‘You are going to grieve,’ Jesus said to his disciples, ‘but that grief will turn to joy.’ They would indeed grieve for they would see their Lord, the very incarnate Son of God, tortured and killed by their own countrymen. But what would compound their grief is that they themselves would abandon him in his time of suffering. Jesus does not predict this to condemn them. He predicts this so that they might have peace. He is saying to them, in effect: ‘This is going to hurt.’ They are going to see sin in all its blackness, not only before their eyes in the jeering bloodthirsty crowds who would demand Jesus’ crucifixion, but in their own hearts. However, their encounter with this terrible reality would be the pathway to their joy. Because only in this way would they gain the capacity to see in themselves and their people the deep gaping need for what Jesus came to do. You have to face reality before you can receive truth. The truth is that Jesus has paid the price for your sin. But, so long as that word ‘sin’ remains an abstract concept for you, you will be unable to receive that good news for what it is. It will just be, at best, a historical fact, not good news. To be ‘in sin’ is to be alienated from God due to your own desire for autonomy. Such alienation is the most desolate and lonely state possible for a human being. Are you prepared to feel the pain of that reality to the extent that it is so? Unless you are you cannot receive the truth.
Ask God to enable you to feel the sadness of alienation to the extent that you have in any way gone astray from him.
Read John 16:17-33
