The Scriptures testify that Jesus is the Son of God. Especially they testify in His crucifixion. In this one account in John there are seven prophecies fulfilled. Some of these are two-part prophecies, fulfilled at different times, sometimes far apart.

For many people life is becoming darker and harder to bear. They can only imagine what is going to happen, and all that dystopian science fiction doesn’t help things. They can imagine the worst. But they’re not even close to how bad it’s going to be.

I want to share a number of things I learned in my regular meditation.

The fear of dying makes a person a slave to the control of another who promises life.

The fallacy to this is that we are going to die anyway. No one can keep us alive, but we can choose which way we die.

We might find this wearying, like Pilate, who finally asks, what is truth? Then he walks away, without waiting for an answer. But today we will see that to live rightly we need absolute truth in our lives.

When you see Jesus being arrested and tried and crucified you marvel at His presence of mind. That is the only word for it.

It means self-control so maintained in an emergency or embarrassing situation, that one can say or do the right thing. That’s the best word for it. Jesus has presence of mind here in these next chapters of John.

When you see Peter during this same time you see him making mistake after mistake. He wants to follow Jesus with all his heart, but that’s not enough and he is intimidated and crumbles in fear.

Jesus’ request is for His disciples to be with Him where He is and to see His glory.

This will affect the whole world for the next twenty centuries because people will be able to grasp what is the whole point of existence: to be united into the family of the Father in love.

Wouldn’t it be nice if, as soon as you receive Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, you went straight to heaven? No more hassles. Be with God.

But it sure doesn’t work that way, does it? We still have to live in this world. And we find that we have changed, and we can’t live like we used to. But then we aren’t so good at being holy, either.

How do we live rightly in a toxic environment?

On the last night of His life Jesus is concerned that His disciples be able to live after His departure.

This is eternal life, on earth.

The problem with this, is this world is a toxic environment. It doesn’t give life, it takes life. So Jesus prays that the Father keeps His disciples in His name.

We say, really? That’s what I need to live eternal life? What’s important about His name?

This morning we address one of the biggest problems there is in the world today. Everybody struggles with it, even Christians, even pastors, even every single person in the world. It doesn’t matter if you believe in Jesus or not, everyone has a problem in this area. Everyone suffers alike.

Does God love me? We all know, yes, God loves me. But it makes no difference in our lives. That’s because to know the love of God you have to experience it.

That is what Jesus is praying for today.

Jesus’ disciples think they’re finally ready for anything to happen. But Jesus knows better. He’s been trying to warn them. But what’s going to happen will take them by surprise and shock them so that they will hardly be able to function.

What they really need is peace that will keep them while suffering emotionally and physically.

So how do you get that?