Today’s Scripture Reading (October
16, 2014): John 16
There is
always a question with regard to the limits of our own free will. How far can
we let it go? A teen-ager was arrested last week at an airport in Chicago
because he was angry with the nation he called home and it was believed that he
might be running away to join the armies of the Islamic State. The possibility
that the teen wanted to cause harm to his home nation was deemed to be serious enough
to signal the arrest. But the question that is now being asked is simply is
that possibility enough to thwart the teen’s free will. Or maybe it was his age
that caused authorities to step in? The question that continues to define us is
where exactly does free will end?
The standard
response is that my free will ends when it interferes with the free will of
others. If I plan to harm someone else, in any way, then I lose my ability to
choose my own path. And some would extend that revocation of free will to the
point where if we want to harm ourselves then our free will is also considered
to be void. For our teenager, he was possibly about to cross both free will thresholds
– and therefore his ability to choose had to be removed.
Jesus is
closing off his Thursday night conversation with his disciples. These have been
the things that his disciples needed to know. But now he reinforces a couple of
important points. First, the disciples needed to understand that Jesus chose to
come into the world. It was a message he had given to his disciples before. His
time on the earth had happened for only one reason. Jesus chose to come. He
used his own free will to enter into our world and teach us about the spiritual
things, answering the spiritual questions that we were already asking.
And the
second message, as well as the point of this Thursday night conversation, was
that Jesus time on the earth had now drawn to a close. It was time to leave.
Jesus does not say that the time has come for him to die, although the fact
that he would die and rise again was a message he had given to his disciples
earlier. But here Jesus simply says that he needs to leave. The words simply
indicate that he would no longer be with the disciples. Just as he had chosen
to come into the world, now he was choosing to leave it.
But the
leaving was not the end. He was just going back to join the Father who he had
left to come to the earth. This is not the end of the story. But it is a plot
twist. And it is a twist that it would take the disciples time to understand –
as they considered the choices of God.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: John 17
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