an bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I love with you…”
Short Thoughts:
The Spirit illumines and ignites the self-revelatory words of the Son so that, in Him—who shows us the Father—we have Peace.
Long Thoughts:
This picture and verse are very similar to one that I created back on March 3rd of 2017. That was the day before we lost our very special little dog, Penny, and I was grateful to the Lord for bringing me to this specific passage in my morning reading schedule during such a difficult time.
Now, 9 months later, my schedule has brought me back to this section of John’s gospel and I am once again grateful for the ever-applicable reality present here. How desperately we (or, I, at least!) need to grow in a day to day, tangible recognition of the peace that Jesus gives….and so, this morning in my journal I worked through a bit more of what Jesus means in this passage and how we might grow in knowing this peace. Here is some of what I said:
Today I noticed that directly preceding this statement is Jesus’ promise concerning the coming of the Holy Spirit who will “bring to your remembrance all that I have said…” Now, this caught my attention, because in 16:33, we read:
“I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace.”
Notice in both passages, the words of Christ are associated with the peace of Christ. In 14:26, the Spirit reminds the disciples of what Jesus has said, leading—I believe—to the peace that He gives, and in 16:33, Jesus explains that what He has said has been for the peace of His disciples.
What can we make of this? At the most simple level, surely we can say that the words of Christ, illuminated and applied by the Holy Spirit are the source, the fuel, the supplier of our peace. How does our Lord—how does my Shepherd and King and Master—intend for us to receive His peace? In these texts, is it not by recalling and trusting His words? And most specifically—judging from the immediate context—His words about His own departure to the Father and subsequent return…..which can be read as reference both to His death and resurrection, as well as His ascension and parousia.
The point is: Jesus’ words regarding His God-revealing crucifixion and world-overcoming resurrection, coupled with the promise of His ascension to reign at the Father’s side and sure return to gather His own to Himself….these words about His person and work ought to give peace to the disciples who remain on the earth….who remain in this pit ruled by the “evil one” (17:15).
So what does reception of this peace look like? At the very least it means that when anxiety and fear and worry and doubt and danger (ie, “the world”) encroach, we ought to flee to the refuge of Christ’s words. We ought to combat the words of hopelessness with the words of Hope Himself, to seek refuge from the raging of the world in the sayings of the one who overcame it, to defend against the threats of fear with the promises of the one who siphoned Fear’s venom into His own veins at the cross and trampled it as a conquered foe with His resurrection. And I say we ought to go to Christ’s words, not because they are an alternative to Christ Himself, but because the words of Christ—illumined and ignited by the Holy Spirit—are the means by which we receive and know and fellowship with the living Christ in this age.
May the God the Father, by the ministry of God the Spirit, cause the self-revelatory words of God the Son to become living and active means of deeply tangible peace for the saints in the midst of this world’s dark night.
