"Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world!” Friday of Exaudi (observed) 2026

20. May 2026
Friday of Exaudi (observed)
John 16:31–33

In the holy Name + of Jesus. AMEN.

Do you now believe?

That is how He answers them. The disciples have just said it — “Now we believe.” They mean it. They have finally put it together. They have the right confession in their mouths, the right ring in their voices, the right warmth in their chests. And He looks at them and says: Do you? Do you now? “Behold, the hour is coming — has now come, even now while you are saying these words — when you will be scattered, each to his own, and you will leave Me alone” (John 16:31–32).

That is the Lord's answer to your believing. Your believing — the believing you brought with you tonight, the believing you carried in from a long week, the believing you put together this morning before breakfast and dusted off before the service, and now hold like a small lamp in front of you. “Do you now believe?” Because the hour is coming. The hour has already come. And in that hour, your believing will not hold the door shut. Your believing will not keep you from scattering. Your believing is one of the things that will go.

So what then? What do we do here on a Wednesday with Ascension a week behind us and Pentecost not here yet? What is this in-between week, this silence, this room full of waiting people who do not have the Comforter yet, who are exactly like the disciples — believing one minute and scattering the next? What is the answer?

Will you try harder to believe? Will you concentrate? Will you breathe deeply and steady yourself and resolve to keep your faith intact through the next tribulation? Will you do the spiritual practices? Will you put up a Bible verse on the kitchen wall? Will you have a quiet time? Will you stand at the window and try to feel God? Will you accept the tribulation philosophically with a brave face? Will you fix the world? Will you fix yourself by political effort? Will you build a stronger Christian identity? Will you have a personal relationship with Jesus that you maintain with regular check-ins? Will you go to therapy? Will you go to a retreat? Will you go to a different church? Will you rate your faith on a scale of one to ten, track it in an app, and try to drive the number up? Will you start a podcast? Will you do another devotional series? Will you read the right Lutheran author this time?

The disciples in the upper room had none of that. They had their “Now we believe,” which lasted about four hours. By the time the rooster crowed, Peter was gone. By the time the cross was hammered down, they were scattered to their own houses, their own boats, their own gardens, their own belly buttons. The hour came. Their faith did exactly what Jesus said it would do. Their faith ran. Their faith scattered like quail in a wheat field.

So what was left in that upper room? What was left when the door was locked, and the believing had bled out? One thing. One word from the night before: “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

I have overcome.

In Greek, there is a tense for things that are done — done in such a way that they keep on standing. Finished, and yet still doing their work right now, like a tree that has grown and is standing tall the day after the growing is over. The Greeks called it the perfect tense. Jesus uses it here. He does not say I am overcoming. He does not say I will overcome. He does not say I have begun to overcome, and now you must finish it. He says: I have overcome. Νενίκηκα. Done. Standing.

The whole sermon is in the I. The whole Gospel of John has been pressing toward this I. “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). “I am the resurrection” (John 11:25). And now in the upper room, on the night He is handed over: “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). It is the great I AM telling men who are about to scatter that the victory is His and is already accomplished. Not their victory. Not their overcoming. Not their endurance. Not their faith, their courage, their grip. His.

Do not slip past the pronoun. The Lord does not say you have overcome. He does not say we have overcome. He does not say we will overcome together if you keep believing. He says, “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Sit with that for a moment. Your peace does not rest on your I. Your peace rests on His. He has done it. He has done it for you. And therefore your peace stands, not because your believing is steady, but because His doing is finished. The disciples in the upper room would have no peace at all if their peace depended on their own pronoun. Neither do we. The peace He gives, the peace He leaves with them on the night He goes out to be handed over, is the peace of someone else's accomplished work. It is the peace of a victory you did not win. It is the peace of an empty tomb you did not dig out of. It is the peace of an ascension you did not climb. It is the peace of a heaven you did not open. It is the peace of an I that is not yours.

Now look at where we are tonight. The Lord has ascended. He has gone up on high, leading captivity captive. He sits at the right hand of the Father. He is — let us say it plainly — gone from our sight. And in the text, the Spirit He has promised is not here yet. We are in the upper room. You and I. We are in the silence of a week that has no Ascension Day in front of it and no Pentecost behind it. We are looking at our own believing, and we are finding it thin. We are finding it scatters. We are finding it leaves us alone in our own houses, our own beds at three in the morning.

And tonight, into that silence, the Lord speaks the perfect-tense verb: “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

That is the only word that survives the hour. Not your believing — His overcoming. Not your peace — His. Not your standing fast — His not being alone, because the Father was with Him, and so the cross did not break Him, and the grave did not hold Him, and the world that you live in and feel scattered by — that world is already a defeated thing. The verdict is in. The sentence is signed. The hour came, and it broke its teeth on Him. He has overcome. For you.

Hear that. He has overcome — for you. He did not do it for people in general. He did not do it as a press release. He did not do it as a theological achievement. He did it for you. The I is His; the for you is yours. You were bought at a price — that price — and you are His. You are not your own believer. You are not your own overcomer. You are not your own peace-maker. You are bought. You are His. The slave is His freedman. The free is His slave. Either way, the I is His, and the for you is given.

So where does the νενίκηκα meet you on a Wednesday in Sherman Center? It comes here. It comes in this Word that you have just heard preached — His word, given for you. It comes in the water of your baptism, where He has already drowned the scattering, drowned the running, drowned the small lamp of your own believing, and given you His I in exchange. It comes in His body and His blood, given and shed for you — the peace He made on the cross, delivered into your mouth at this altar. Not the peace the world gives. Not the peace you make in your head. The peace that stands on His I.

Take heart. He did not say try harder. He did not say believe more. He did not say feel something. He said take heart. Be of good cheer. Because — and this is the only because that holds — “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He has done it. It stands done. It will be done tomorrow morning, and the morning after that, and the morning your believing finally collapses entirely. The I that holds you is not yours.

Hear it once more: “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). For you.

In the holy Name + of Jesus. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin