Friends, I am thankful for the broad light in Christ we know in scripture.  The disciples only had Jesus’s words, deeds, and promises, but it was obviously enough.  See the column below. Happy Thanksgiving!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #888

November 21, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Lamp of Faith

By Bob Walters

“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus, John 16:33

These words are the last of Jesus’s teaching to the disciples before His arrest, crucifixion, death, and resurrection.  It is the end of Jesus’s dramatic speech (John 15-16) as He and the disciples depart the Last Supper, walking across dark Jerusalem headed for rest and “hiding” in Gethsemane.  In this final teaching Jesus said nothing about salvation, behavior, forgiveness, safety, punishment, God’s wrath, eternal life, or heaven’s rewards. Jesus spoke of the disciples knowing and loving Him, testifying to His identity and truth, and relying on and loving each other.  A rough road awaited.

In the disciples’ looming, frightening here and now and in the momentous, world-changing events of the hours to come, Jesus said they would have trouble, grief, be hated, be persecuted, turned out of the synagogue, and be heartbroken at His death and later His departure.  Jesus promised to send the “Holy Spirit” for comfort, teaching, and truth.  Jesus declared the condemnation of Satan and His own victory over the world, a “victory” no one would understand for decades to come.  Jesus reasserts that it is the disciples’ faith in and relationship with Him that will be their peace.

Jesus then prays aloud (John 17) for Himself, the disciples, and all who will follow in faith and humility.

“If this is a victory,” the disciples must have been thinking, “we’d sure hate to see a defeat.” They knew only faith, Jesus’s identity as the Son of God, and the ominous forbearing of a night of treachery, violence, injustice, denial, fear, and a day of death.

Most of official Israel – the Pharisees, Sadducees, Sanhedrin, rabbis, scribes, ministers, magistrates – rejected Jesus as the Messiah.  The One for whom they had prayed for a thousand years, now in their midst, was invisible and reviled in their wicked blindness.

Much of the world remains in the same spiritual blindness today, 2,000 years later.  Jesus came out of Israel for all the world’s salvation, but His victory over the world remains a matter of faith.  Assured, yes, but there remains daily witness to the “Lord of the World” – Satan – of injustice, violence, treachery … all the things that the disciples dealt with, understanding neither the impending darkness nor the eternal light.

If we can be thankful for one thing this Thanksgiving week, it is the abiding light of the Holy Spirit and the gift that we can in fact know Jesus, truth, and eternal life in relationship with God.  I believe this “heavenly realm” reveals itself even now, and I ask, Are we thankful enough to trust in awestruck wonder that we have a Bible that lifts the world’s veil and helps us see God’s indelible glory beyond? We should be very thankful.

I came to faith at an odd time, maybe. I was baptized 22 years ago this past week – Sunday, November 18, 2001 – but had first come to church and “got it” about 10 weeks prior to that, on September 2, 2001.  We all remember what happened the following week on September 11.  My church friend “El” asked recently “if 9/11 was a factor” in my early days of faith.  Great question but truth is, it was not.

What cemented my faith, late, at age 47, wasn’t a crisis, the world’s ugliness, my own fear, copious personal challenges at that time, or even a desire for forgiveness or heaven.  I had to know why I could pray thanks for the love of my children, the grace of our being, and the beauty of this world, and know a peace I could not describe.

Jesus’s love, not the world’s terrors, lit my lamp of faith. I am thankful it did.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) realizes no time is a bad time to come to faith.