In this world you will have trouble

That’s a promise straight from the mouth of the Christ (Gospel of John 16:33.

Some mornings when I scan the headlines, I feel like my body is being stretched on a rack. I can barely live through a day when I don’t find out that one of my “good guys” did something very bad. I can barely make it through one 24-hour news cycle without someone proving unfit for the hope I put in him. What starts out black and white gets stirred to gray.

And I am troubled. So, so troubled.

But the Christ promised that would happen. I wonder why we don’t talk about that promise more often. It’s right there in red letters in the Bible:

“In this world you will have trouble…”

So what are we to do?

Fight like hell?

Move far up into the back country, to some place off the grid?

Stick our heads in the sand?

Vote for the new lords and saviors the political parties thrust on us?

None of the above.

We are to take heart.

Take heart.

“In this world you will have trouble,” said the Christ. “But take heart, I have overcome the world!” (Gospel of John 16:33)

“I have overcome the world!”

Past tense.

To believe in the Christ is not to believe that the Christ will overcome the world; it is to believe that the Christ already overcame the world.

It is to believe that the Christ passed through this world, took the worst this world could do to him, and came out on the other side in a new body that God made for a new world. A new world the Christ is already making behind the scenes and out of sight of this world (Gospel of John 14:2).

So what are we who are still in this world of trouble left to do?

Listen to the words of the Christ:

“Peace I leave you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (Gospel of John 14:27).

If we look for peace in this world, we will only find trouble. The world does not keep its promises.

So let us hope in the peace of the Christ who overcame the world, a peace that is, like our lives, “hidden in Christ with God” (Colossians 3:3).

Believing and trusting in that peace–not the promises of peace that we hear from politicians, professionals, prosperity preachers, and pundits–is what we need to “not let [our] hearts be troubled and [to] not be afraid.”

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Grace and peace.