05 May 26 | Get Up, Lets Go
Jesus gives the disciples his peace, tells them to rejoice that he is going, and then rises and leads them toward the cross freely because he chooses to go.
The Gospel: John 14:27-31a
²⁷ "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. ²⁸ You heard me tell you, 'I am going away and I will come back to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. ²⁹ And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe. ³⁰ I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming. He has no power over me, ³¹ but the world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded me. Get up, let us go."
Today’s Focus
The farewell discourse ends not with more teaching but with a gift. Peace. Not the peace of favorable circumstances or the absence of conflict. The peace that belongs to Jesus in his relationship with the Father, the peace that holds through arrest and trial and cross because its source is not circumstances. Then he tells the disciples that love properly understood would produce joy at the going, not grief, because the going is the completion of the mission and the condition for the Spirit’s coming. The Father is greater than I describes the Son in his earthly mission, not the eternal nature of their relationship. The ruler of the world is coming and has no hold in Jesus. The cross is not a tragedy permitted. It is the demonstration of the Son’s love for the Father expressed in total obedience. Then he stands and gives the command. Get up, let us go. Plural. They rise together and move together toward what none of them fully understands, following the one who goes freely because he chooses to.
In the Margins
Jesus has just promised the Advocate and the dwelling of the Father and Son with those who love Him. Now He gives the disciples what the entire farewell discourse has been building toward. Not an explanation. Not a promise about the future. A gift. Peace.
The peace He gives is distinguished from the world’s peace in two ways. First, it is a bequest. He is leaving it with them as a legacy, the way a person leaving on a journey leaves something of themselves behind. Second, it is His peace specifically, not a generic blessing but the settled reality that belongs to Him in His relationship with the Father. The world’s peace is the peace of favorable circumstances, the absence of conflict, the stability of things going as they should. It is conditional, external, and temporary. What Jesus gives is different in kind. Isaiah 26:3 describes the perfect peace that belongs to those whose minds are steadfast in trust. Paul will write in Philippians 4 of the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. The peace Jesus leaves is the peace that holds through the passion about to unfold, through the arrest and the trials and the cross, because its source is not circumstances but the relationship between the Son and the Father.
Then Jesus says something that should have surprised the disciples more than it apparently did. If you loved me you would rejoice that I am going to the Father. The disciples are sorrowful at the departure. Jesus tells them that love properly understood would produce joy at the going, not grief. The going to the Father is the completion of the mission, the preparation of the dwelling place, the condition for the sending of the Spirit. Sorrow at the departure misses what the departure accomplishes.
The statement that follows has been discussed throughout the history of Christian theology. The Father is greater than I. This has sometimes been used to argue for the subordination of the Son to the Father as a permanent feature of their relationship. The Catholic and orthodox reading understands the statement in the context of the Son’s incarnate mission. In His earthly state, sent into the world, operating within the limits of the human nature He has taken on, the Son operates in dependence and obedience to the Father. This describes what theologians call the economic Trinity, the Son in His mission, not the eternal relations of Father and Son as they exist in themselves. The Council of Nicaea’s formulation that the Son is of the same substance as the Father was not understood to contradict this verse but to describe the Son’s eternal nature while this verse describes His earthly mission. The going to the Father is a return to the one who is greater, the completion of the journey that began with the descent from heaven in John 1.
The ruler of the world is coming. Jesus names what is approaching without flinching. Judas has left into the night and the arrest is being arranged. But the ruler of the world, who is identified as Satan in John 12 and again in John 16, has no hold in Jesus. There is no point of purchase, no foothold, nothing in Him that the enemy can use. The passion is not Satan’s victory. It is his defeat, accomplished precisely through the thing he intends as his greatest weapon.
The world must know that Jesus loves the Father and does exactly as the Father has commanded. The cross is not a tragedy the Father permits. It is the demonstration of the Son’s total obedience to the Father’s will, enacted out of love. What the watching world will see in the cross is the love of the Son for the Father expressed in complete surrender. Get up, let us go. The command is plural. The disciples rise together and move together toward what none of them fully understands yet, following the one who goes freely because He chooses to go, because the Father has commanded it, because the world must know.
Reflection Question
Is there something God is asking you to move toward that you are sitting with in sorrow instead of rising to follow?
A Small Invitation
If this reflection helped you, consider sharing it with someone who may benefit from hearing this message.