Reading
John 15:26-16:4
15:6 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
16:1 “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. 2 They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. 3 They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. 4 I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you.
Comment
Jesus promises his disciples to send the Spirit as an aid in the testimony of the gospel; the hatred of the world would scandalize them if they were not assisted in a supernatural way by the Comforter.
Witnessing Christ resulted in the expulsion of the disciples from the synagogues, the "excommunication" by the religious authorities, and a death sentence. Even today the world tries to "cut off" believers because not having welcomed the light (Jn 1,5) it perceives them as a "foreign body".
The time of persecution is called "their time" (v. 4). The term temporally limits the duration of the trial and implies the illusion of victory on the part of the persecutors. In reality, the hour of the cross is precisely that in which the mystery of salvation is fulfilled, in which are committed those who deny themselves to follow Jesus (Lk 9:23), to find life by losing it, to conquer the being that exceeds the mere existence.
In every age and for every believer there is an hour of persecution, a more or less "great" hour. So it was for the Christians martyred under the Roman Empire, for the many missionaries who gave their lives to proclaim Christ to the ends of the earth, and also for those believers who live in society apparently tolerant, but in reality hostile to the message of peace, justice, compassion, simplicity of life, to which the gospel refers.
Christian witness is not given only with words but is a prophetic sign in the world, a "sign of contradiction" as Jesus already was (Lk 2:34). But even when he experiences the rejection, loneliness, and adversity of the world, the disciple knows that he can find in the depths of his heart the inviolable peace and joy of the Comforter, the Spirit of Jesus with us, in the hour of proof, which separates us from "the not yet" of his kingdom.
Prayer
Make us courageous witnesses of your gospel, o Lord; strengthen our faith and assure us of the comfort of your Spirit in times of trial. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
