Holy Trinity Sunday

John 16 gets short shrift in the Revised Common Lectionary. Only on this festival will we read from it in worship, and only four verses. So here is the whole chapter, itself only part of the Final Discourse (chapters 14-17), to help us better interpret the clipping.

12I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

DIAGNOSIS: Bad Cross

Step 1: Initial Diagnosis (External Problem) :  Couldn’t Bear (v. 12) the Thought
Jesus looked at the disciples he was about to leave (in order to be crucified) and thought, “They’re not ready for this.” His grip on them, as their leader, had always been tenuous. Never more than now. But that was because he had never held them with chains, but with a thread. He feared for them, because he knew how people hate to suffer. The pain he was about to suffer, and the pain it would cause those who loved him, was humanly unbearable. They would be tempted to avoid it, and run away from him. Indeed, they would run away. A person can only bear so much. A gaping hole would be left in their lives by his departing. The disciples were hating the idea of a crucified Jesus.

Step 2: Advanced Diagnosis (Internal Problem) : Believing in a Too Little Jesus
Had familiarity with Jesus bred a soft contempt? Judging by how often Jesus repeated himself, they were having a hard time buying what he was saying about it being good for him to “depart,” i.e., be crucified and die. They didn’t ask the right question, which would have been simply “Where are you going?” (v. 5). Instead, they asked each other, “What in the world is he talking about?” (v. 18). The signs they had already seen, beginning with water-into-wine, had them believing—but in what? Not yet did they believe him capable of conquering the world!

Step 3: Final Diagnosis (Eternal Problem) : Goners
Soon enough, they feared, gone would be their leader. Gone their friend. Gone the peace. Gone the courage. Gone the optimism, the joie de vivre. Gone the braggadocio, the sense of entitlement from being Jesus’ inner circle. That bad old cross would take away Jesus, they thought, and leave them bereft of hope, peace, joy.

PROGNOSIS: Good Cross

Step 4: Initial Prognosis (Eternal Solution) : Come Again?
Cryptically, Jesus laid out to them—beforehand, so that when it came to pass they would believe!—how it would be from now on. It would be like the kind of joy a woman has when she sees her baby for the first time! The Advocate would come, who would glorify their friend, their Jesus, by taking what belonged to Jesus and declaring it to them. It would be like the old times, except better.

How should we read the figure of a newborn child (16:21)? Do we take away only that joy overcomes anguish? Or is the newborn child actually the church which is born from Jesus’ dying and rising? Or is the newborn child the Christ himself, “born in us today”? However we take it, parturition itself is unmistakably a metaphor for a “good cross.”

Step 5: Advanced Prognosis (Internal Solution) : Loving the Crucified
Before he went the way of the cross, Jesus taught them that they would believe in him all the more after they passed through that hour. They would, in fact, begin talking about him as The Crucified. Just as he foretold, in the pre-cross talk, they would enter a continual conversation of hearing and asking, living in the Father and in the Spirit and in the Crucified one. They would have peace and joy and courage like never before. If it were not so, would he have told them?

Step 6: Final Prognosis (External Solution) : Your Joy Will Be Complete
Why did he talk that way? Why did he die on the cross in the first place? Why should they rejoice at his imminent departure? Because, although in the world they would face persecution (some will think they please God by killing you!), they should be courageous. He has conquered the world. By his cross. Good cross.