For Deans Council, April 8 2020

In times like this it is good to acknowledge and confess that we feel anxious, vulnerable, helpless, and threatened. It is precisely in these times that we often become, out of a desire for self-preservation, our worst enemies. We turn inward to ourselves; we are tempted to trust in our capabilities, our ingenuity, our ability to solve problems--particularly through technology, medicine, and science. While we can give thanks to God for these gifts, we must always remember that apart from God and His life we can do nothing.

This Holy Week I have been meditating on the Upper Room Discourse (John 13-17), Jesus' last words to his disciples just prior to his heinous murder on the cross. If ever a man was vulnerable and threatened, it was Jesus at this time.

It deeply salutary to meditate on Jesus' last words, to consider what he regards to be the most important things to remember in times of danger and vulnerability.

I love that he does not offer false hope: "you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice" (John 16.20a).

But he follows that with a puzzling word: "your sorrow will turn into joy" (John 16.20b).

He then uses the analogy of birth to explain what His resurrection will produce--joy; new life (John 16.21-22).

While on the one hand the shadow of the crucifixion casts itself over ever line of John 13-17, so does the resurrection. The resurrection helps us endure the sorrow and lament, the threat and the vulnerability. For new life is coming. All things will be made new.

In the meantime, we are given these words: "Abide in me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me...for apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15.4-5).

As we look for clues in the text to understand what Jesus means by the word 'abide', we see that he equates it with keeping his commandments (John 15.10; John 14.23). These last words of Jesus remind us that when we can't see the future, when we are threatened, when we are vulnerable, our job is not to see and to know; rather our job is to trust and obey; to be faithful; to remain attached to the branch that gives life.

We are also reminded that He has sent us the Spirit who comforts us and guides us into all truth (John 14.15; 16.13).

God, Father, Son, and Spirit, fully participates in our deliverance by giving us His life. And the point that Jesus makes so poignantly in his Upper Room Discourse is that this is enough. He is enough. We need nothing else. Nothing can take that away from us.


Father, we confess that in a time such as this in which we are unable to see the future and in which we feel helpless, vulnerable, and threatened,  we are tempted to rely on ourselves, to trust in own capabilities, our ingenuity, our ability to solve problems through technology, medicine, and science; while we are grateful for these gifts that have come from your hand, we remember that apart from You we can do nothing; give us confidence in your care for us; we cast our anxieties upon you because we know that you care for us; as the Good Shepherd, you promise to protect, guide, and provide for your sheep; help us to rest in You, who sees and knows, and loves, and who works all things for your glory and our good--for the life of this world.