Your Hearts Will Rejoice (John 16:22)

 


Wednesday, April 16, 2025


Psalm 88

Jeremiah 11:18-20

John 16:4b-33


Observance: Spy Wednesday


Your Hearts Will Rejoice (John 16:22)


So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.


Bound together in all our meditations on the love of God is the fact that God is Trinity. As much as the forthcoming loss of Jesus from the disciples was cause for much distress, he had to leave them for a little while, so that the Helper would come to them.


Yet let us be honest about the heartbreak here. After all that Jesus has said and done and is saying that he is about to do, the prospect of now being separated is heartbreaking. For Jesu, joy of man’s desire to be taken away, is soul-crushing. Nevertheless, he tells us the truth: it is to our advantage that he goes away, for if he does not, the Helper will not come. But go he did; and the Helper has been sent.


The technical, theological explanation is this: in eternity past, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit covenanted the plan of our salvation. The Father would send the Son, the Son would accomplish our salvation in his death and resurrection, and the Holy Spirit would apply the benefit of that salvation to his people. This is what Jesus referred to when he spoke about how he must leave so that the Helper would come.


But why? And this is a question that we will be lost in wonder over for eternity. We can at least, however, fumble around the edges of an answer when we consider the context: that it is all in order to abide in the love of God.


The perfect and infinite love of God is in his nature as Trinity. It was not enough simply to wash away our sins and let us on our merry way. Rather, the work of Christ on the cross was in order to bring us into the love of God in such a deep, incomprehensible and glorious manner that we can say that we are in God, and God is in us. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit: to take all that the Father has, which is all that the Son has, and to give it to us.


  The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone.
    The Son was neither made nor created;
    he was begotten from the Father alone.
    The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten;
    he proceeds from the Father and the Son. (From the Athanasian Creed)


One God in Trinity, Trinity in unity, glory equal, majesty coeternal: we bless you for your love that you have condescended to draw us into through the blood of the Messiah. Apply to our hearts the conviction of your Holy Spirit, that we may evermore abide in you, and you in us.

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