John 13: 1 Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

The part that sticks out for me this morning is, “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.” There are at least a couple of ways to think about this.

One way is to think of Jesus as one who had the entirety of God’s plan in his back pocket the entire time of his ministry on earth. He knew what would happen, when it would happen, and how. And I suppose that’s possible, but that would exclude Jesus from one of the most significant dimensions of the human experience – surprises.

The other way to think about this (my personal preference) is to imagine Jesus just figuring out that the end is close. Of course he’s known for some time that he would die and be raised. But perhaps he didn’t know precisely when and how that would happen. So in this passage the end-game is becoming clearer. He knows it won’t be long. And perhaps he even knows his ending will be painful. There will be suffering. And yet he moves toward the end, not away from it. This requires courage.

Our world is full of surprises right now. Some pleasant, but many of them not. This Covid world is going to be around for a while – much longer than we anticipated. This puts stress on us in many ways. Yet we really have no choice but to move forward. So today I’m praying for the Lord to give me courage to roll with the punches. To lean in, when I want to check out by pretending things will be “normal” again. There is a new normal emerging which we cannot yet see. I need courage today.

Lord let it be so. Amen