“Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.” What a firm promise from the LORD! There is no double talk our veiled language, instead a clear promise of how Jesus will take our burdens and carry us through.
Last week I was talking to someone about how unfortunate it is that we don’t always say what we mean in our society. “We should get together sometime” Sometimes this is an accurate statement, other times a promise may be made, I will call you sometime and we will get together, and you are kept waiting and waiting, and you realize you have never been called. Sometimes a statement is not always followed by an action, what people say may not always be what they really intend.
Sometimes you can hear yourself making promises that you are not sure you will keep. It seems we use our words to hide the reality that we never know when our sinful human nature will dictate life priorities in such a way that we will let others down. So we settle for a temporary fantasy that we will never let others down. Perhaps it is just an innocent misdirection we use to cover harsh realities about the limitations of life
Of course, our society is adept at all kinds of words that use misdirection. Pre owned vehicles, a well loved piece of furniture, companies use words like downsizing and reducing costs as a way to say firing. I will not even get into all of the misdirection words that are used for political purposes. The end result is that the world can feel cold, uncaring and exploitive.
Jesus does not use misdirection in his speech. Jesus speaks plainly to his disciples in John chapter 16 to give them peace in Him. Before the departure to the cross, Jesus speaks to the disciples about the difficulties that await them. Jesus uses the truth because he cares about them and he has no sinful motivations to lift himself up by what he says.
He tells them he is leaving. Jesus knew with certainty what suffering awaited him. And he knew this from the start. It was for this purpose that Jesus came into the world. Jesus has compassion on the disciples that even in the midst of this great suffering he will undergo, he thinks of their interests, he tells them that he will depart from them for a while- so that they are ready for the trial and do not face it as a crisis of faith.
He tells them they will fail him. Of course they protested that they would never fail Jesus, never disown him or abandon him. “They would never say, call me anytime- we will get through this together”- without really meaning it.
But Jesus knew what was in man. He was honest with them about the extent to which the human heart fails. That no matter the good intentions we sin against God, we love ourselves first. We gladly let Jesus suffer instead of suffering ourselves.
And he tells the church that we will have trouble in this world. Jesus is clear to them if the world hated me, they will hate you. The world will not encourage you to thrive in your faith, instead the world encourages you to turn inward to your own selfish desires. While Jesus gives us peace, the world will find ways to bring division and strife and even danger.
We know the devil, the world and our sinful flesh will try and keep us from being the disciples Jesus promises we can be. And Jesus speaks plainly about what he has done for us in the midst of these distractions and temptations.
“I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Jesus is telling us that despite all of the challenges and difficulties we can have peace because he has surpassed all of the troubles in the world and in our lives, by who he is as the Word made flesh who resisted the temptations that we failed to resist and has overcome the world.
What does that mean to overcome the world. Verse 28 gives a summary of all of the movements in Christ’s ministry to us. “I came from the Father.’ Jesus is sharing the truth we confess in the Nicene Creed that he is begotten of the Father before all worlds, that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
“And have come into the world.” The Incarnation, God coming to us by taking on our flesh. “Now I am leaving the world” The crucifixion. “And going to the Father” the Resurrection and the Ascension.
Jesus has overcome the world not just because he said so, but because He is God, and he has joined us in the flesh of this world in His Incarnation, and he has redeemed the fallen nature of this world on the cross.
That is why Jesus can say that he has overcome the world. Because of what he has done, no foe is too strong for us that what Jesus did for us can be undone. No tribulation can take on a greater importance in our lives than Jesus does, no type of cancer, no type of virus can change the fact that Jesus has overcome the world.
Jesus brings this victory over the world right to us. In Word and Sacrament we receive the peace that Christ’s victory has won. Jesus brings peace as the sin that separated us from God is forgiven. The waters of baptism bring us this peace, and our presence at the Lord’s table reassures us of this peace. Even the sins of falling away from Jesus as the disciples did, even our falling away out of selfish pursuit, this sin is today forgiven you.
And as we live in this peace Jesus gives us, we respond in faith: “Until now you have asked nothing in my name, ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” We can ask in the Father’s name for the strength and the support to handle any loss in life. And the promise of Jesus is that so great is the support and love of Christ mediated to us in the church that we can still have joy in the midst of the sorrows of this world.
Listen again to the words of the Introit, “Cast your burden on the LORD and he will sustain you. But I call to God and the Lord will sustain me.” This is direct, plain and simple talk to us from the Holy Spirit. What a gift it is for we who are weary from the changes and chances of this life, that the LORD will sustain you when you seek his support and aid.
There is no mystery of how we are to get through difficult times, the Lord spells it out for us. We get through by the power of God’s Word, by the presence of Jesus made known to us in the Sacrament of the Altar, by the compassion of Jesus made known to us in the care of fellow Christians the body of Christ. The Lord sustains us by making it so that we are never alone.
Our God levels with us and tells us the truth about the nature of life in this fallen world. There is no sugar coating, we will face tribulation in this world. But an even more important truth is that Jesus tells us:
“Take heart I have overcome the world.” Our God has made provision for the hardest things we can face in this life, and even provision for the threat of death itself. His life is our hope, his life is our steady source of joy. Amen.