John 16:25-33
Jesus Has Overcome This Violent World
25 “Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. 27 No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”
29 Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. 30 Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”
31 “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
During Jesus' time the Roman Empire occupied Israel...He could have went about the country to free it, but He did not...Jesus' ministry was one of non-violence and one of love...He recognized that violence was a type of hatred and immoral way to go about one's life and one's beliefs...Violence was something He did not and would not teach...Violence brings destruction to us all, because it divides us...There is no peace and harmony in violence...Jesus returns LOVE for the violence, the hatred, and the divisions we see among each other...His gospel shows how He rose above the violence and became a Man and Someone we will never forget, because His Words are Divine...Jesus spoke the Words that will never pass away...His Truths are the only thing that set us free from this violence...He is the Only One capable of rising about the violence and disagreements, division, and hatred we see everyday...This earthly violence and division brought Him to His death on a Cross...But His Father had Him rise again from death to show us that He is our Savior...He is our Messiah...He IS the Man God has appointed...And He has given everyone proof by raising him from the dead...
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said this about violence: Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all...It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert...Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love...Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars...Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that...Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that...
René Noël Théophile Girard was a French polymath, historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science said this of Jesus: “To recognize Christ as God is to recognize Him as the only being capable of rising above the violence that had, up to that point, absolutely transcended mankind...Violence is the controlling agent in every form of mythic or cultural structure, and Christ is the only agent who is capable of escaping from these structures and freeing us from their dominance...This is the only hypothesis that enables us to account for the revelation in the Gospel of what violence does to us and the accompanying power of that revelation to deconstruct the whole range of cultural texts, without exception...We do not have to adopt the hypothesis of Christ’s Divinity because it has always been accepted by orthodox Christians...Instead, this hypothesis is orthodox because in the first years of Christianity there existed a rigorous (though not yet explicit) intuition of the logic determining the gospel text...A Non-Violent Deity can only signal His Existence to mankind by having Himself driven out by violence – by demonstrating that He is not able to establish Himself in the Kingdom of Violence...But this very demonstration is bound to remain ambiguous for a long time, and it is not capable of achieving a decisive result, since it looks like total impotence to those who live under the regime of violence...That is why at first it can only have some effect under a guise, deceptive through the admixture of some sacrificial elements, through the surreptitious re-insertion of some violence into the conception of the divine.”...
Violence is one of the major problems of this world and we have to ask and reflect on how we can overcome it...The answers lie in His gospel and His Good News...