Observation: On the night of his arrest, Jesus is trying to prepare his disciples to be hated in the same way he is hated.
Application: Christians have been badly in need of a reality check for some centuries now. The fact is, our faith was never designed to dominate public life or public policy. To use the language of the Gospel of John, Jesus did not expect his disciples to "belong to the World". That was not part of their mission. In fact, for the sake of his mission, Jesus has pulled his disciples "out of the World", to be "hated by the World." But this has not actually been the case for many centuries. Christians--at least Christians in name--have been running "the World" for almost 1700 years, since the Roman Emperor Constantine converted and made it illegal not to be Christian in his kingdom. And I'll lay out some prophetic truth here...Christians have had it pretty cushy since then. I, for one, do not count it as "hatred" from the world that Starbucks holiday cups are not the right color, or that retail employees say "happy holidays" and not "merry Christmas", or even that in the recent presidential race, neither candidate perfectly embodied every Christian value in an obvious way.
This may seem counter-intuitive, but I think it's true: Christians may be entering an era more like that of the first Christians, in which it is more possible to exercise an authentic faith, because it is a counter-cultural faith. In this time, we may face not just loss of prominence and worldly power, but real hatred from the world--and like Jesus, we may be called to bear a hatred meant for others.
Prayer: Jesus, get us ready. Help us to be authentically yours, not the World's. Help us to value your witness and your way over human ways. Let us be able to bear the hatred of the world, the way you did. Amen.
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