“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.”
John 16:33
The cold rain was lashing against my face as I tried, unsuccessfully, to pin down the flapping tent with numbing fingers. Schoolmates taunted me from inside the tent.
It was dark, it was freezing, and our tent was leaking.
We were on our Duke of Edinburgh Bronze expedition—supposedly an entry level hiking challenge in the Peak District. It had started beautifully: warm spring sunshine and dry gear. But the weather had turned on us on the second day, and now our tent, camped on a slope on which I was at the bottom, was leaking.
By the morning, the rain had turned to a full-blown blizzard. The water that had leaked into our tent left my clothes damp and semi-frozen. I think taking down that tent was maybe the coldest I’ve ever been in my life.
We got home later that day, and I got in the shower. Feeling cold to my bones, I must have stood in there for about thirty minutes—slowly bringing up my body temperature. It was far and away the greatest shower of my life.
Jesus is speaking to His disciples in our reading today, on the night before He dies. As He teaches them, they have this moment of sudden clarity—of who He is and where He is going, and His interaction with the Father and what His relationship of perfect intimacy with the Father might mean for them.
But then, Jesus lets them know what is about to come.
You will be scattered.
Their moment of clarity will be followed by a turning and running in fear.
This is not good news.
Jesus then takes it further, describing that their ongoing experience in the world will look like tribulation. The word tribulation speaks of trouble, with a sense of pressure. You will experience, Jesus is telling them, pressure upon your souls. Opposition. Challenge. Obstacles. The road before you, He tells them, is not easy.
When we feel pressure, something can happen to us. The chill of such challenges can start to soak into us, moving from something external to an internal state of anxiety, exhaustion, strain. Pressure on the outside cannot truly touch us when we have peace on the inside. And yet, when those pressures seep inwards, we find ourselves feeling those anxieties and weights, like a chilling of our bones.
Jesus speaks to them into this very place.
Take heart.
The Greek word used here is tharseō. It means, quite literally, ‘to radiate warm confidence’. It has the sense of being strengthened from within, by being warmed with a different reality to that which surrounds you. It is a different atmosphere of soul, an inner glow, a strength that burns from within that pushes back upon the pressures around you. The one who takes heart carries something in their soul that no pressure from the outside can steal.
The promises of Jesus do not guarantee us a suffering free life. Quite the opposite. In this world you will have tribulation. Trouble—pressure—is guaranteed. And yet, He also gives a beautiful promise. Because He reminds us of a distinct reality that come into our souls like a hot shower, soothing anxieties of chilled souls.
Take heart, child of God. He has overcome, and thus you stand with the Overcomer. And in every place of pressure, every place where we are buffeted and challenged and chilled, He is with you, He is for you, and He has overcome.
Reflect:
Where do I feel pressure?
Recall Jesus who has overcome. Invite His reality to warm the places of your soul that feel chilled by fear, pressure, stress.
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
Overcomer,
You have stood in the face of every challenge,
And overcome.
And thus, Lord,
I can have confidence.
Not firstly because I can overcome all these challenges,
But because You did,
And you do,
And thus I,
In You,
With You,
And by You,
Can truly overcome.
And thus, Lord,
In these places of pressure,
Warm my heart—
That my internal atmosphere
Be warmed by Overcomer realities,
Unto the inhabitation
Of your peace.
In Your Name,
Jesus,
My Overcomer,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Ezekiel 16 | Psalm 124