John 16:20-22 “Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” This episode talks about how the there will be joy after our sorrow and how the trials in our life are for a purpose. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Evil Has Been Defeated
John 16:20-22 “Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”
This verse comes just after Jesus explains to His disciples that He is going to go away for a bit and then He will come back again. They don’t really understand what He is saying. How could they? He did not tell them exactly what was going happen to Him as I am sure it was hard for Him to explain, and even harder for them to wrap their heads around. How does one wrap their head around the idea that Jesus died for our sins? If they new exactly what was going to happen they would have tried to stop it, just as Peter did when Jesus was first met in the garden. Judas had led the soldiers and some of the officials from the chief priests and Pharisees to find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. When they tried to arrest Him Peter took our his sword and cut off the ear off of one of the high priest’s servants. It is our human nature. We want to protect those we love. Many of us want to protect those who are hurting, even if we don’t know them or love them personally.
Tony and I have been watching the TV show Doctor Who lately. The Doctor is a time Lord that can travel through time and space. He usually saves a lot of people. However, the Doctor talks about how some things are fixed in time. They are things that must remain the same. Even though he knows this, he often finds himself in situations where he wants to help anyway. Yesterday we saw an episode where the Doctor happened to end up somewhere on the exact day these people were supposed to die. He wanted to help them but he knew it had to happen in order for the other things in the future to happen. What happened to these people sparked so many other amazing things in the future. Things that may not have happened if he had saved them from this fate, yet he had to try anyway. This Doctor has lived for hundreds of years and knows the consequences of trying to change things that are meant to happen. If it was too difficult for him not to meddle and try to save these people, how hard do you think it would be for the rest of us normal people?
We all want to save our loved ones from their troubles. However, what if those troubles were the very thing they needed to go through to become the person they were created to be? For instance, we want to save our child from getting their heart broken in a relationship however, if they don’t break up with that person they will never meet the person they are supposed to be with forever. We all grieve when one relationship ends and then our grief turns to joy when we enter another relationship. The verse above talks about how a woman is goes through a lot of pain to bring a baby into this world, and yet she forgets about the pain when she sees her beautiful baby. I don’t know if she forgets about the pain, but definitely thinks the pain was worth it. Right now a lot of us are going through a time or trial. I know several people that have been sick for months, I know several people who are struggling with parenting their children, I know several teens who are struggling. Many people I know right now are in a time of grieving. This verse can give us hope that a time for joy is just around the corner.
The disciples didn’t know what Jesus meant when He was talking to them. They didn’t understand why he had to die. Sometimes, we don’t understand why we have to go through our circumstances either. I am sure the disciples felt like Jesus was needlessly killed. They didn’t understand why he was killed and they didn’t understand that he would rise again a few days later. I wonder if they truly understood that if it would have made it easier in the days just after his death. I would like to think it would have, however, we all know that he rose again and I still get really sad every time I think about all he went through. He had a really awful and painful death. Not only the beatings and the hanging on the cross, but the breaking of His heart knowing that people were turning away from Him, that his disciples were abandoning Him and Peter would even deny knowing Him. As much as the disciples would have liked to save Jesus from His death it needed to happen.
My friend was doing a talk about a book she had read by Fulton Sheen titled The 7 Words of Jesus and Mary. In this book Arch Bishop Sheen says “What do the scars of Christ teach us? They teach us that life is a struggle. That our condition of final resurrection is exactly the same as His. Unless there is a cross in our lives there will never be an empty tomb. Unless there is a good Friday there will never be an Easter Sunday. Unless there is a crown of thorns there will never be a halo of light. Unless we suffer with him we shall not rise with him. The scars are not only reminders that life is warfare but they are also pledges of victory in that war. Our blessed Lord said, “I have overcome the world,” by this he means he has overcome evil and principal. The victory is assured only the good news has not yet leaked out. Evil will never be able to be stronger than it was on that particular day. For the worst thing that evil can do is not to ruin cities and to wage wars against the good in the living. The worst thing that evil can do is to kill God. Having been defeated in that, in evil’s strongest moment, when evil wore it's greatest armor it can never be victorious again.”
I thought this explained so well why it is necessary for us and our loved ones to go through hard times. I also loved how it explained that evil was defeated on that day. I think this is something that we often forget. Sometimes it feels like whatever we are going through is more than we can handle. We feel as though we are drowning in our circumstances, like they will overcome. We feel as though we just can’t go on anymore. When we are feeling like this we must remember this line. Evil was defeated in it’s strongest moment. Jesus won the battle between good and evil. The devil through everything he had at Jesus and Jesus rose again. Therefore, evil can never be victorious again. I hope we can all remember this are we go through our trials. God never promised us there wouldn’t be trials. He did promise to be with us in those trials and He promised we would save us. I remember someone told me once that there are three ways that God saves us from the fires of our lives. Sometimes He saves us from the fire all together. Sometimes He saves us through the fire. And sometime He saves us on the other side of the fire, meaning He saves us from this world by brining us to join Him in our eternal life.
We usually all want to be saved from the fire and I totally get that, I am right there with you. However, as Jesus is saying in the verse above, our grief will turn to joy. We don’t know what our trials are for but I assure you they are necessary. God isn’t needlessly punishing you for something just as Jesus didn’t needless die on the cross. Your trials have a purpose and as much as we would like to be saved from them or to save our children from them, hopefully we can take some comfort in knowing we will be better people for having gone through them. I know if can feel as though you can’t make it one more day sometimes. God is with you, even if you can’t feel Him. He is giving you the strength you need, even if it is just the strength to get through the next 10 minutes, I promise He is there and will give you the strength you need for the 10 minutes after that as well. He has got you and your loved ones. He is there with them as well. Don’t try to save them from their problems, they are necessary, just be there for them like our heavenly Father is there for us.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we thank you for being with us through our hard times. We ask you to give us the courage and strength to go on when we don’t feel like we can. We are grateful that sometimes you save us from our trials, and we are also grateful for our trials that you allow us to go through because they help us become who you want us to be. Lord, there are a lot of people struggling right now and we ask that you help the know that you are there with them. We ask that you fill them with your love and your peace. Help them to know that they are not alone. Lord, give us the strength to not try and save our loved ones from their problems but for us to be patient and just be there for them through it all. We love you Lord, you are amazing. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!