CHAYYEI YESHUA

A Devotional Commentary on the Weekly Besora Reading

Jonathan Kaplan

John 16:12-33 - Victory!?

Yeshua concludes his Passover discourse with his disciples with the odd statement, "But take courage; I have conquered the world" (John 16:33). This statement seems odd for a number of reasons. First, Yeshua has just finished telling his disciples that they "face persecution in the world" and that they "will be scattered" (31, 33). Why should they face such things if Yeshua has indeed conquered the world? Second, Yeshua is abandoning his disciples. Yes, he will return, but not until the enigmatic "a little while" comes. Until then, they will be left alone though he will be sending the Ruach HaKodesh to comfort them (19). Why should he have to abandon them if he has indeed conquered the world? Third, his disciples will have to "weep and mourn" (20). Why should they have to ever weep and mourn again if the Messianic King is triumphant? In other words if the Messianic Age is at hand, if Yeshua is victorious over the dark forces of sin and death, why does only suffering and pain await his followers? Certainly, a cheery message with which to end a Passover Seder!

I suggest that the tension we experience with this passage (and it is the tension the disciples experienced with Yeshua's words was evinced by their questioning in 16:18) is that we expect victory, Yeshua's finished conquering of the world to be just that - victorious! If someone is victorious over sin and death and pain, why should we have to experience these things? If the Messianic Age is at hand in the person of Yeshua, we expect all those forces which still oppose his reign to be vanquished and no longer harassing and afflicting his disciples or indeed the whole world.

In his talk with the disciples, Yeshua likens the suffering he and his disciples are about to experience to a mother in labor. At the end of the labor the pain (the curse of Eve) will be over and there will be joy. But that does not mean the child will not face pain and suffering. Indeed the child will face these things until the child's life reaches its fullness. Likewise the Kingdom of God has been birthed in the death and resurrection of Yeshua but the joy of his disciples, indeed the whole world, will not be complete until his coming again in glory, when his conquering, his victory is fully realized.

This situation is analogous to war. Every war has its point which military historians look upon and say that point was the beginning of the end, when victory was assured for one side. That point of victory can be many years before combat operations have fully ceased. In the American Revolutionary War, that point was the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina (if you are from the South) or the Battle of Princeton (if you are from the North). In World War II, the victory for the eastern front of the European theater was assured at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942-43. Likewise Yeshua has won the victory but that victory will not be fully manifest for "a little while." May that "little while" be brief and may his return be soon and in our days!