Powerful prayer
Commentary
Object:
Dr. James Dobson tells a story about his son when he was just a little fellow. Ryan had a knack for getting into trouble. If there was something to break, chances are he smashed it. If there was something to get into, he was like a weasel. If there was something to mess up, he was the devil’s whirlwind.
After a while, the Dobsons got rather exasperated. Shirley Dobson would shake her head and say to her husband: “Somebody better do something about that boy!”
One day they were working around the house. Suddenly both had the same feeling of uneasiness. They looked around for Ryan, but they couldn’t find him. Then they got scared: what had he gotten himself into now?
Finally Dr. Dobson looked out the kitchen window. There was Ryan. Somehow he’d climbed onto the back of a big truck that was parked out on the street. Before he knew it, he’d managed to get high enough to scare himself. When he tried to find his way down, his shirt got caught. He was swaying back and forth, hanging from the rear of the truck.
Dr. Dobson was in a bit of a panic. He wasn’t quite sure how to help Ryan. He was afraid that if he shouted or ran up to him suddenly, the boy might be startled and fall to the pavement and hurt himself. So, very quietly but very quickly, he sneaked up to Ryan from the side of the truck. He thought it was a little strange that Ryan wasn’t crying or calling out for help. But as he got closer, he heard his son muttering very emphatically to himself: “Somebody better do something about that boy! Somebody better do something about that boy!”
If you can see that picture in your mind, then you’ve got a good feeling for the background of each of our lectionary readings for today. Like a boy who has been playing where he shouldn’t, our world has been messing with fire. Like a person who has pushed her luck just a little too far, the commercial interests and coercive controllers of Philippi were hung up on a situation they couldn’t escape, as the jailer noted in his cries for help. And like the child in each of us, the only thing the disciples of Jesus could think about as he intoned his passionate prayer was this: “Somebody better do something!”
Acts 16:16-34
One of the most amazing stories to come out of World War II is told by a chaplain with the U.S. Air Force. A bombing mission in the South Pacific turned into a grueling night of terror for one B-52 crew. The fuel tanks began leaking when hit by enemy fire, and the plane barely managed an emergency landing on the beach of a small island. In the darkness their location was hidden from the Japanese soldiers who held the island.
But dawn would make them prisoners of war.
“Chaplain,” said the flight leader, “you’ve been telling us for months about the power of prayer. We’re out of fuel! We’re surrounded by the enemy! If you’ve ever prayed, pray now!”
While the rest of the crew patched the fuel tanks, the chaplain knelt in the sands to pray. Even when they knocked off for a couple hours’ rest, the chaplain kept to his post.
About 2 a.m., a sentry heard something scrape against the sand at the water’s edge. A cautious investigation revealed a large metal floating object. It was a barge piled high with barrels -- and each contained gasoline... high-octane gasoline. Airplane fuel. In a matter of minutes, the crew was roused, the tanks filled, and they were in the air again, bound for home!
But where had the fuel come from? Later investigations told the story. A supply ship captain, surrounded by enemy submarines 600 miles and several weeks away, had set his cargo of aircraft fuel afloat in hopes of saving lives. And it landed 50 feet away from the bomber crew exactly when they needed it. What an answer to prayer!
“As luck would have it, providence was on my side!” wrote Samuel Butler. But what does that mean? Is it a good luck charm? Will it get you out of any scrape, even those of your own foolish doing?
Hardly. We know of too many tragedies and cruelties and unrequited injustices even in the Christian community to believe that. A young Christian girl whose sister was sick and whose family was troubled by a long list of difficulties once wrote to me: “I am angry with God right now.... Sometimes I even think our family is cursed. When something goes wrong I think ‘Oh no! Another curse!’ ”
But the prayers of Paul and Silas in the depths of their prison were more than mere fatalism. The message of the Bible is not compatible with the idea that evil forces are either God’s delight or his intent. No one can thank God for his providential leading when a drunk driver crushes the body of a child. No one can praise God for his providential direction when an airplane crashes or a mine collapses. These are not the things that providence is made of.
Paul’s songs and prayers of testimony in prison were more a confession than a theological treatise. We believe God exists. We know that God can control the destinies of peoples and nations. We are confident that God has a direction, a purpose for this world, and we want to be a part of that leading -- even when things go “wrong” (from our own point of view), even when tragedy strikes. That’s the confession of faith! That’s the confidence of trust!
A young schoolteacher named Ray Palmer thought about that one night in 1830. He sat at his desk in the darkness and wrote a little poem to God. It was a prayer of trust, a statement of faith.
One day he met Dr. Lowell Mason, a brilliant musician. Looking for verses to set to hymn tunes, Dr. Mason scanned Ray’s poetry. It was all quite good, but one poem moved him to tears. It was the nighttime prayer.
With a melody of simple majesty, Mason published the hymn that spoke with the convictions of Paul and Silas in prison. It still grabs hearts. It still brings tears. And it still echoes the testimony of those who know what trust in God is all about. Its opening line goes like this: My faith looks up to thee!
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
CNN (Cable News Network) is the brainchild of Ted Turner. Speaking at the National Newspaper Association convention some years ago, Turner described himself rather immodestly as the “News King.” The title probably fits.
But what really got the crowds going as Mr. Turner spoke was when he said that the Ten Commandments are obsolete. He said that they didn’t relate any more to the global problems of our world. “I bet nobody here even pays much attention to them,” he said. He speculated that if Moses were to come down from the mountain today with a copy of the Ten Commandments in his hand, “they wouldn’t go over” at all. “Nobody likes to be commanded! Commandments are out!”
There is a bigger story behind Ted Turner’s denials about God and revelation. In 1990 he was the guest of honor at an awards banquet in Orlando, Florida, where he received a prize that proclaimed him “Humanist of the Year.” After he took the trophy into his hands, he gave a little speech. He told the people there how he had become a self-made man. He said that he was raised in a very “religious” home. His family attended worship each Sunday and prayed at the meal table. He’d even said prayers each night at his bedside. He’d always assumed there was a God. And he always believed that God heard and answered his prayers. Until one day.
Ted’s sister got sick. The disease lingered on in her body. The doctors couldn’t seem to do anything about it. So Ted said he decided to do something about it: he prayed for his sister. He begged God in heaven to make her better. He pleaded with God to spare her life and give her health again.
But it didn’t happen. His sister got worse and worse, and finally she died. That was the day, Ted Turner told his audience, that he knew there’s no God up there! What kind of God would have allowed his sister to suffer like that and then to die? It didn’t make sense to him. He couldn’t understand it. And right then, he said, he decided that he would have to live the rest of his life depending only on himself. He was done with this God of the church, this God of the Bible, this unfeeling phantom.
At that moment, Ted Turner, the great “News King,” broke down. He couldn’t go on. With tears in his eyes, he backed away from the podium. After a moment of deathly silence, the crowd jumped to its feet and erupted in wild applause. “Right on! At last somebody had the guts to say it. There’s no God! And even if there is, we don’t need him anymore.”
This is the great problem of faith, isn’t it? None of us deserves good fortune, at least not from the perspective of cosmic evil. Still, if there is a kind and loving God, why are we so often tossed to the whims of the seemingly random and chaotic clutches of blessing or disaster? Why not feel the fires of hell we truly merit, or otherwise experience some benefits from our fairly decent existences? Why must pain and pleasure run such an odd three-legged race through our lives?
The book of Revelation was penned in exactly that context. The church of Jesus was in its infancy, but already it had garnered great persecution. Emperor Domitian was bent on taking it out, and had already gotten rid of the last of Jesus’ disciples. As John languished in the mines on Patmos’ remote island penal colony, who could have seen the world through other eyes than those of defeat and tragedy?
But then came this revealing! John, in powerful prayer, is giving a glimpse of things as they truly are. He sees the darkness in its temporary mist form, and stretches his heart to the glowing light of God’s good grace above and beyond and far more extensive than this momentary trial.
It is in prayer that we find truth again, even in the face of oppressive circumstances. Prayer is the soul’s periscope, rising out of the trenches to see life from heaven’s perspective.
We still live here. But through prayer, we breathe the air of eternity.
John 17:20-26
Some years ago, Fred Ferre gave a lecture at the Vancouver School of Theology in which he told the story of his father, the distinguished theologian and author Nels Ferre. Fred said that his father had come from a family of ten in Sweden, and that when his father was only 13 years old he was sent away alone to find his future in America.
At the train station that day, all ten members of the family stood in a circle and held hands as young Nels’ father led them in prayer. Then each person in the circle took a turn to pray. That’s the last earthly contact Nels had with his family.
He boarded the train, a wisp of a 13-year-old. He sat at the window, watching his family standing there, crying, waving. His mother was saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear her. He struggled with the window, trying to open it. The conductor blew his whistle, and the train began to move. Nels’ mother ran alongside the train, right down the platform of the station. Finally Nels got the window open, and he caught his mother’s voice as they drifted apart: “Nels! Nels! Remember Jesus! Remember Jesus!”
That, said Fred Ferre, was the key that opened the door for his father every time he found himself trapped in the dungeon of forgetfulness. It certainly is the outcome Jesus had in mind when he prayed with his disciples on that last night before his crucifixion.
Jesus meets for an extended meal and conversation with his disciples (chapters 13-17). This lengthy monologue seems somewhat meandering and repetitive until it is viewed through the Hebrew communication lens of chiasm. Then the “Farewell Discourse,” as it is known, takes on new depth, as it weaves back and forth and climaxes in the middle. This parting exhortation becomes an obviously deeply moving instruction to Jesus’ followers to remain connected to him by way of the powerful “Paraclete” (a Greek term meaning “counselor” or “advocate”), in the face of the troubling that will come upon them because of his imminent physical departure, and the rising persecutions targeted toward them by the world that remains in darkness. In chiastic summary, the Farewell Discourse can be portrayed in this manner:
Gathering experience of unity: 13:1-35
Prediction of disciple’s denial: 13:36-38
Jesus’ departure tempered by Father’s power: 14:1-14
Promise of the “Paraclete”: 14:15-24
Troubling encounter with the world: 14:25-31
“Abide in Me!” teaching: 15:1-17
Troubling encounter with the world: 15:18--16:4a
Promise of the “Paraclete”: 16:4b-15
Jesus’ departure tempered by Father’s power :16:16-28
Prediction of disciple’s denial: 16:29-33
Departing experience of unity: 17:1-26
Every element of this “Farewell Discourse” is doubled with a parallel passage except for Jesus’ central teaching that his disciples should “abide in me.” Furthermore, these parallel passages are arranged in reverse order in the second half to their initial expression in the first half. At the heart of it all comes the unparalleled vine and branches teaching, which functions as the chiastic center and ultimate focus of the discourse as a whole. In effect, John shows us how the transforming power of Jesus as the light of the world is to take effect. Jesus comes into this darkened world as a brilliant ray of re-creative light and life. But if he goes about his business all by himself, the light will have limited penetrating value, over against the expansive and pervasive darkness that has consumed this world. So a multiplication and amplification has to happen. Jesus himself spoke about this at the end of the “Book of Signs.” He said: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me...” (12:26).
In this chiastic “Farewell Discourse,” Jesus makes clear the meaning of everything. His disciples have been transformed from darkness to light (and thus from death to life) through Jesus’ incorporation of them into fellowship with himself and the Father (chapters 13 and 17). This does not free them immediately from struggles, as seen in Judas’ betrayal and the coming denial of them all. But the connection between the Father and the disciples is secure, because it is initiated by the Father, and will last even when Jesus disappears from them very shortly, because the powerful “Paraclete” will arrive to dispense Jesus’ ongoing presence with them all, wherever they go and in whatever circumstances they find themselves. Of course, that will only trigger further conflicts and confrontations with “the world.” So (and here’s the central element of the discourse), “abide in me!” Either you are with the darkness or you are with the light. Either you are dead because of the power of the world, or you are alive in me. And, of course, if you “abide in me,” you will glow with my light, and the multiplication of the seed sown will take place. Eventually, through you, the light that comes into the world through Jesus will bring light to everyone. It is a picture of the mission of God, promised to Abraham, enacted geographically through Israel, but now become a global movement through Jesus’ disciples who “abide” in him through the power of the “Paraclete.”
Application
One day in l748 the hymn writer Charles Wesley was in a dark and somber frame of mind. He was discouraged at the struggles Christians experience and troubled by his own weak faith.
As he walked in a small garden near his home, he watched an unusual sight in the sky above. A little sparrow was darting madly on the winds in a desperate attempt to escape the clutches of a pursuing hawk. The outcome was certain: in a moment the sparrow would perish.
But in that brief instant something happened. With a last frantic effort, the sparrow angled suddenly toward Wesley. He was wearing a large overcoat, quite bulky and open at the neck, and in a flash the tiny bird dived into the comforting folds. The hawk gave an angry shriek, circled for a moment in hopes of a second chance, and then flew off to find other prey. Wesley could feel the feverish restlessness of his little friend slowly ebb away.
The imagery of the song that came out of this encounter is clear and precise:
Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly,
while the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high;
hide me, O my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past;
safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last!
Alternative Application
Acts 16:16-34. Life isn’t always a very kind teacher, as Paul and Silas knew in the cavernous dungeons of their prison. Helen Steiner found that out generations later. She was raised in Ohio, along the shores of Lake Erie. She planned to attend Ohio Wesleyan College and get a degree in law. But the flu epidemic of 1918 killed her father, and she was forced to support the family financially. For a decade she worked at an electrical utility company, hoping, dreaming, wondering about the future.
Then, suddenly, the future walked her way. She met and fell in love with Franklin Rice, a dashing young banker. They were married in 1928, full of anticipation and excitement. Who could have known that the stock market would crash the next year and dissolve young Franklin’s career in an instant? He couldn’t stand the torment, and he committed suicide.
A deceased father, a lost career, a vanished fortune, and a dead husband. What should a young widow learn from all of this? There was no time for learning, at least not then. Helen had to eke out a living. The only job she could find was a poor-paying contract for editing greeting cards. She wrote a few verses like the ones in the cards. A couple of them were published by the Gibson Card Company, but not enough to make her either rich or famous.
But then someone read one of Helen’s poems on the Lawrence Welk show one evening, and within a few years Helen Steiner Rice became one of North America’s best known “folk poets.” It was then that she shared with others the one poem that expressed her greatest lesson from life. It seems to parallel the experiences of Paul and Silas in prison, perhaps because it speaks about the one thing we all need to learn, regardless of which school we attend:
So together we stand at life’s crossroads
And view what we think is the end.
But God has a much bigger vision
And he tells us it’s only a bend.
For the road goes on and is smoother,
And the pause in the song is a rest.
And the part that’s unsung and unfinished
Is the sweetest and richest and best.
So rest and relax and grow stronger.
Let go and let God share your load,
Your work is not finished or ended;
You’ve just come to a bend in the road.
After a while, the Dobsons got rather exasperated. Shirley Dobson would shake her head and say to her husband: “Somebody better do something about that boy!”
One day they were working around the house. Suddenly both had the same feeling of uneasiness. They looked around for Ryan, but they couldn’t find him. Then they got scared: what had he gotten himself into now?
Finally Dr. Dobson looked out the kitchen window. There was Ryan. Somehow he’d climbed onto the back of a big truck that was parked out on the street. Before he knew it, he’d managed to get high enough to scare himself. When he tried to find his way down, his shirt got caught. He was swaying back and forth, hanging from the rear of the truck.
Dr. Dobson was in a bit of a panic. He wasn’t quite sure how to help Ryan. He was afraid that if he shouted or ran up to him suddenly, the boy might be startled and fall to the pavement and hurt himself. So, very quietly but very quickly, he sneaked up to Ryan from the side of the truck. He thought it was a little strange that Ryan wasn’t crying or calling out for help. But as he got closer, he heard his son muttering very emphatically to himself: “Somebody better do something about that boy! Somebody better do something about that boy!”
If you can see that picture in your mind, then you’ve got a good feeling for the background of each of our lectionary readings for today. Like a boy who has been playing where he shouldn’t, our world has been messing with fire. Like a person who has pushed her luck just a little too far, the commercial interests and coercive controllers of Philippi were hung up on a situation they couldn’t escape, as the jailer noted in his cries for help. And like the child in each of us, the only thing the disciples of Jesus could think about as he intoned his passionate prayer was this: “Somebody better do something!”
Acts 16:16-34
One of the most amazing stories to come out of World War II is told by a chaplain with the U.S. Air Force. A bombing mission in the South Pacific turned into a grueling night of terror for one B-52 crew. The fuel tanks began leaking when hit by enemy fire, and the plane barely managed an emergency landing on the beach of a small island. In the darkness their location was hidden from the Japanese soldiers who held the island.
But dawn would make them prisoners of war.
“Chaplain,” said the flight leader, “you’ve been telling us for months about the power of prayer. We’re out of fuel! We’re surrounded by the enemy! If you’ve ever prayed, pray now!”
While the rest of the crew patched the fuel tanks, the chaplain knelt in the sands to pray. Even when they knocked off for a couple hours’ rest, the chaplain kept to his post.
About 2 a.m., a sentry heard something scrape against the sand at the water’s edge. A cautious investigation revealed a large metal floating object. It was a barge piled high with barrels -- and each contained gasoline... high-octane gasoline. Airplane fuel. In a matter of minutes, the crew was roused, the tanks filled, and they were in the air again, bound for home!
But where had the fuel come from? Later investigations told the story. A supply ship captain, surrounded by enemy submarines 600 miles and several weeks away, had set his cargo of aircraft fuel afloat in hopes of saving lives. And it landed 50 feet away from the bomber crew exactly when they needed it. What an answer to prayer!
“As luck would have it, providence was on my side!” wrote Samuel Butler. But what does that mean? Is it a good luck charm? Will it get you out of any scrape, even those of your own foolish doing?
Hardly. We know of too many tragedies and cruelties and unrequited injustices even in the Christian community to believe that. A young Christian girl whose sister was sick and whose family was troubled by a long list of difficulties once wrote to me: “I am angry with God right now.... Sometimes I even think our family is cursed. When something goes wrong I think ‘Oh no! Another curse!’ ”
But the prayers of Paul and Silas in the depths of their prison were more than mere fatalism. The message of the Bible is not compatible with the idea that evil forces are either God’s delight or his intent. No one can thank God for his providential leading when a drunk driver crushes the body of a child. No one can praise God for his providential direction when an airplane crashes or a mine collapses. These are not the things that providence is made of.
Paul’s songs and prayers of testimony in prison were more a confession than a theological treatise. We believe God exists. We know that God can control the destinies of peoples and nations. We are confident that God has a direction, a purpose for this world, and we want to be a part of that leading -- even when things go “wrong” (from our own point of view), even when tragedy strikes. That’s the confession of faith! That’s the confidence of trust!
A young schoolteacher named Ray Palmer thought about that one night in 1830. He sat at his desk in the darkness and wrote a little poem to God. It was a prayer of trust, a statement of faith.
One day he met Dr. Lowell Mason, a brilliant musician. Looking for verses to set to hymn tunes, Dr. Mason scanned Ray’s poetry. It was all quite good, but one poem moved him to tears. It was the nighttime prayer.
With a melody of simple majesty, Mason published the hymn that spoke with the convictions of Paul and Silas in prison. It still grabs hearts. It still brings tears. And it still echoes the testimony of those who know what trust in God is all about. Its opening line goes like this: My faith looks up to thee!
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
CNN (Cable News Network) is the brainchild of Ted Turner. Speaking at the National Newspaper Association convention some years ago, Turner described himself rather immodestly as the “News King.” The title probably fits.
But what really got the crowds going as Mr. Turner spoke was when he said that the Ten Commandments are obsolete. He said that they didn’t relate any more to the global problems of our world. “I bet nobody here even pays much attention to them,” he said. He speculated that if Moses were to come down from the mountain today with a copy of the Ten Commandments in his hand, “they wouldn’t go over” at all. “Nobody likes to be commanded! Commandments are out!”
There is a bigger story behind Ted Turner’s denials about God and revelation. In 1990 he was the guest of honor at an awards banquet in Orlando, Florida, where he received a prize that proclaimed him “Humanist of the Year.” After he took the trophy into his hands, he gave a little speech. He told the people there how he had become a self-made man. He said that he was raised in a very “religious” home. His family attended worship each Sunday and prayed at the meal table. He’d even said prayers each night at his bedside. He’d always assumed there was a God. And he always believed that God heard and answered his prayers. Until one day.
Ted’s sister got sick. The disease lingered on in her body. The doctors couldn’t seem to do anything about it. So Ted said he decided to do something about it: he prayed for his sister. He begged God in heaven to make her better. He pleaded with God to spare her life and give her health again.
But it didn’t happen. His sister got worse and worse, and finally she died. That was the day, Ted Turner told his audience, that he knew there’s no God up there! What kind of God would have allowed his sister to suffer like that and then to die? It didn’t make sense to him. He couldn’t understand it. And right then, he said, he decided that he would have to live the rest of his life depending only on himself. He was done with this God of the church, this God of the Bible, this unfeeling phantom.
At that moment, Ted Turner, the great “News King,” broke down. He couldn’t go on. With tears in his eyes, he backed away from the podium. After a moment of deathly silence, the crowd jumped to its feet and erupted in wild applause. “Right on! At last somebody had the guts to say it. There’s no God! And even if there is, we don’t need him anymore.”
This is the great problem of faith, isn’t it? None of us deserves good fortune, at least not from the perspective of cosmic evil. Still, if there is a kind and loving God, why are we so often tossed to the whims of the seemingly random and chaotic clutches of blessing or disaster? Why not feel the fires of hell we truly merit, or otherwise experience some benefits from our fairly decent existences? Why must pain and pleasure run such an odd three-legged race through our lives?
The book of Revelation was penned in exactly that context. The church of Jesus was in its infancy, but already it had garnered great persecution. Emperor Domitian was bent on taking it out, and had already gotten rid of the last of Jesus’ disciples. As John languished in the mines on Patmos’ remote island penal colony, who could have seen the world through other eyes than those of defeat and tragedy?
But then came this revealing! John, in powerful prayer, is giving a glimpse of things as they truly are. He sees the darkness in its temporary mist form, and stretches his heart to the glowing light of God’s good grace above and beyond and far more extensive than this momentary trial.
It is in prayer that we find truth again, even in the face of oppressive circumstances. Prayer is the soul’s periscope, rising out of the trenches to see life from heaven’s perspective.
We still live here. But through prayer, we breathe the air of eternity.
John 17:20-26
Some years ago, Fred Ferre gave a lecture at the Vancouver School of Theology in which he told the story of his father, the distinguished theologian and author Nels Ferre. Fred said that his father had come from a family of ten in Sweden, and that when his father was only 13 years old he was sent away alone to find his future in America.
At the train station that day, all ten members of the family stood in a circle and held hands as young Nels’ father led them in prayer. Then each person in the circle took a turn to pray. That’s the last earthly contact Nels had with his family.
He boarded the train, a wisp of a 13-year-old. He sat at the window, watching his family standing there, crying, waving. His mother was saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear her. He struggled with the window, trying to open it. The conductor blew his whistle, and the train began to move. Nels’ mother ran alongside the train, right down the platform of the station. Finally Nels got the window open, and he caught his mother’s voice as they drifted apart: “Nels! Nels! Remember Jesus! Remember Jesus!”
That, said Fred Ferre, was the key that opened the door for his father every time he found himself trapped in the dungeon of forgetfulness. It certainly is the outcome Jesus had in mind when he prayed with his disciples on that last night before his crucifixion.
Jesus meets for an extended meal and conversation with his disciples (chapters 13-17). This lengthy monologue seems somewhat meandering and repetitive until it is viewed through the Hebrew communication lens of chiasm. Then the “Farewell Discourse,” as it is known, takes on new depth, as it weaves back and forth and climaxes in the middle. This parting exhortation becomes an obviously deeply moving instruction to Jesus’ followers to remain connected to him by way of the powerful “Paraclete” (a Greek term meaning “counselor” or “advocate”), in the face of the troubling that will come upon them because of his imminent physical departure, and the rising persecutions targeted toward them by the world that remains in darkness. In chiastic summary, the Farewell Discourse can be portrayed in this manner:
Gathering experience of unity: 13:1-35
Prediction of disciple’s denial: 13:36-38
Jesus’ departure tempered by Father’s power: 14:1-14
Promise of the “Paraclete”: 14:15-24
Troubling encounter with the world: 14:25-31
“Abide in Me!” teaching: 15:1-17
Troubling encounter with the world: 15:18--16:4a
Promise of the “Paraclete”: 16:4b-15
Jesus’ departure tempered by Father’s power :16:16-28
Prediction of disciple’s denial: 16:29-33
Departing experience of unity: 17:1-26
Every element of this “Farewell Discourse” is doubled with a parallel passage except for Jesus’ central teaching that his disciples should “abide in me.” Furthermore, these parallel passages are arranged in reverse order in the second half to their initial expression in the first half. At the heart of it all comes the unparalleled vine and branches teaching, which functions as the chiastic center and ultimate focus of the discourse as a whole. In effect, John shows us how the transforming power of Jesus as the light of the world is to take effect. Jesus comes into this darkened world as a brilliant ray of re-creative light and life. But if he goes about his business all by himself, the light will have limited penetrating value, over against the expansive and pervasive darkness that has consumed this world. So a multiplication and amplification has to happen. Jesus himself spoke about this at the end of the “Book of Signs.” He said: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me...” (12:26).
In this chiastic “Farewell Discourse,” Jesus makes clear the meaning of everything. His disciples have been transformed from darkness to light (and thus from death to life) through Jesus’ incorporation of them into fellowship with himself and the Father (chapters 13 and 17). This does not free them immediately from struggles, as seen in Judas’ betrayal and the coming denial of them all. But the connection between the Father and the disciples is secure, because it is initiated by the Father, and will last even when Jesus disappears from them very shortly, because the powerful “Paraclete” will arrive to dispense Jesus’ ongoing presence with them all, wherever they go and in whatever circumstances they find themselves. Of course, that will only trigger further conflicts and confrontations with “the world.” So (and here’s the central element of the discourse), “abide in me!” Either you are with the darkness or you are with the light. Either you are dead because of the power of the world, or you are alive in me. And, of course, if you “abide in me,” you will glow with my light, and the multiplication of the seed sown will take place. Eventually, through you, the light that comes into the world through Jesus will bring light to everyone. It is a picture of the mission of God, promised to Abraham, enacted geographically through Israel, but now become a global movement through Jesus’ disciples who “abide” in him through the power of the “Paraclete.”
Application
One day in l748 the hymn writer Charles Wesley was in a dark and somber frame of mind. He was discouraged at the struggles Christians experience and troubled by his own weak faith.
As he walked in a small garden near his home, he watched an unusual sight in the sky above. A little sparrow was darting madly on the winds in a desperate attempt to escape the clutches of a pursuing hawk. The outcome was certain: in a moment the sparrow would perish.
But in that brief instant something happened. With a last frantic effort, the sparrow angled suddenly toward Wesley. He was wearing a large overcoat, quite bulky and open at the neck, and in a flash the tiny bird dived into the comforting folds. The hawk gave an angry shriek, circled for a moment in hopes of a second chance, and then flew off to find other prey. Wesley could feel the feverish restlessness of his little friend slowly ebb away.
The imagery of the song that came out of this encounter is clear and precise:
Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly,
while the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high;
hide me, O my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past;
safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last!
Alternative Application
Acts 16:16-34. Life isn’t always a very kind teacher, as Paul and Silas knew in the cavernous dungeons of their prison. Helen Steiner found that out generations later. She was raised in Ohio, along the shores of Lake Erie. She planned to attend Ohio Wesleyan College and get a degree in law. But the flu epidemic of 1918 killed her father, and she was forced to support the family financially. For a decade she worked at an electrical utility company, hoping, dreaming, wondering about the future.
Then, suddenly, the future walked her way. She met and fell in love with Franklin Rice, a dashing young banker. They were married in 1928, full of anticipation and excitement. Who could have known that the stock market would crash the next year and dissolve young Franklin’s career in an instant? He couldn’t stand the torment, and he committed suicide.
A deceased father, a lost career, a vanished fortune, and a dead husband. What should a young widow learn from all of this? There was no time for learning, at least not then. Helen had to eke out a living. The only job she could find was a poor-paying contract for editing greeting cards. She wrote a few verses like the ones in the cards. A couple of them were published by the Gibson Card Company, but not enough to make her either rich or famous.
But then someone read one of Helen’s poems on the Lawrence Welk show one evening, and within a few years Helen Steiner Rice became one of North America’s best known “folk poets.” It was then that she shared with others the one poem that expressed her greatest lesson from life. It seems to parallel the experiences of Paul and Silas in prison, perhaps because it speaks about the one thing we all need to learn, regardless of which school we attend:
So together we stand at life’s crossroads
And view what we think is the end.
But God has a much bigger vision
And he tells us it’s only a bend.
For the road goes on and is smoother,
And the pause in the song is a rest.
And the part that’s unsung and unfinished
Is the sweetest and richest and best.
So rest and relax and grow stronger.
Let go and let God share your load,
Your work is not finished or ended;
You’ve just come to a bend in the road.
