Peace

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. - John 14:27

In these verses Jesus is really trying to explain to his disciples that He is about to leave them and die, but He's not going to die and they will see Him again.  That is an extremely difficult concept to explain.  We might be more accepting of it having already heard His story today, but at that time, that just had to be inconceivable.  But that wasn't all!  To add to the difficulty, He is trying to explain that He is leaving so that the Spirit can come to them.  How do you explain the Holy Spirit to these men?  How do you explain a concept without reference to them?  I mean, the Holy Spirit is in me and I have trouble explaining it to others today! 

Jesus is handling this topic very gently.  In this chapter of John, I can sense His delicate speaking and reassuring words to them as a parent would speak to their children before leaving on a journey: "Everything is going to be okay.  You are okay.  I'm not going to be physically with you but am available by phone.  If you need anything at all just give me a call."  And a phone call would be equally as foreign to them as this topic of "I'm leaving you but will be with you".  What? 

Jesus had just reassured his disciples a few verses earlier in John 14:18-20.  "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Before long, the world will not see Me anymore, but you will see Me.  Because I live, you also will live.  On that day you will realize that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you."  ("On that day" being a reference for when I receive the Holy Spirit and their day of Pentecost.)  What?  The disciples had to be confounded by this.  Okay, okay.  Let me get this straight.  You are going to die, but you will come to us and we will see you and you will live and you will be in God, we will be in you and you in us?  ...  Rrriiiiiiiiggghhhtttt (eyes roll).

Sometimes our children don't understand everything we say will happen, but they just go along with it trusting us that it will be alright.  I imagine all of the disciples fit this description here.  And most of the time I do also.  I certainly do not understand everything that happens, but I just accept that "Father knows best" and hope I don't get lost.  I bet all of them are asking Him to repeat this several times and trying to take notes on anything they can find. 

You could interpret verse 27 as, "I'm leaving you peace and it's not just a moment's peace as you already know, but it is My peace and it is eternal.  It will be with you for as long as you are as it will be inside of you.  Do not worry and do not be afraid.  You are not alone."  Jesus is not only trying to explain the Holy Spirit, but He is now trying to describe what the experience and feeling will be like.  It will be inside of you and will be foundational.  In even the most dire circumstances, YOU WILL KNOW I AM THERE.

There is no greater love than this.  Jesus was not content to just remain with us physically.   He had to die so that He could live so that we could live so that He could live closer to us by living within us.  I know this feeling.  I have been so close to Julie that I just wanted to be within her soul.  Even this morning we prayed that Jesus would "sew our hearts together" and "to show us even more closeness and bindings that we can't conceive".  As close as we are and as much as we yearn to be closer, we want to be even more together and only Jesus knows how that can be done.  He saw a way to be with us in our very hearts if we would only accept Him, so He made that way a reality.