00:05Because I go to the Father. Jesus gave his disciples a reason for peace that they could
00:11not yet fully comprehend. If ye loved me, he said, ye would rejoice, because I said,
00:17I go unto the Father. They had heard him speak of going away, and it had frightened them. To them,
00:24his departure looked like abandonment, but Jesus was asking them to see it differently.
00:30His going was not the undoing of his mission. The cross, the resurrection, the ascension,
00:37from the outside, these events appeared as catastrophe followed by confusion.
00:42The disciples fled. They hid. They grieved. They could not yet read the events they were living
00:49through because they did not have the vantage point from which those events made sense.
00:54Jesus, however, had that vantage point. He knew where he was going. He knew what
00:59the cross would accomplish. He knew that going to the Father was the completion of the mission
01:05the Father had sent him on, and the opening of a new and better access for every one of his
01:11own.
01:11This is the foundation of peace that does not depend on understanding. Paul states it plainly
01:18in Romans 8 verse 28, All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are
01:25the
01:25called according to his purpose. Not some things or comfortable things, but all things. The peace
01:31this verse offers is not the peace of someone who can see how everything is working out. It is the
01:37peace of someone who trusts the one who can see it, even when they cannot. Jesus walked toward the cross
01:44in peace because he knew what the cross was for. You can walk through what you are facing in peace
01:50because
01:50the same God who authored the resurrection is authoring your story, and nothing in it is outside his purpose.
01:58Reflect. Is there something in your life right now that looks like a catastrophe but may be part of a
02:04larger
02:04purpose you cannot yet see? What would it take for you to trust God's vantage point over your own limited
02:11view of your circumstances? Prayer. Lord, I confess that I cannot always see what you are doing,
02:18but you can see it clearly. Teach me the peace of a soul that has stopped demanding to understand
02:24and started choosing to trust. Amen.
