The God Who Comforts

A Forty-Day Meditation on John 14:1–16:15

Webster

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781498234412
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The God Who Comforts is a spiritual reading of Jesus' upper room discipleship sermon. What started out as a Passover meal became an inspiring and spiraling manifesto of comfort and challenge. Jesus propels the conversation forward into our hearts and minds. When Jesus got up off his knees and resumed his place of authority, he framed this strategic discourse in the Truth that cannot be packaged as a consumer product or programmed to fit the secular mind. Four distinct comings shape Jesus' sermon in the upper room: his final coming, the Parousia; his gift of the Spirit, the Paraclete; his death and resurrection, the Passion; and his abiding fellowship, the Presence. These four comings are the ways in which Jesus draws near to his disciples, reassuring them that they are not alone. Throughout this conversation we are in the company of the eleven, hearing Jesus speak to us as he spoke to them. This discourse continues to reset twenty-one centuries of discipleship according to the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Day 1

Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

John 14:1

In his memorable voice, Louis Armstrong intones the old spiritual,

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen; nobody knows my sorrows.

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Glory Hallelujah.

Sometimes I’m up; sometimes I’m down. Oh, yes, Lord.

Sometimes I’m almost to the ground. Oh, yes, Lord.

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen;

Nobody knows, but Jesus.

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Glory Hallelujah.

Trouble is an inescapable fact of life. As one of Job’s unfriendly friends famously said, “Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). Trouble is universal and pervasive. It touches all of our lives deeply and personally. Each of us seems to have our own original experience of trouble that no one else can share. We agree: “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” We cherish the lament that is uniquely our own. Trouble is trouble, but nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen; nobody knows my sorrows.

“Let not your hearts be troubled,” is often said at funerals to comfort the bereaved with the hope of heaven, for “in my Father’s house are many rooms.” This comforting one-liner is lifted from Jesus’ upper room discourse as a healing salve for the grief at hand. But Jesus’ imperative was directed to his disciples who were troubled by news of his departure and disturbed by his forewarning of betrayal and denial. They found Jesus’ line of reasoning deeply troubling. His cruciform conversation ran counter to the kind of troubles they might have anticipated in their hopeful vision of Jesus’ social impact. Yet the particular meaning of trouble that Jesus had in mind was specifically tied to following him and the Good Friday reality. Generic trouble was not the object of Jesus’ imperative. It was the costly sacrifice of the cross that the disciples found so troubling.

I have African American friends who insist that I will never know the trouble they’ve seen. They may be right. But at some point all our troubles, those that are shared and those that are not, are eclipsed by the cross of Christ. Prioritizing our troubles under the cross and disciplining our hearts to seek the peace of Christ is vastly different from the untroubled heart that has never embraced the claims of Christ. Complacency needs no comfort. We can throw up a smoke screen of troubles that makes it impossible to understand what Jesus meant when he said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

Twice we are told that Jesus was troubled. Just days before, after Jesus had predicted his death and outlined the costly path of discipleship, he said, “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” (John 12:27–28). And then again in the upper room after he predicted his betrayal, John reports that Jesus “was troubled in spirit and testified, ‘Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me’” (John 13:21).

He who was deeply troubled, and only hours away from the soul-wrenching experience of Gethsemane, commands his followers, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” The explanation for this paradox can be found in Jesus’ capacity to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He experienced trouble for us so we might live trouble-free in the most profound sense ever imagined (“the punishment that brought us peace was on him and by his wounds we are healed” [Isa 53:5]).

All who truly follow the Lord Jesus acquire over time a capacity to absorb this trouble for the sake of others. Even though their souls may be deeply troubled, they echo their Lord’s imperative, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” to their children and friends. Pastors, parents, and friends offer this spiritual direction to those under their responsibility in a manner reminiscent of Jesus in the upper room. Many years after the fact, I realize now my mother’s extraordinary capacity to absorb trouble for our family. She was the principle caregiver, first for me and my cancer surgery, and then for my dad who died from cancer. This trouble was followed by the death of my grandparents and aunt, all of whom depended upon my mother for sole support and comfort. Through it all, she courageously lived out her Resurrection Hope and heeded the Lord’s admonition, “Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.” The late Andrae Crouch expressed it well, when he sang, “Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus, I’ve learned to trust in God. Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to depend upon His Word.”

Upper Room Reflection

How would you define the trouble Jesus had in mind?

Who is the best person to offer this admonition to you?

Have you echoed this command to others?

How can you absorb cruciform trouble and commend Jesus’ spiritual imperative to others?

Day 2

So, Who Can You Trust?

“Believe in God; believe also in me.”

John 14:1

We have all heard stories of unbelievers who have rejected Christ because of unreliable Christians. I’m sure it’s true that if we disciples were more faithful, our evangelism would be more fruitful. Sadly, the corporate testimony of the church fits the upper room profile of weak and fallible disciples. They were bickering and debating about who was the greatest (Luke 22:24), bewildered by Jesus’ warning of a betrayer, and confused by his spiritual direction. They were overconfident and unreliable, yet they prided themselves on their courage and loyalty. The upper room testifies that faith’s foundation cannot rest on others no matter who they are.

Our only hope is clearly stated: “Believe in God; believe also in me.” Only then is the trust factor commensurate with the trouble we face and the trouble in us. This is because we need the redemption that only God can provide. We may want a good therapist or life coach to advise us on how to manage life and focus our emotions. We may think, “If I only had a better job or a little more income, I’d have it made.” But the trouble is deeper and more fundamental than we realize. No amount of adjustments or affirmation removes the need for atonement. The antidote to deep trouble is real trust in God.

The simple phrase, “Trust in God; trust also me,” particularizes and personalizes the foundation of faith in Jesus himself. Familiarity with the biblical text can obscure the boldness of the truth proclaimed here: God and Jesus are one. If these words are heard with Muslim ears or Jewish ears they deliver a shock. The truth of the gospel is scandalous. It is precisely because we are such failed and flawed creatures that the normal person knows he cannot be the object of faith and trust. Yet this is what Jesus boldly claimed. We can’t forgive sins and give people hope. We can’t calm storms and heal diseases. But Jesus can.

The famous American preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick was by all accounts a remarkable man, gracious, winsome, approachable, and personable. He modernized the biblical Jesus, making him accessible to thousands, through sermons that touched the heart and the mind. He believed in the historical Jesus, which is to say, he believed in the humanity of Jesus. But Fosdick did not believe that Jesus was God incarnate. Jesus lived his life open to God in the most exemplary way and gave his disciples a truly human experience of God. But Jesus was not in his very essence God or born of the virgin Mary. This is why Fosdick refused to confess the Apostles’ Creed and denied the bodily resurrection of Christ. For Fosdick, talk of the real incarnation or the substitutionary atonement was a poetic or mythical way to describe Jesus’ human importance and spiritual impact.

U2’s front man Bono was asked, “What or who is Jesus?” He replied, “He went around claiming to be the Messiah, the Son of God, that is why he was crucified. He was crucified because he said he was the Son of God. So either he was the Son of God or he was . . .” and the interviewer interrupted, fi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface: Comfort and Challenge
• Day 1: Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen
• Day 2: So, Who Can You Trust?
• Day 3: The Ultimate Homecoming
• Day 4: You Know More than You Know
• Day 5: Nobody Knows but Jesus
• Day 6: Is Jesus Enough?
• Day 7: The Invisible God Made Visible
• Day 8: Greater Works
• Day 9: To Believe is to Obey and to Obey is to Believe
• Day 10: The Spirit of Truth
• Day 11: Our True Friend
• Day 12: You Are Not Alone
• Day 13: The Holy Family
• Day 14: Real Love
• Day 15: New Commandment Evangelism
• Day 16: Everything
• Day 17: Shalom
• Day 18: The Father is Greater than I
• Day 19: Jesus’ Disciple-Making Strategy
• Day 20: The Ruler of This World
• Day 21: Move Out!
• Day 22: The True Vine
• Day 23: Organic Spirituality
• Day 24: Cutting Off and Cleaning Up
• Day 25: Living into Jesus
• Day 26: Fruitful
• Day 27: Whatever You Wish!
• Day 28: Relax
• Day 29: My Joy
• Day 30: No Greater Love
• Day 31: Chosen
• Day 32: Hate Defined
• Day 33: Persecution
• Day 34: Guilt-Driven Hate
• Day 35: Senseless Hate
• Day 36: The Spirit of Truth
• Day 37: The Big Picture
• Day 38: The Spirit’s Big Work
• Day 39: In All Truth
• Day 40: A Little While
• Bibliography