Becoming Truth Bearers
For Meditation
This week’s text draws us into the tension the disciples feel between anticipated grief and hopeful expectancy. On the one hand, they begin to realize that Jesus will leave them, yet Jesus wants them to focus on the Holy Spirit’s coming. According to Jesus, the Spirit’s arrival requires Jesus’ departure. It is understandable that the disciples had mixed feelings. So often in our lives we are discouraged or disappointed because we do not fully see what God is doing and we see what’s ahead through the lens of loss rather than gain. We often don’t fully understand how God’s plan is best for us or our community. Yet the truth is that when God’s plan unfolds, it gives us a chance to witness a new moment of divine faithfulness and even favor. If we are paying attention, God will reveal the truth about who he is, and even the truth about who we are.
This dynamic captures much of the Spirit’s mission. He revealed the truth about who the Son was in the first century, and continues to reveal that truth today. The implication is that we can now become those who bear the Truth as temples of the Holy Spirit, and those who are truth bearers in a fallen world. As we prepare for Sunday, may we ask God for those divine interruptions, those moments when God’s truth cuts through the chaos of our lives and the white noise of everyday distractions, so that we can hear a fresh from the Word of the Lord for this moment. And may God grant us divine courage to speak that truth with conviction and clarity, even when it convicts us.
John 16:5–16, 33
5 But now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. 7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. 12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” 16 Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”
33 “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.”