“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” ~John 16:33
*The new school year has me all thrown off. I had this ready to go on Monday, but just now realized I never hit “publish.”
I have at least half a dozen songs run through my head when I hear this verse because so many songs have been written using this verse. The loudest melody in my mind right now is saying, “I’ll let my words be few,” which actually comes from Ecclesiastes, but seems appropriate any time I sit down to write about a theology-heavy bit of Scripture.
This verse concludes Jesus’ message to His disciples. The next chapter dives into His prayer for His disciples (and future generations of disciples). The “these things” refers to all the teaching He just did – mostly teaching about His relationship to the Father and the Holy Spirit. Why did He teach His followers those things? To give us peace.
Life is hard. Sometimes impossibly hard. We praise God for the calm moments, praying for those who are in a hard time because we know that at some point, another round of hard times will come.
Jesus promises us here that we will have tribulation this side of heaven. We’d be deceiving ourselves to think otherwise.
Jesus overcame the world. He is the only who has ever overcome the world. We say people “overcome” different things: she “overcame” illness, or he “overcame” the obstacles. We call it hard work, leaning on human strength. God allows us some victory within ourselves, but only in Him can we find the peace and actually overcome anything. Only Jesus has overcome the world.
Where’s the peace in that? It’s not our job to succeed. We follow the rules given to us by doctors or financial experts, but success is not our job. It’s also not our job to compare our measure of success to that of another. God places us exactly where He needs us in order to accomplish His purposes. Jesus alone overcomes the world in order to give us peace.