John 4:1-10
1The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4Now he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
This is the first of our meditations on John chapter 4. We’ll be here for the next five days reading about Jesus’ encounter with an unnamed Samaritan woman. What strikes me here is that John tells us that Jesus was tired, that he ‘had’ to go through Samaria, and that he asks this woman for a drink—he is thirsty! There is something magnificent about Jesus being tired and thirsty and having to do something that he, according to all the smart people, did not have to do. I suppose all of this might be beside the point, but I have not found John to be one who throws words around for no purpose. He uses words carefully and not necessarily liberally. So later on he will famously tell his readers that the woman ‘left her water jar behind’ as a way of telling us that because she met Jesus she forgot about her worldly problems. It’s sort of the same way the author of the book of Judges tells us, the Samson narrative, that Samson’s hair started to grow back apart from the notice of the Philistines. It’s a narrative clue giving you and me information that the characters in the story may not have. The woman did not know that Jesus had to go through Samaria. She did not know, when she woke up that day, that a tired and thirsty Jewish Male would be at Jacob’s well and ask her for water.
I might also add this: Why did Jesus wait behind by the well when the disciples went into town to buy food? Did it take 12 men to get food? That’s a lot of food! Why didn’t Jesus go with them? Why did he wait? Well, all of this could be just my fanciful desire for there to be something more going on than there actually is. It could just be that Jesus was tired, thirsty, and didn’t feel like going into town to get food. Later on he does say, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Maybe he wasn’t hungry and food was their idea, not his. Who knows?
Ironically, it is Jesus who begins the conversation by asking this unnamed Samaritan woman for a drink. We are told rather pointedly that Jews and Samaritans do not ‘associate’ with one another. The NIV footnote informs us that this could also mean ‘they do not use one another's dishes’ or something to that effect. Whatever the case is Jews and Samaritans did not get along well at all with, sadly, the Israelites leading the way on hate and dislike. What’s worse is that this woman was, well, a woman. So, here’s Jesus. All alone. A man. A woman. Talking. Preachers don’t do things like this in today’s world. In today’s world that is taboo. Someone might get the wrong idea or spread a rumor or gossip and cause the ruin of reputations or formulate all sorts of sick mind fantasies. Not so with Jesus. Jesus talks to anyone, anywhere, and he really could not care less what people think or say. (Later John says, in verse 27, the thing all of us were thinking: “Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, ‘What do you want?’ or ‘Why are you talking with her?’”)
I think the woman is either offended or surprised at Jesus’ request. I’m not sure which it is. I’d like to think surprised, but something tells me that she did not like Jews any more than Jews liked her. I cannot get into this too much, but there is something to be said about this (and I don’t want to get too far away from the theological point Jesus was making). But how many times in our lives have we come across someone and written it off as mere chance or coincidence? How many times have we purposely refused to talk to someone precisely because we were terrified of what someone else might say about us; what they might say about us? Or how many times do we simply go out of our way to avoid someone because of what we think we know about them? Yet here is Jesus for all intents and purposes going out of his way on purpose to meet with this unnamed, Samaritan woman. That was bad enough. At this point we have yet to read verses 16-18 which, when read and understood, will surely make this situation far worse for Jesus and his reputation probably will not hold up under scrutiny. Interestingly, Jesus was more concerned about this woman than he was about himself. The servant life, the Cross driven life, carries this burden and refuses to be stigmatized or calloused by the world’s peccadilloes. Jesus sat down—he didn’t stand up, back way off, wait for his disciples so that all hint of scandal could be diffused. He sat down, meaning he meant to stay for a while, and he initiated the conversation.
And then it gets fun. Jesus said, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Jesus cuts to the chase and begins to unveil his identity to this woman.
This is not something for mere admiration. Forsyth wrote how some people, liberals in his day, viewed God. They think ‘God is our helper and no more. He is not a real sense, but only a figurative sense, our Redeemer. He helps us to realise our latent spiritual resources and ends. There is no break with self and the world, only a disengagement from an embarrassing situation” (The Cruciality of the Cross, 65). Jesus did not engage this woman in conversation that day to merely help her through a bad day or to help through her embarrassing marital situation or to help her through all the, undoubted, abuse she had endured at the hands of many men, or even, really, to help her physical thirst be quenched. He unveils to her not the solution to all of life’s woes and inadequacies and injustices and tediums, but he unveils to her himself. And it is only after she realizes who Jesus is that she eventually leaves her water jar behind. Jesus did not stop by Jacob’s well that day merely to engage in polite conversation about water, or merely to rest, or merely to break all sorts of social and racial taboos. Jesus sat down that day to reveal to this woman the Savior of the World: Himself.
Finally, did Jesus ever get his drink of water? He asked, but John never tells us if he got it or not. And the woman who came to draw water? Did she ever get her drink? Oh, I think she did! What happened though is that Jesus diverts attention away from her physical need, thirst, and redirects it to himself. He does the same thing later in chapter 11 when he raises Lazarus: He diverts Martha’s attention away from her grief and redirects it to himself. Essentially he is saying, “I am the solution to your grief, the victory over death (”I am the Resurrection and the Life”)” and here in chapter 4, “I am the solution to your thirst (”I you knew the gift of God…He would have given you living water”).”
Sometimes we think that the only way to be effective evangelists and witnesses for God is to solve the physical problems people have and then introduce God as the purpose or reason behind our good deeds and joy. People politely listen so they can get what they really want from us or Him. I think it should be exactly the opposite. Jesus first introduced himself. I believe we must first confront people with the reality of God, with the presence of Christ–they must hear the Gospel. It is through the Gospel that people will come to faith (Romans 10). Jesus saves; water does not. In other words, what people most need in their lives is Jesus Christ.
I hope this 13th Day of 90 is Blessed for you in the Lord Jesus.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Feeling Left Behind, Left Out, Out in Left, Left Alone
Originally posted at www.dangoldfinch.wordpress.com
Friends,
I’m in my study. It’s a beautiful day outside–I’m inside. I’m making phone calls, returning e-mails, ordering office supplies, and typing on my laptop a post for my blog. Right now I’m waiting on hold with the office supply people; part of an order was backordered and I’m curious to know how long I have to wait. In the meantime, I have a confession to make.
I just received an e-mail from a company who would very much like me to attend a leadership conference in Washington, Dallas or Orlando–cost is on $199.00, which sounds reasonable until you factor in fuel, food, lodging, and all the books I would undoubtedly need to purchase once I arrived for this three day conference. Oh, David Crowder Band will be playing; I’d go just for that. There’s other reasons I wouldn’t go.
One reason, the only reason I’ll expound on here, is that I watched the trailer. The trailer began by showing a clip of JFK, then moved on to MLK, and then to Ronald Reagan–all stalwarts in their respective fields; leaders without peers. But I think that is the very reason I cannot go. The irony of this: I heard a lot of names dropped–impressive names. But I didn’t hear anything about Scripture or even Jesus for that matter. I watched a 2:02 video trailer (minutes, seconds) and here’s what happened.
I heard about choosing the go to the moon. I heard about someone having a dream. I heard about someone else demanding that someone else tear down a wall. I learned about ‘impacting culture,’ which in my judgement is a totally fallacious and meaningless enterprise; it cannot be done; it will not succeed. The fact is, with all the people in this nation who claim to be Christians, the impact should already be felt. I don’t mean at the polls, or in elections; those aren’t the real indicators of impact. Think of Star Wars episode IV when Luke Skywalker and the rest of the rebels are going up against the Empire’s weapon of Mass Destruction: The Death Star. One rebel made a pass, fired his proton torpedo, pulled out of the trench and lamented, “No, it only impacted on the surface.” When Luke Skywalker flew down through the trench, fired his proton torpedo, it entered the exhaust port, flew into the center of the ‘Star’ and destroyed it and all who were on it. For the rebels, there was no success in merely impacting the Death Star. I’m funny like that. I’m not interested in impacting the culture. Christ wasn’t either for that matter. He came and blew up the stereotypes and the status quo and, in a manner of speaking, he totally wrecked culture. Jesus did not come here and say, “OK, let’s see how this Christianity thing will fit into the prevailing culture.” He came and said, “I am the culture.” There’s a big difference that has been lost on a generation of Christians whose preachers and prophets are far less concerned with Scripture and Truth than they are with the size of their congregations and buildings.
Here was the accusation leveled against those Christians, “We gave you strict order not to teach in this name. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood” (Acts 5:28). I don’t think we can be accused of this any more. The Church is far to welcoming to culture. The Church is far to concerned with having a good name among the pagans. The Church is far too accomodating to those who reject Christ, far too sensitive to their ‘felt’ needs, and far to willing to overlook the problem that Christ died for: Sin. The fact is, the world’s opinion of Christ and His Scripture doesn’t matter or change the veracity of it. It is true whether the world rejects it or accepts it.
Anyhow, this conference I mentioned. I watched 2 minutes and 2 seconds of worth of trailer. When they got around to mentioning who would be speaking or whatever, the video mentioned first a musician, second a musician, and then some other ‘leaders’ who have, no doubt, important things to say. It is about ‘unleashing 20-30 somethings to action.’ I heard zero calls to exalt Christ or to submit to Scripture or to repent from sin. I heard a lot about ‘impacting culture’; nothing about being profoundly counter-cultural. I heard a lot about serving the world; nothing about repenting of sin. I heard zero, count them, zero, calls to Scripture. No mentions of hearing from the greatest leader: Jesus Christ.
Here’s my thing. I just don’t think I fit in anywhere. I feel, I’m very serious about my feelings, left behind, left out, out in left field somewhere because I find this sort of stuff seriously missing the mark, and irrelevant. I don’t see the point. Is this what is necessary to ‘unleash 20-30 somethings’? Isn’t this really beside the point? Wouldn’t the devil love for us to be sidetracked in such a way? I’m 36 and I don’t find it particularly necessary to be unleashed. Why should people need motivation to be unleashed to live what they supposedly believe? Has God ordained such things to promote His agenda? I feel like a 30 year old with no place to call home because I can’t understand those who are of the opinion that I need more motivation to believe, live, and do what is right. And how shall this be done for these folks? How shall we be the exact opposite of everything this culture says we should be? Yes, another leadership conference is what we need.
I’m sort of rambling on a bit. I feel that way today. Our motivation should be other, I think. I don’t need soul-stirring concerts, emotionally charged atmospheres, competition for my feelings, or exceptionally motivational speakers to energize or unleash my potential; and I don’t think anyone else does either.
I think what we need is a fresh look at the Cross. If the cross does not motivate us, unleash our energy and energize our potential, if the Cross does not stir in us a love for God, then I don’t want to be stirred, unleashed or energized. I don’t want what this world calls and offers up as motivation for service. In my estimation, it will be short lived and meaningless–no matter how exceptional the cast of speakers. What is needed is the Cross. “We love because He first loved us.” “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to
lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).
Look to the cross. And may God have mercy on those who think that more is necessary to motivate us than the Cross. And May God have mercy on those who think they need more than the Cross.
jerry
Friends,
I’m in my study. It’s a beautiful day outside–I’m inside. I’m making phone calls, returning e-mails, ordering office supplies, and typing on my laptop a post for my blog. Right now I’m waiting on hold with the office supply people; part of an order was backordered and I’m curious to know how long I have to wait. In the meantime, I have a confession to make.
I just received an e-mail from a company who would very much like me to attend a leadership conference in Washington, Dallas or Orlando–cost is on $199.00, which sounds reasonable until you factor in fuel, food, lodging, and all the books I would undoubtedly need to purchase once I arrived for this three day conference. Oh, David Crowder Band will be playing; I’d go just for that. There’s other reasons I wouldn’t go.
One reason, the only reason I’ll expound on here, is that I watched the trailer. The trailer began by showing a clip of JFK, then moved on to MLK, and then to Ronald Reagan–all stalwarts in their respective fields; leaders without peers. But I think that is the very reason I cannot go. The irony of this: I heard a lot of names dropped–impressive names. But I didn’t hear anything about Scripture or even Jesus for that matter. I watched a 2:02 video trailer (minutes, seconds) and here’s what happened.
I heard about choosing the go to the moon. I heard about someone having a dream. I heard about someone else demanding that someone else tear down a wall. I learned about ‘impacting culture,’ which in my judgement is a totally fallacious and meaningless enterprise; it cannot be done; it will not succeed. The fact is, with all the people in this nation who claim to be Christians, the impact should already be felt. I don’t mean at the polls, or in elections; those aren’t the real indicators of impact. Think of Star Wars episode IV when Luke Skywalker and the rest of the rebels are going up against the Empire’s weapon of Mass Destruction: The Death Star. One rebel made a pass, fired his proton torpedo, pulled out of the trench and lamented, “No, it only impacted on the surface.” When Luke Skywalker flew down through the trench, fired his proton torpedo, it entered the exhaust port, flew into the center of the ‘Star’ and destroyed it and all who were on it. For the rebels, there was no success in merely impacting the Death Star. I’m funny like that. I’m not interested in impacting the culture. Christ wasn’t either for that matter. He came and blew up the stereotypes and the status quo and, in a manner of speaking, he totally wrecked culture. Jesus did not come here and say, “OK, let’s see how this Christianity thing will fit into the prevailing culture.” He came and said, “I am the culture.” There’s a big difference that has been lost on a generation of Christians whose preachers and prophets are far less concerned with Scripture and Truth than they are with the size of their congregations and buildings.
Here was the accusation leveled against those Christians, “We gave you strict order not to teach in this name. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood” (Acts 5:28). I don’t think we can be accused of this any more. The Church is far to welcoming to culture. The Church is far to concerned with having a good name among the pagans. The Church is far too accomodating to those who reject Christ, far too sensitive to their ‘felt’ needs, and far to willing to overlook the problem that Christ died for: Sin. The fact is, the world’s opinion of Christ and His Scripture doesn’t matter or change the veracity of it. It is true whether the world rejects it or accepts it.
Anyhow, this conference I mentioned. I watched 2 minutes and 2 seconds of worth of trailer. When they got around to mentioning who would be speaking or whatever, the video mentioned first a musician, second a musician, and then some other ‘leaders’ who have, no doubt, important things to say. It is about ‘unleashing 20-30 somethings to action.’ I heard zero calls to exalt Christ or to submit to Scripture or to repent from sin. I heard a lot about ‘impacting culture’; nothing about being profoundly counter-cultural. I heard a lot about serving the world; nothing about repenting of sin. I heard zero, count them, zero, calls to Scripture. No mentions of hearing from the greatest leader: Jesus Christ.
Here’s my thing. I just don’t think I fit in anywhere. I feel, I’m very serious about my feelings, left behind, left out, out in left field somewhere because I find this sort of stuff seriously missing the mark, and irrelevant. I don’t see the point. Is this what is necessary to ‘unleash 20-30 somethings’? Isn’t this really beside the point? Wouldn’t the devil love for us to be sidetracked in such a way? I’m 36 and I don’t find it particularly necessary to be unleashed. Why should people need motivation to be unleashed to live what they supposedly believe? Has God ordained such things to promote His agenda? I feel like a 30 year old with no place to call home because I can’t understand those who are of the opinion that I need more motivation to believe, live, and do what is right. And how shall this be done for these folks? How shall we be the exact opposite of everything this culture says we should be? Yes, another leadership conference is what we need.
I’m sort of rambling on a bit. I feel that way today. Our motivation should be other, I think. I don’t need soul-stirring concerts, emotionally charged atmospheres, competition for my feelings, or exceptionally motivational speakers to energize or unleash my potential; and I don’t think anyone else does either.
I think what we need is a fresh look at the Cross. If the cross does not motivate us, unleash our energy and energize our potential, if the Cross does not stir in us a love for God, then I don’t want to be stirred, unleashed or energized. I don’t want what this world calls and offers up as motivation for service. In my estimation, it will be short lived and meaningless–no matter how exceptional the cast of speakers. What is needed is the Cross. “We love because He first loved us.” “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to
lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).
Look to the cross. And may God have mercy on those who think that more is necessary to motivate us than the Cross. And May God have mercy on those who think they need more than the Cross.
jerry
90 Days With Jesus, Day 12: John 3:31-36: Jesus Above All
John 3:31-36
31"The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
Ours is a world that is dominated by many gods. Ours is a world that is filled to the brim with theologies of these gods. These gods have their apologists, their theologians, their exegetes. These gods have their preachers and teachers and singers and dancers. These gods have their bibles and their bible colleges and their PhD professors. These gods have their own churches. The difference between our world and the world of, say, the apostle Paul is that he had to walk through Athens to get a glimpse of all these gods. The Athenians had them stacked and erected and perched all around for people to see; all they had to do was walk. Our world is much, much easier. I’d say, to an extent, that we are much closer to Laban from Jacob’s day whose daughter Rachel stole some of his ‘household gods.’ I don’t know really what that means: ‘household gods.’ But I’m guess it’s not as far removed from us as we might think. Laban kept them in the house; the Athenians perched them all around town; we do both.
Our gods are all over: we perch them in town squares and call them memorials or nativities. We line them up on shelves in our living rooms so that visitors can see, smell, and touch them. We have their sermons preached to us nightly as we watch the television or listen to the radio or surf the internet. Sometimes we go out to the park and hold a collective worship service with others: cheering, clapping, hooting, participating in responsive readings, and singing their songs of praise and adoration. The gods have come down among us, we say. We invite them in for dinner or we share with them, or make an offering to them, through Visa and Master Card or Amex or Discover. Truly we are a remarkably religious society. And yet, we are profoundly empty, hollow, and virtually meaningless.
We can make a religion (or a god) out of anything. It really doesn’t even require much thought or effort. I visited a web page yesterday and listened to an old man prattle on for about 15 minutes (the entire video was nearly 60 minutes long!) about the joys, benefits, intellectually satisfying, and benevolent nature of secular humanism. His stated purpose is to prove that one can live this way, with joy, intelligence, benevolence, quite apart from any religion. The clear point he is making, however, is that these can be had quite apart from Christianity. As I watched, I actually felt sorry for that man. He who deigned to feel sorry for us, who obfuscated the reality of Christian faith and human centered religion, and who set-up himself and his ilk as the martyrs in this nation—‘the poor, persecuted, secular humanists’—was a actually a pathetic lump of flesh with no hope beyond his secular, humanist, fleshly life. He was hopeless despite his efforts to remain hopeful. His means would be his end. For him, there was no sacrifice left. God have mercy.
But John here makes the point that we needed outside help. His point is that we cannot for a moment save ourselves by or in our flesh. That is why Someone was sent ‘from above.’ And John further demonstrates this One’s superiority by stating that He is Above All. This leaves no room for any other. The One (and this is more than a neuter marker of identity; it is also a singular marker as in ‘One and Only’) from above is above all. David Wells notes, "There is nothing in the modern world that is a match for the power of God and nothing in the modern culture which diminishes our understanding of the greatness of Christ" (Above All Earthly Pow’rs, 11).
But it’s worse. Wells also notes that the place once held by God in this world has been replaced by human beings: "Meaning and morality, which only God could give, were taken to be purely human accomplishments; but in promising what only God could do, the Enlightenment sowed the seeds of its own downfall. It promised too much. It promised, in fact, that all human problems could be solved by purely natural means—and that, plainly, rested on false assumptions. It both underestimated the magnitude of the problems and overestimated the capacity of human nature to remedy them" (Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs, 31). Sadly, there are prophets of human nature still convinced that we no longer need outside interference or intervention. We don’t need God, God the Holy and True, to do anything—if He even exists—or intervene in any way. We have created gods in our own image, they are at our beck and call, we worship them, they serve us; it’s a very convenient relationship.
But the fact that God did in fact intervene in history proves to us that this premise is fallacious. In fact, we cannot solve our own problems. Indeed, the gods we have created are indifferent and incapable of solving our problems. And, ironically, we have identified not the problems which need solved, but the symptoms of the problem. The problem is that we are sinners, corrupt, degenerate, depraved. We are in a condition unsuited for saving anything because everything we touch falls to pieces. God knows this and thus He sent His One and Only Son. And this One from above, who is above all (31 two times), also testifies as to what He has seen and heard—and no one accepts him. We are told later the reason we don’t accept him is that we don’t want to hear the truth; we’d rather believe the lie. But the One from Above, who is above all, who testifies to what He has seen and heard, speaks, John tells us, ‘the very words of God.’ That is, we have God’s testimony about us, to us, for us. God informs us of our position and our needs. Apart from His opinion and testimony we can only rely upon ourselves and history has shown that man is thoroughly incapable of making sound judgments about anything.
So we learn: The Father Loves the Son and has placed all things in His hands. This means all things and nothing is outside of his control. This means that secular humanism cannot save us. The enlightenment cannot save us. Politicians cannot save us—no matter how many promises they make. Money and technology cannot save us. (As a sidenote, Wells insightfully notes, "Along the way, however, we have come to think that happiness is unattainable and unimaginable in the absence of comfort and affluence. The means to reach this end—capitalism and technology—have, in the absence of serious engagement with the truth of God and the God of that truth, become themselves the final ends of life", Above All Earthly Pow’rs, 47.) It also also means that this world is still under the Sovereign control of the Son. Paul said later, "All things hold together in Him." We need this continued Providence. We need this continued guidance. We need His constant intervention. We need the ‘whole world in his hands.’ As John writes, "The one who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful." We certify God’s truthfulness because we accept his assessment of our situation and His remedy.
The final end? There is only One Savior: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him." I need not say anything about this because it says all that needs to be said. There is simply no hope outside of Christ. I am here today, in this meditation, making the appeal to all who read these words: Return to Christ. Surrender to Him. Don’t you understand that apart from Christ there is only death, decay and decadence? Don’t you understand that those outside of Christ are already succumbing to the wrath of God which ‘remains on’ them? I make this appeal to the church and to the Christians who claim Christ: Return to the Way of Christ. Banish from your midst all the buying and selling and living and pursuing the empty gods of this world. If Jesus is in fact Above All Things, and in fact Everything has been placed in His hands, and in fact there is no other way to eternal life but through the Son, then isn’t it time for the church to start believing it?
I heard someone say recently, in a sermon, that the church has always been good at orthodoxy and poor at orthopraxy. In other words, we believe the right things but do not do the right things. I disagree. I think the reason we don’t do the right things is precisely because don’t know and believe the right things. It seems to me, I say so humbly, that it is high time for the Church to renounce its ways and one again Lift Jesus High. In my humble opinion, when Jesus has again been elevated in the church, then the church will do the right things. Until then, I submit, the church will continue to be inundated and overwhelmed by wrong things—things that do not have the least bit to do with salvation through Christ alone and everything to do with exalting the god we call ‘the American Christian.’ Jesus is the Way. The Only Way. He is Above All.
31"The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
Ours is a world that is dominated by many gods. Ours is a world that is filled to the brim with theologies of these gods. These gods have their apologists, their theologians, their exegetes. These gods have their preachers and teachers and singers and dancers. These gods have their bibles and their bible colleges and their PhD professors. These gods have their own churches. The difference between our world and the world of, say, the apostle Paul is that he had to walk through Athens to get a glimpse of all these gods. The Athenians had them stacked and erected and perched all around for people to see; all they had to do was walk. Our world is much, much easier. I’d say, to an extent, that we are much closer to Laban from Jacob’s day whose daughter Rachel stole some of his ‘household gods.’ I don’t know really what that means: ‘household gods.’ But I’m guess it’s not as far removed from us as we might think. Laban kept them in the house; the Athenians perched them all around town; we do both.
Our gods are all over: we perch them in town squares and call them memorials or nativities. We line them up on shelves in our living rooms so that visitors can see, smell, and touch them. We have their sermons preached to us nightly as we watch the television or listen to the radio or surf the internet. Sometimes we go out to the park and hold a collective worship service with others: cheering, clapping, hooting, participating in responsive readings, and singing their songs of praise and adoration. The gods have come down among us, we say. We invite them in for dinner or we share with them, or make an offering to them, through Visa and Master Card or Amex or Discover. Truly we are a remarkably religious society. And yet, we are profoundly empty, hollow, and virtually meaningless.
We can make a religion (or a god) out of anything. It really doesn’t even require much thought or effort. I visited a web page yesterday and listened to an old man prattle on for about 15 minutes (the entire video was nearly 60 minutes long!) about the joys, benefits, intellectually satisfying, and benevolent nature of secular humanism. His stated purpose is to prove that one can live this way, with joy, intelligence, benevolence, quite apart from any religion. The clear point he is making, however, is that these can be had quite apart from Christianity. As I watched, I actually felt sorry for that man. He who deigned to feel sorry for us, who obfuscated the reality of Christian faith and human centered religion, and who set-up himself and his ilk as the martyrs in this nation—‘the poor, persecuted, secular humanists’—was a actually a pathetic lump of flesh with no hope beyond his secular, humanist, fleshly life. He was hopeless despite his efforts to remain hopeful. His means would be his end. For him, there was no sacrifice left. God have mercy.
But John here makes the point that we needed outside help. His point is that we cannot for a moment save ourselves by or in our flesh. That is why Someone was sent ‘from above.’ And John further demonstrates this One’s superiority by stating that He is Above All. This leaves no room for any other. The One (and this is more than a neuter marker of identity; it is also a singular marker as in ‘One and Only’) from above is above all. David Wells notes, "There is nothing in the modern world that is a match for the power of God and nothing in the modern culture which diminishes our understanding of the greatness of Christ" (Above All Earthly Pow’rs, 11).
But it’s worse. Wells also notes that the place once held by God in this world has been replaced by human beings: "Meaning and morality, which only God could give, were taken to be purely human accomplishments; but in promising what only God could do, the Enlightenment sowed the seeds of its own downfall. It promised too much. It promised, in fact, that all human problems could be solved by purely natural means—and that, plainly, rested on false assumptions. It both underestimated the magnitude of the problems and overestimated the capacity of human nature to remedy them" (Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs, 31). Sadly, there are prophets of human nature still convinced that we no longer need outside interference or intervention. We don’t need God, God the Holy and True, to do anything—if He even exists—or intervene in any way. We have created gods in our own image, they are at our beck and call, we worship them, they serve us; it’s a very convenient relationship.
But the fact that God did in fact intervene in history proves to us that this premise is fallacious. In fact, we cannot solve our own problems. Indeed, the gods we have created are indifferent and incapable of solving our problems. And, ironically, we have identified not the problems which need solved, but the symptoms of the problem. The problem is that we are sinners, corrupt, degenerate, depraved. We are in a condition unsuited for saving anything because everything we touch falls to pieces. God knows this and thus He sent His One and Only Son. And this One from above, who is above all (31 two times), also testifies as to what He has seen and heard—and no one accepts him. We are told later the reason we don’t accept him is that we don’t want to hear the truth; we’d rather believe the lie. But the One from Above, who is above all, who testifies to what He has seen and heard, speaks, John tells us, ‘the very words of God.’ That is, we have God’s testimony about us, to us, for us. God informs us of our position and our needs. Apart from His opinion and testimony we can only rely upon ourselves and history has shown that man is thoroughly incapable of making sound judgments about anything.
So we learn: The Father Loves the Son and has placed all things in His hands. This means all things and nothing is outside of his control. This means that secular humanism cannot save us. The enlightenment cannot save us. Politicians cannot save us—no matter how many promises they make. Money and technology cannot save us. (As a sidenote, Wells insightfully notes, "Along the way, however, we have come to think that happiness is unattainable and unimaginable in the absence of comfort and affluence. The means to reach this end—capitalism and technology—have, in the absence of serious engagement with the truth of God and the God of that truth, become themselves the final ends of life", Above All Earthly Pow’rs, 47.) It also also means that this world is still under the Sovereign control of the Son. Paul said later, "All things hold together in Him." We need this continued Providence. We need this continued guidance. We need His constant intervention. We need the ‘whole world in his hands.’ As John writes, "The one who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful." We certify God’s truthfulness because we accept his assessment of our situation and His remedy.
The final end? There is only One Savior: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him." I need not say anything about this because it says all that needs to be said. There is simply no hope outside of Christ. I am here today, in this meditation, making the appeal to all who read these words: Return to Christ. Surrender to Him. Don’t you understand that apart from Christ there is only death, decay and decadence? Don’t you understand that those outside of Christ are already succumbing to the wrath of God which ‘remains on’ them? I make this appeal to the church and to the Christians who claim Christ: Return to the Way of Christ. Banish from your midst all the buying and selling and living and pursuing the empty gods of this world. If Jesus is in fact Above All Things, and in fact Everything has been placed in His hands, and in fact there is no other way to eternal life but through the Son, then isn’t it time for the church to start believing it?
I heard someone say recently, in a sermon, that the church has always been good at orthodoxy and poor at orthopraxy. In other words, we believe the right things but do not do the right things. I disagree. I think the reason we don’t do the right things is precisely because don’t know and believe the right things. It seems to me, I say so humbly, that it is high time for the Church to renounce its ways and one again Lift Jesus High. In my humble opinion, when Jesus has again been elevated in the church, then the church will do the right things. Until then, I submit, the church will continue to be inundated and overwhelmed by wrong things—things that do not have the least bit to do with salvation through Christ alone and everything to do with exalting the god we call ‘the American Christian.’ Jesus is the Way. The Only Way. He is Above All.
Monday, June 11, 2007
90 Days With Jesus, Day 11: John 3:22-30: Finding Joy in Being Less
John 3:22-30
22After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 23Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were constantly coming to be baptized. 24(This was before John was put in prison.) 25An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.” 27To this John replied, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. 28You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.’ 29The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30He must become greater; I must become less.
Here we are on Day 11. It is now 12:21 AM, Monday Morning, June 11, 2007. I really should be sleeping. I’m not tired though. I just looked over some of the ‘statistics’ for my blog—Life Under the Blue Sky—they seem a bit low, but I forgot some people read at the Life in the Aquarium blog too. But I digress. I sometimes forget that its not quite about me. Bonhoeffer wrote, “Jesus has graciously prepared the way for this word by speaking first of self-denial. Only when we have become completely oblivious of self are we ready to bear the cross for his sake. If in the end we know only him, if we have ceased to notice the pain of our own cross, we are indeed looking only unto him” (The Cost of Discipleship, 88).
Here is an interesting passage of Scripture that begins with a quiet and serene setting. A flowing river, disciples gathered around baptizing eager converts or penitents, harmony all around—except for that fight that broke out among some of those baptizing. The argument sort of gets dropped, but John’s disciples do use it as a pretext for asking their master why he doesn’t seem more concerned about this Jesus fella who is gaining more disciples. But John does not seem to care; in fact, he seems downright elated: I have done my job, my joy is now complete. (I think too that John’s statements concerning Jesus the Lamb of God were also John’s way of saying, “Look! There’s the One you should be following.” That’s why he said it twice. He wondered why people were still hanging around him.)
John then says the most astonishing thing a human being has ever uttered: He must become greater; I must become less. John doesn’t get involved in the argument. John does not care that more people are going to Jesus. John does not go out of his way to attract attention to himself. He always points to Jesus and is not jealous when Jesus begins to rise in stature. How could he? John, in my estimation, perfectly understood his role. He accepted what God gave him and did not throw a fit that it was not more. Really, that is about it for these verses. John was doing all he could to get out of the way so that people could see Jesus.
So here’s what I’m thinking about this. We need to get out of the way too. It’s no wonder, isn’t then, why God chooses us to be his messengers? Who else but us could so adequately make the case that this message is from God and not us? And that is precisely why we must continue to preach the gospel! That is precisely why we must continue to preach Christ Crucified! That is exactly why the treasure is hidden in dirty vessels like John the Baptist, me, and many others just like us. God hides his message in us and says: Point away to Jesus. I can’t emphasize this enough. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of Jesus, the Supremacy of Jesus, the Above-all-there-is-Jesus, the Son of God Jesus, the Lamb of God Jesus.
I don’t even want to tell you today what I think the problem is in most preaching, but it has something to do with preachers being far too concerned about their job security and the approval of parishioners and the respect of their peers and colleagues. Hey, I’m a preacher, I’m most likely part of that problem to some extent so I think I’m safe to criticize my own. But I have to say something about: Preaching, preachers, prophets nowadays are far too self-centered. They know too much about too many things and so instead of preaching the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, the Whole of the Scripture, preaching takes on new shapes and dimensions and rises to new levels of oratory and rhetoric and psychology. But preachers are to be more like John and get out of the way. God doesn’t need us to stand up and glorify ourselves. God needs preachers to point to Jesus. There is something to be said about preachers not being so smart about so many things and instead being prophetic geniuses when it comes to the cross and the Crucified Lord.
David Wells, writing about the place of Scripture in the church, wrote in God in the Wasteland, “The fact that this Word is now so silent, that it has so small a part to play in the church’s worship, understanding, and spiritual nurture, goes a long way toward explaining why God, in his holiness, is also a stranger to the church…And so it is that God is disappearing from his church, being edged out by the self, naked and alone, as the source of all mystery and meaning” (149). Wells has much more to say about this, but let me sum up the main idea which is this: When the church becomes so full of us, it becomes emptied of God (there’s not room for both in the Body). When preaching, that means by which God has ordained his Gospel to be announced, is less filled with, constructed from, and centered on Scripture, what else is left to preach but the self–and many are profound exegetes of their culture, themselves, and films but not of Scripture. And I submit to you that man’s life, man’s experience, man’s wisdom is not sufficient enough to guide the lost or the redeemed through this life; and it cannot even come close to leading people to that Place where the Houses are build by the Hands of God. Wells concludes, “Without this transcendent Word in its life, the church has no rudder, no compass, no provisions. Without the Word, it has no capacity to stand outside its culture, to detect and wrench itself free from the seductions of modernity. Without the Word, the church has no meaning” (150).
All of this is an example of what happens in the church when we become more and Christ becomes less. When Christ becomes less then we don’t even have ‘use’ for the Scripture let alone reverence and dependence upon it. When we become more and Christ becomes less then the mission of Christ is less about the Cross and more about our ideas which are decidedly cross-less. My encouragement to you today is this: Make it your ambition, or not your ambition just your life, to become less. It’s hard to want to not be all things to all people at all times. It’s hard to be the moon and not the sun. It’s hard to get out of the way, but do it anyhow. Be a servant. Accept what God has given you and find joy and satisfaction in seeing Jesus exalted, lifted up, gaining, growing, becoming more. Become less so that Jesus can become more. When what matters most in your life is Jesus and not you…well, then what matters most will matter most. And that matters. It seems to me that Scripture is convinced that God can do far more with less than He can with more. Ours is a culture of more, and to a great degree this pathetic philosophy has penetrated the hearts and minds of church folk. The Way of Jesus is counter-cultural: Narrow ways, foolishness, weakness, and, surprisingly, less.
22After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 23Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were constantly coming to be baptized. 24(This was before John was put in prison.) 25An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.” 27To this John replied, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. 28You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.’ 29The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30He must become greater; I must become less.
Here we are on Day 11. It is now 12:21 AM, Monday Morning, June 11, 2007. I really should be sleeping. I’m not tired though. I just looked over some of the ‘statistics’ for my blog—Life Under the Blue Sky—they seem a bit low, but I forgot some people read at the Life in the Aquarium blog too. But I digress. I sometimes forget that its not quite about me. Bonhoeffer wrote, “Jesus has graciously prepared the way for this word by speaking first of self-denial. Only when we have become completely oblivious of self are we ready to bear the cross for his sake. If in the end we know only him, if we have ceased to notice the pain of our own cross, we are indeed looking only unto him” (The Cost of Discipleship, 88).
Here is an interesting passage of Scripture that begins with a quiet and serene setting. A flowing river, disciples gathered around baptizing eager converts or penitents, harmony all around—except for that fight that broke out among some of those baptizing. The argument sort of gets dropped, but John’s disciples do use it as a pretext for asking their master why he doesn’t seem more concerned about this Jesus fella who is gaining more disciples. But John does not seem to care; in fact, he seems downright elated: I have done my job, my joy is now complete. (I think too that John’s statements concerning Jesus the Lamb of God were also John’s way of saying, “Look! There’s the One you should be following.” That’s why he said it twice. He wondered why people were still hanging around him.)
John then says the most astonishing thing a human being has ever uttered: He must become greater; I must become less. John doesn’t get involved in the argument. John does not care that more people are going to Jesus. John does not go out of his way to attract attention to himself. He always points to Jesus and is not jealous when Jesus begins to rise in stature. How could he? John, in my estimation, perfectly understood his role. He accepted what God gave him and did not throw a fit that it was not more. Really, that is about it for these verses. John was doing all he could to get out of the way so that people could see Jesus.
So here’s what I’m thinking about this. We need to get out of the way too. It’s no wonder, isn’t then, why God chooses us to be his messengers? Who else but us could so adequately make the case that this message is from God and not us? And that is precisely why we must continue to preach the gospel! That is precisely why we must continue to preach Christ Crucified! That is exactly why the treasure is hidden in dirty vessels like John the Baptist, me, and many others just like us. God hides his message in us and says: Point away to Jesus. I can’t emphasize this enough. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of Jesus, the Supremacy of Jesus, the Above-all-there-is-Jesus, the Son of God Jesus, the Lamb of God Jesus.
I don’t even want to tell you today what I think the problem is in most preaching, but it has something to do with preachers being far too concerned about their job security and the approval of parishioners and the respect of their peers and colleagues. Hey, I’m a preacher, I’m most likely part of that problem to some extent so I think I’m safe to criticize my own. But I have to say something about: Preaching, preachers, prophets nowadays are far too self-centered. They know too much about too many things and so instead of preaching the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, the Whole of the Scripture, preaching takes on new shapes and dimensions and rises to new levels of oratory and rhetoric and psychology. But preachers are to be more like John and get out of the way. God doesn’t need us to stand up and glorify ourselves. God needs preachers to point to Jesus. There is something to be said about preachers not being so smart about so many things and instead being prophetic geniuses when it comes to the cross and the Crucified Lord.
David Wells, writing about the place of Scripture in the church, wrote in God in the Wasteland, “The fact that this Word is now so silent, that it has so small a part to play in the church’s worship, understanding, and spiritual nurture, goes a long way toward explaining why God, in his holiness, is also a stranger to the church…And so it is that God is disappearing from his church, being edged out by the self, naked and alone, as the source of all mystery and meaning” (149). Wells has much more to say about this, but let me sum up the main idea which is this: When the church becomes so full of us, it becomes emptied of God (there’s not room for both in the Body). When preaching, that means by which God has ordained his Gospel to be announced, is less filled with, constructed from, and centered on Scripture, what else is left to preach but the self–and many are profound exegetes of their culture, themselves, and films but not of Scripture. And I submit to you that man’s life, man’s experience, man’s wisdom is not sufficient enough to guide the lost or the redeemed through this life; and it cannot even come close to leading people to that Place where the Houses are build by the Hands of God. Wells concludes, “Without this transcendent Word in its life, the church has no rudder, no compass, no provisions. Without the Word, it has no capacity to stand outside its culture, to detect and wrench itself free from the seductions of modernity. Without the Word, the church has no meaning” (150).
All of this is an example of what happens in the church when we become more and Christ becomes less. When Christ becomes less then we don’t even have ‘use’ for the Scripture let alone reverence and dependence upon it. When we become more and Christ becomes less then the mission of Christ is less about the Cross and more about our ideas which are decidedly cross-less. My encouragement to you today is this: Make it your ambition, or not your ambition just your life, to become less. It’s hard to want to not be all things to all people at all times. It’s hard to be the moon and not the sun. It’s hard to get out of the way, but do it anyhow. Be a servant. Accept what God has given you and find joy and satisfaction in seeing Jesus exalted, lifted up, gaining, growing, becoming more. Become less so that Jesus can become more. When what matters most in your life is Jesus and not you…well, then what matters most will matter most. And that matters. It seems to me that Scripture is convinced that God can do far more with less than He can with more. Ours is a culture of more, and to a great degree this pathetic philosophy has penetrated the hearts and minds of church folk. The Way of Jesus is counter-cultural: Narrow ways, foolishness, weakness, and, surprisingly, less.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
90 Days With Jesus, Day 10: John 3:9-21: Believe in the Crucified Lord
(I’m sorry this is so late. This is Sunday’s meditation. Number 11 soon!)
John 3:9-21
9″How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. 10″You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16″For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
There is a book I have enjoyed by a man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was a Lutheran preacher in Germany during the tulmultuous times of the 1940’s. He was hanged in April 1945 after vigorously opposing the regime set up by the Nazis. The book is called The Cost of Discipleship. This is no book for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. In it Bonhoeffer makes perfectly clear that there is no room in the disciples’ life for what he calls ‘cheap grace.’ Cheap grace is, in Bonhoeffer’s words, ‘the deadly enemy of our Church,’ (page 1, paragraph 1, sentence 1!). “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate” (Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 45). In Bonhoeffer’s writing, discipleship is directly linked to the cross of Christ. In fact he writes, “Here the call to follow is closely connected with Jesus’ prediction of his passion” (86). He then goes on to describe this Passion for his readers:
“There is a distinction here between suffering and rejection. Had he only suffered, Jesus might still have been applauded as the Messiah. All the sympathy and admiration of the world might have been focused on his passion. It could have been viewed as a tragedy with its own intrinsic value, dignity and honor. But in the passion Jesus is a rejected Messiah. His rejection robs the passion of its halo of glory. It must be a passion without honour. Suffering and rejection sum up the whole cross of Jesus. To die on the cross means to die despised and rejected of men. Suffering and rejection are laid upon Jesus as a divine necessity, and every attempt to prevent it is the work of the devil, especially when it comes from his own disciples; for it is in fact an attempt to prevent Christ from being Christ. It is Peter, the Rock of the Church, who commits that sin, immediately after he has confesed Jesus as the Messiah and has been appointed to the primacy. That shows how the very notion of a suffering Messiah was a scandal to the Church, even in its earliest days. That is not the kind of Lord it wants, and as the Church of Christ it does not like to have the law of suffering imposed upon it by its Lord” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 86-87).
In John’s Gospel scarcely a conversation goes by where Jesus does not allude to or flat-out say he is going to be crucified. This conversation with Nicodemus is certainly no different. Nicodemus, however, just did not understand all this talk of being born again, being born of water and Spirit, being born from above; none of it made any sense to Nicodemus and the last words we hear from him are: “How can this be?” He’s incredulous. I sense him saying something like, “Jesus, what are you saying? You are talking about things that no one is going to believe. You are making demands that no one can meet. Who then can be saved?” Or, maybe he understood it and was saying, “You mean to tell me that being a good Israelite is not enough? If what you are saying about the Spirit is true, then anyone can get into this Kingdom! They won’t even have to be Jewish! How can this be!?” Of course he did not say all that, but he came close. How can this be? And after a good ribbing from Jesus about his inability to understand simple things like birth and water and wind, Jesus lays it all out for Nicodemus. Jesus says it boils down to belief in the Crucified One: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” Belief, thus, is tied to the crucified Lord; salvation is tied to the cross; eternal life is fixed in His death.
I think what this means, then, is that it matters what we believe about Jesus. It matters whether or not we serve a crucified Lord or not. It matters whether or not we believe he came from God and was sent by God. It doesn’t change the fact of it being true if we believe or not, but John seems to be making a connection between who Jesus is (and why he came, and what he did) and our salvation, our eternal life. Everyone who believes in the Son of Man who must be lifted up will have eternal life. Whoever believes in him, the one God gave—God’s one and only Son—will not perish but have eternal life. Note this: Whoever does not believe in him stands condemned already because he has not believe in the name of God’s One and Only Son. It is impossible to not make a decision for Christ. You either actively decide for Him or you passively choose against Him. Those who refuse to actively believe in Jesus—the One from God, God’s Only Son, God’s Crucified Son—already stand condemned. There’s no waiting until the end; they are already over and done. I wonder if they can be rescued? Do you realize that there are people who are walking around this earth right now and for all intents and purposes have this giant sign flashing above their heads that says, “Condemned! Condemned! Condemned!”? And, I wonder, will they be rescued? Can anyone help these condemned folks? Yet they refuse to come to Christ to be healed.
This is the message of the Gospel. There is only one hope: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. These last few verses teach us essentially one thing: You are either walking in the light or you are not. You either hope to conceal your evil deeds by hating the light or you come out into the full blaze of his glory that your deeds may be seen—that they have been done through God. Sadly, many in this world still cling to evil. It’s hard to fathom; difficult to comprehend. Men revel in their evil deeds and love darkness. All the while darkness enslaves men, holds them hostage, makes them mere puppets and here’s what’s worse: Evil does not take men and women captive because evil has an agenda for evil’s sake. No, evil takes hold of men and women in order that men and women will continue to reject God and be condemned. Evil is just a means to an end not an end itself. The end is to have people reject light, hate light, reject God’s One and Only Son. The ultimate evil is the ongoing rejection of Jesus Christ.
Here’s what we know. God sent his Son, His one and only Son, into the world to save people who, despite God’s demonstration of love for them, choose to perish, choose to do evil, choose to be condemned, and choose to hate the light. This is our argument: We’d rather live in utter and complete misery than to submit to the Crucified Lord. And here’s the irony, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world. But not humans, we are far too content with our misery, with the darkness, with our condemnation. Bohoeffer’s words are ever true: He was a rejected Lord. Folks think Jesus is here to make life difficult and complicated. Jesus came to make life simpler by removing the burden of our slavery to the flesh. This is exactly why the cross must be at the center of our proclamation. Until people see in the cross their utter failure, their utter lostness, their utter condemnation, all their sin, they will never be united to God. The cross must be preached, and this is why Jesus preached it (in verses 14-15). People must be confronted by the cross because only in the cross are people confronted with the darkness and suffocating nature of their sin and their slavery to it. If people do not see the crucified Jesus they will never recognize themselves for who they truly are apart from him.
What’s ironic here is that Jesus says this: For God so loved the World that He sent His One and Only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. The irony? God knew all about man: His rejection of the Light, his condemnation, his persistence in loving darkness, his hatred of the light—indeed, God knew all this about man, and sent His One and Only anyhow. He sent His Son despite what He knew about man; He sent His Son precisely because of what He knew about Man. Even more ironic is tha tall He asks from us is Belief.
I hope your 10th Day of 90 was Blessed!
Soli Deo Gloria!
John 3:9-21
9″How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. 10″You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16″For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
There is a book I have enjoyed by a man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was a Lutheran preacher in Germany during the tulmultuous times of the 1940’s. He was hanged in April 1945 after vigorously opposing the regime set up by the Nazis. The book is called The Cost of Discipleship. This is no book for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. In it Bonhoeffer makes perfectly clear that there is no room in the disciples’ life for what he calls ‘cheap grace.’ Cheap grace is, in Bonhoeffer’s words, ‘the deadly enemy of our Church,’ (page 1, paragraph 1, sentence 1!). “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate” (Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 45). In Bonhoeffer’s writing, discipleship is directly linked to the cross of Christ. In fact he writes, “Here the call to follow is closely connected with Jesus’ prediction of his passion” (86). He then goes on to describe this Passion for his readers:
“There is a distinction here between suffering and rejection. Had he only suffered, Jesus might still have been applauded as the Messiah. All the sympathy and admiration of the world might have been focused on his passion. It could have been viewed as a tragedy with its own intrinsic value, dignity and honor. But in the passion Jesus is a rejected Messiah. His rejection robs the passion of its halo of glory. It must be a passion without honour. Suffering and rejection sum up the whole cross of Jesus. To die on the cross means to die despised and rejected of men. Suffering and rejection are laid upon Jesus as a divine necessity, and every attempt to prevent it is the work of the devil, especially when it comes from his own disciples; for it is in fact an attempt to prevent Christ from being Christ. It is Peter, the Rock of the Church, who commits that sin, immediately after he has confesed Jesus as the Messiah and has been appointed to the primacy. That shows how the very notion of a suffering Messiah was a scandal to the Church, even in its earliest days. That is not the kind of Lord it wants, and as the Church of Christ it does not like to have the law of suffering imposed upon it by its Lord” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 86-87).
In John’s Gospel scarcely a conversation goes by where Jesus does not allude to or flat-out say he is going to be crucified. This conversation with Nicodemus is certainly no different. Nicodemus, however, just did not understand all this talk of being born again, being born of water and Spirit, being born from above; none of it made any sense to Nicodemus and the last words we hear from him are: “How can this be?” He’s incredulous. I sense him saying something like, “Jesus, what are you saying? You are talking about things that no one is going to believe. You are making demands that no one can meet. Who then can be saved?” Or, maybe he understood it and was saying, “You mean to tell me that being a good Israelite is not enough? If what you are saying about the Spirit is true, then anyone can get into this Kingdom! They won’t even have to be Jewish! How can this be!?” Of course he did not say all that, but he came close. How can this be? And after a good ribbing from Jesus about his inability to understand simple things like birth and water and wind, Jesus lays it all out for Nicodemus. Jesus says it boils down to belief in the Crucified One: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” Belief, thus, is tied to the crucified Lord; salvation is tied to the cross; eternal life is fixed in His death.
I think what this means, then, is that it matters what we believe about Jesus. It matters whether or not we serve a crucified Lord or not. It matters whether or not we believe he came from God and was sent by God. It doesn’t change the fact of it being true if we believe or not, but John seems to be making a connection between who Jesus is (and why he came, and what he did) and our salvation, our eternal life. Everyone who believes in the Son of Man who must be lifted up will have eternal life. Whoever believes in him, the one God gave—God’s one and only Son—will not perish but have eternal life. Note this: Whoever does not believe in him stands condemned already because he has not believe in the name of God’s One and Only Son. It is impossible to not make a decision for Christ. You either actively decide for Him or you passively choose against Him. Those who refuse to actively believe in Jesus—the One from God, God’s Only Son, God’s Crucified Son—already stand condemned. There’s no waiting until the end; they are already over and done. I wonder if they can be rescued? Do you realize that there are people who are walking around this earth right now and for all intents and purposes have this giant sign flashing above their heads that says, “Condemned! Condemned! Condemned!”? And, I wonder, will they be rescued? Can anyone help these condemned folks? Yet they refuse to come to Christ to be healed.
This is the message of the Gospel. There is only one hope: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. These last few verses teach us essentially one thing: You are either walking in the light or you are not. You either hope to conceal your evil deeds by hating the light or you come out into the full blaze of his glory that your deeds may be seen—that they have been done through God. Sadly, many in this world still cling to evil. It’s hard to fathom; difficult to comprehend. Men revel in their evil deeds and love darkness. All the while darkness enslaves men, holds them hostage, makes them mere puppets and here’s what’s worse: Evil does not take men and women captive because evil has an agenda for evil’s sake. No, evil takes hold of men and women in order that men and women will continue to reject God and be condemned. Evil is just a means to an end not an end itself. The end is to have people reject light, hate light, reject God’s One and Only Son. The ultimate evil is the ongoing rejection of Jesus Christ.
Here’s what we know. God sent his Son, His one and only Son, into the world to save people who, despite God’s demonstration of love for them, choose to perish, choose to do evil, choose to be condemned, and choose to hate the light. This is our argument: We’d rather live in utter and complete misery than to submit to the Crucified Lord. And here’s the irony, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world. But not humans, we are far too content with our misery, with the darkness, with our condemnation. Bohoeffer’s words are ever true: He was a rejected Lord. Folks think Jesus is here to make life difficult and complicated. Jesus came to make life simpler by removing the burden of our slavery to the flesh. This is exactly why the cross must be at the center of our proclamation. Until people see in the cross their utter failure, their utter lostness, their utter condemnation, all their sin, they will never be united to God. The cross must be preached, and this is why Jesus preached it (in verses 14-15). People must be confronted by the cross because only in the cross are people confronted with the darkness and suffocating nature of their sin and their slavery to it. If people do not see the crucified Jesus they will never recognize themselves for who they truly are apart from him.
What’s ironic here is that Jesus says this: For God so loved the World that He sent His One and Only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. The irony? God knew all about man: His rejection of the Light, his condemnation, his persistence in loving darkness, his hatred of the light—indeed, God knew all this about man, and sent His One and Only anyhow. He sent His Son despite what He knew about man; He sent His Son precisely because of what He knew about Man. Even more ironic is tha tall He asks from us is Belief.
I hope your 10th Day of 90 was Blessed!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Friday, June 08, 2007
90 Days with Jesus, Day 9: John 3:1-8: You Must Be Born Again
John 3:1-8
1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” 4″How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” 5Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
I admire Nicodemus for having the courage to come to Jesus and talk to him. Jesus may have admired his courage, but Jesus had other news for Nicodemus, news, I believe, shocked Nicodemus to his very core.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus and says something like, “Rabbi, we know…” and then he goes on and says ‘this’ and ‘that’ and ‘here’ and ‘blah, blah, blah…’ In other words, Jesus, we have a whole bunch of information about you, where you are from, about the signs you are doing; we even have this sneaking suspicion that you are from God. Seriously, who could do these things if he were not from God? We might expect Jesus to be flattered, and sort of like, ‘Oh, shucks!’ But that is not what Jesus does. Instead, Jesus upends Nicodemus, hamstrings him, turns the tables on this intrepid nighttime inquisitor by saying, “Nicodemus, you can have all the information about me that you want, but it is not going to help you. You can have all the right information about me that you have, but it is not going to help you. You can ply me with platitudes, but it will not help you in the lest bit. If you are truly interested in the Kingdom of God, you must be born again. Apart from being born again, you have no chance at the Kingdom I proclaim.”
I imagine at this point Nicodemus must have tripped over his own tongue and stammered and choked on his matza. So, Nicodemus either plays dumb or trumps Jesus’ ace by saying, “OK, Mr., if this is true, how do you propose a man go about it? Surely you must be joking! You are speaking of something that is physically impossible!” But Jesus does not get out-logiced (not really a word, but worked with me here) in conversations. Furthermore, he is unrelenting and not about to change his demands just because Nicodemus points out a rather illogical demand. There is, in short, not changing the tune or the demand: You cannot enter the Kingdom of God unless you are born of water and Spirit. The demands do not change just because of our objections. The demands do not change because we have a more reasonable argument. The demands do not change because something is physically, humanly impossible. The demands of Jesus are the demands of Jesus. Whatever water and Spirit means, and I think we have a rather decent idea of what it means (See Titus 3:5, for example) it is certainly a demand that Jesus makes of all who wish to enter the Kingdom of God.
So far Jesus has told Nicodemus two things. First, he said having information, albeit the correct information, about Jesus is not enough. You cannot even see the Kingdom of God with the right information. Second, he told him that being from the right group (in this case, being an Israelite) is not enough. You cannot enter the Kingdom of God just because you happen to be born into the right family. In both cases Jesus made the same demand, You must be born again (or, ‘from above’) if you wish to participate in the Kingdom. Now, in verses 7-8, he makes one last point and again he ties it to being ‘born again.’ His point in these last two verses is this: Being humanly alive is not enough. You can’t just go down to the local store (or local church) and put on some new clothes, smile a lot, be in the right places, say the right things, do the right things and expect that this is a satisfactory born-again (or ‘from above’) experience. No, Jesus says. If you want to be born again (‘from above’) it must be a work from outside of yourself; it must be something over which you have no control. People who are born again are these peculiar people who have been born not just of water but simultaneously of Spirit. We are a peculiar people who have been touched by God deep in our being. People who are born again of water and Spirit are being changed from the inside to the outside.
Ultimately, this being born again is not something you can control in the sense that the human controls the direction that God makes us all we were born to be, in the sense that we have any idea what it really means to be human and alive, in the sense that we can shape ourselves in the knowledge in the image of our Creator (see Colossians 3:9-10). What I mean is this: Only God truly knows the direction the Spirit will carry us, the shape he will give us, the truth to which He will conform us. It is not a human directed enterprise; It is a Spirit directed enterprise. Merely human directed enterprises amount to little more than therapeutic counseling sessions that enable us to ‘live to our fullest human potential.’ Jesus has other things in mind for the direction of our peculiar lives. We are being crafted by the Spirit into the Imago Dei; we are the portrait of Christ. Only the Spirit of Jesus can make us look like Jesus.
It’s not enough to have the right information. It’s not enough to be from the right group. It’s not enough to be humanly born again (as in made physically whole, psychologically sound; we don’t need Oprahed or Dr Philed to get into the Kingdom). In all cases we must be born again of the water and Spirit. This is the demand of Jesus. It is his peculiar demand for people who wish to participate in His Kingdom. If you want to participate in His Kingdom you have to do things His way. If you don’t do things His way, it is not His Kingdom you are participating in at all. Funny thing is this: Neither the world nor the church nor any human being sets the standard for entrance into the Kingdom; Jesus does. He has the right to do so. John Piper has written, “And what Jesus demands from Nicodemus, he demands from all. He is speaking to everyone in the world. No one is excluded. No ethnic group has a greater bent toward life. Dead is dead—whatever our color, ethnicity, culture, or class. We need spiritual eyes. Our first birth will not get us into the Kingdom of God. But we do not cause ourselves to be born again. The Spirit does that. And the Spirit is free and blows in ways we do not comprehend. We must be born again. But this is a gift of God”—(What Jesus Demands from the World, 39).
Being born again means, in simple terms, that we must not put stock in, trust in, or hope in the flesh. Being born again means, in simple terms, that we must die to this life and be reborn by and in the Spirit. Paul wrote in Romans 6: “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” That’s what Jesus is talking about here.
I hope your 9th Day of 90 with Jesus is a Blessed one in the Lord!
Soli Deo Gloria!
1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” 4″How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” 5Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
I admire Nicodemus for having the courage to come to Jesus and talk to him. Jesus may have admired his courage, but Jesus had other news for Nicodemus, news, I believe, shocked Nicodemus to his very core.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus and says something like, “Rabbi, we know…” and then he goes on and says ‘this’ and ‘that’ and ‘here’ and ‘blah, blah, blah…’ In other words, Jesus, we have a whole bunch of information about you, where you are from, about the signs you are doing; we even have this sneaking suspicion that you are from God. Seriously, who could do these things if he were not from God? We might expect Jesus to be flattered, and sort of like, ‘Oh, shucks!’ But that is not what Jesus does. Instead, Jesus upends Nicodemus, hamstrings him, turns the tables on this intrepid nighttime inquisitor by saying, “Nicodemus, you can have all the information about me that you want, but it is not going to help you. You can have all the right information about me that you have, but it is not going to help you. You can ply me with platitudes, but it will not help you in the lest bit. If you are truly interested in the Kingdom of God, you must be born again. Apart from being born again, you have no chance at the Kingdom I proclaim.”
I imagine at this point Nicodemus must have tripped over his own tongue and stammered and choked on his matza. So, Nicodemus either plays dumb or trumps Jesus’ ace by saying, “OK, Mr., if this is true, how do you propose a man go about it? Surely you must be joking! You are speaking of something that is physically impossible!” But Jesus does not get out-logiced (not really a word, but worked with me here) in conversations. Furthermore, he is unrelenting and not about to change his demands just because Nicodemus points out a rather illogical demand. There is, in short, not changing the tune or the demand: You cannot enter the Kingdom of God unless you are born of water and Spirit. The demands do not change just because of our objections. The demands do not change because we have a more reasonable argument. The demands do not change because something is physically, humanly impossible. The demands of Jesus are the demands of Jesus. Whatever water and Spirit means, and I think we have a rather decent idea of what it means (See Titus 3:5, for example) it is certainly a demand that Jesus makes of all who wish to enter the Kingdom of God.
So far Jesus has told Nicodemus two things. First, he said having information, albeit the correct information, about Jesus is not enough. You cannot even see the Kingdom of God with the right information. Second, he told him that being from the right group (in this case, being an Israelite) is not enough. You cannot enter the Kingdom of God just because you happen to be born into the right family. In both cases Jesus made the same demand, You must be born again (or, ‘from above’) if you wish to participate in the Kingdom. Now, in verses 7-8, he makes one last point and again he ties it to being ‘born again.’ His point in these last two verses is this: Being humanly alive is not enough. You can’t just go down to the local store (or local church) and put on some new clothes, smile a lot, be in the right places, say the right things, do the right things and expect that this is a satisfactory born-again (or ‘from above’) experience. No, Jesus says. If you want to be born again (‘from above’) it must be a work from outside of yourself; it must be something over which you have no control. People who are born again are these peculiar people who have been born not just of water but simultaneously of Spirit. We are a peculiar people who have been touched by God deep in our being. People who are born again of water and Spirit are being changed from the inside to the outside.
Ultimately, this being born again is not something you can control in the sense that the human controls the direction that God makes us all we were born to be, in the sense that we have any idea what it really means to be human and alive, in the sense that we can shape ourselves in the knowledge in the image of our Creator (see Colossians 3:9-10). What I mean is this: Only God truly knows the direction the Spirit will carry us, the shape he will give us, the truth to which He will conform us. It is not a human directed enterprise; It is a Spirit directed enterprise. Merely human directed enterprises amount to little more than therapeutic counseling sessions that enable us to ‘live to our fullest human potential.’ Jesus has other things in mind for the direction of our peculiar lives. We are being crafted by the Spirit into the Imago Dei; we are the portrait of Christ. Only the Spirit of Jesus can make us look like Jesus.
It’s not enough to have the right information. It’s not enough to be from the right group. It’s not enough to be humanly born again (as in made physically whole, psychologically sound; we don’t need Oprahed or Dr Philed to get into the Kingdom). In all cases we must be born again of the water and Spirit. This is the demand of Jesus. It is his peculiar demand for people who wish to participate in His Kingdom. If you want to participate in His Kingdom you have to do things His way. If you don’t do things His way, it is not His Kingdom you are participating in at all. Funny thing is this: Neither the world nor the church nor any human being sets the standard for entrance into the Kingdom; Jesus does. He has the right to do so. John Piper has written, “And what Jesus demands from Nicodemus, he demands from all. He is speaking to everyone in the world. No one is excluded. No ethnic group has a greater bent toward life. Dead is dead—whatever our color, ethnicity, culture, or class. We need spiritual eyes. Our first birth will not get us into the Kingdom of God. But we do not cause ourselves to be born again. The Spirit does that. And the Spirit is free and blows in ways we do not comprehend. We must be born again. But this is a gift of God”—(What Jesus Demands from the World, 39).
Being born again means, in simple terms, that we must not put stock in, trust in, or hope in the flesh. Being born again means, in simple terms, that we must die to this life and be reborn by and in the Spirit. Paul wrote in Romans 6: “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” That’s what Jesus is talking about here.
I hope your 9th Day of 90 with Jesus is a Blessed one in the Lord!
Soli Deo Gloria!
90 Days with Jesus, Day 8: John 2:12-25: God in the Center
John 2:12-25
12After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. 13When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” 17His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” 20The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. 23Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. 24But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. 25He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.
Friends, after today, you will have read two chapters in John’s Gospel. This is good progress. You have taken your time, read slowly, and chewed on only a few passages each day. You have allowed them to sink deep into your heart and there take root as you learn about the Jesus you follow, and learn about how to follow the Jesus you know. Congratulations! This is not small thing in our hurry up world. The hurry up world says it has to be done today and delights in large, massive quantities. We are taking the long stroll, the far look, and the slow journey. We are not tourists visiting interesting sites; we are disciples on the narrow road, on a ‘long obedience in the same direction.’ Also, please feel free to leave me your thoughts by clicking the ‘comment’ link.
The (physical) place of worship had turned into a place of economics; the practice of worship has turned into an empty, hollow, market place where God is not at the center. As such, worshipers were marginalized, worship was de-sacralized, and other less vital functions were elevated and imperialized. It sounds strange to say it in such a way, but consider this: what dominates us controls us, what is important to us takes precedence. Here in the temple clearly what dominated people’s lives was not theology, not worship, and not the Presence, but economics, power, and control. It was a market, Jesus said, a place where buying and selling, bartering and bickering, haggling and harassing were taking place not necessarily to the exclusion of worship, but more prominently than worship and in distraction of worship. In other words, the place of worship, the atmosphere of worship, the spirit of worship were all subjected to the whims of humans. Human interraction, human function, human beings and their needs and wants were centralized; God was marginalized. Does this sound at all familiar?
Imagine you invited a friend over to your house for a nice dinner and conversation. Imagine you had planned out a nice afternoon together of fellowship, eating, drinking, making merry and simply enjoying one another’s company and conversation. Imagine, now, that your friend arrives and sets up a yard-sale in your front yard and begins hawking and hollering at other guests you had invited. There would be no fellowship, no companionship, no conversation that would be enjoyable. Intimacy would turn into rape. And, I suppose, you would be jealous that you had to compete with your guest for the affections of your friends and neighbors–in your own house! It’s not the best analogy, but I think it suffices. In the house of God there is only One Master and He is not keen on sharing the limelight. It’s His House. Now whatever else this passage teaches us I think it certainly teaches us this: Jesus’ purificaction of the temple was an act of judgment against those who had been invited guests. He wasn’t angry with a building, but with people; people he knew all too well. And His point was clearly this: The God who lives here will not tolerate competition. Would that such zeal would consume many of those who are invited guests in the house of God today. But I suspect that the same exact thing happens in many ‘temples’ today: There is competition for attention, competition for Centralization, competition for Glory & Praise. This is what happens when God is marginalized, when worship is economized, when the sacred is trivialized. God is moved out and man takes over; can man keep anything pure and righteous?
David Wells wrote, “It is hard to miss in the evangelical world—in the vacuous worship that is so prevalent, for example, in the shift from God to the self as the central focus of faith, in the psychologized preaching that follows this shift, in the erosion of its conviction, in its strident pragmatism, in its inability to think incisively about the culture, in its reveling in the irrational. And it would have made few of these capitulations to modernity had not its capacity for truth diminished. It is not hard to see these things; avoiding them is what is difficult” (No Place for Truth, 95). I think what was happening that day is this: Jesus was not only purifying the temple, creating space, centralizing God once again (we say ‘cleansing’), he was also emptying it of all that deadness that inhabitited it and preparing it for new life. This is precisely why he ties this action to his resurrection: Destroy this temple, he said, and I will raise it up again in three days. He was saying, through actions, that the true purpose for the temple will never again be found in Jerusalem’s physical ediface, but will be found in Himself. He was telling the people, through word and deed, that the temple would be destroyed: His was also an act of judgment. But no matter! The true temple would be raised up and the function and purpose of the temple will be reestablished and never again corrupted. Jesus is the true temple and in Him, the Resurrected Lord, God will never again be marginalized, man will never be centralized, man will no longer control and ‘change’ (‘you have turned it into…something you desire’) the purpose of the temple and worship will continue freely and unabated by those who seek God. (Why do we prefer busy markets to worship?)
I think it is no wonder that Jesus would not entrust himself to man. The Bible says, “He knew what was in man.” I don’t suppose that has changed. Man has found a way to corrupt the church, to ‘turn it into something it was not intended to be’, the make man the center and life of the church, and, worse, we have found a way to do this to Jesus. I hate to say it, but man, within whom lies so many evils and ills, has found a way to corrupt the temple once again. We have found a way to make Jesus serve our purposes. We have found a way to use him. If man could not rightly serve in the physical structure the Presence inhabited, do you think we can or will rightly serve the Lord Jesus who inhabits us? Or do you think that we, like the temple rulers then, will once again turn the temple into something we can control, corrupt, and use? I cannot help but wonder if this is not already the truth. David Wells again:
“This is why we need reformation rather than revival. The habits of the modern world, now so ubiquitous in the evangelical world, need to be put to death, not given new life. [This is essentially what Jesus was saying in his judgement of the temple that day. And a new temple would be established in Himself.] They need to be rooted out, not simply papered over with fresh religious enthusiasm. And they are by this point so invincible that nothing less than the intrusion of God in his grace, nothing less than a full recovery of his truth, will suffice…In this regard, the death of theology has profound ramifications. Theology is dying not because the academy has failed to devise adequate procedures for reconstructing it but because the church has lost its capacity for it. And while some hail this loss as a step forward toward the hope of new evangelical vitality, it is in fact a sign of creeping death. The emptiness of evangelical faith without theology echoes the emptiness of modern life. Both have elected to cross over into a world in which God has no place, in which reality has been rewritten, in which Christ has become redundant, his Word irrelevant, and the Church must now find new reasons for its existence” (No Place for Truth, 301)
Judgment. Destruction. Resurrection. I wonder if it would take this much for the church to realize afresh that we are slowly killing ourselves by removing God from the Center? What will it take for Jesus to entrust himself to us? Woe is us if we try to turn the True Temple into something we can manage, manipulate, and master. Jesus, the Lamb of God, is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah. And judgment begins with the house of God.
12After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. 13When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” 17His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” 20The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. 23Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. 24But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. 25He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.
Friends, after today, you will have read two chapters in John’s Gospel. This is good progress. You have taken your time, read slowly, and chewed on only a few passages each day. You have allowed them to sink deep into your heart and there take root as you learn about the Jesus you follow, and learn about how to follow the Jesus you know. Congratulations! This is not small thing in our hurry up world. The hurry up world says it has to be done today and delights in large, massive quantities. We are taking the long stroll, the far look, and the slow journey. We are not tourists visiting interesting sites; we are disciples on the narrow road, on a ‘long obedience in the same direction.’ Also, please feel free to leave me your thoughts by clicking the ‘comment’ link.
The (physical) place of worship had turned into a place of economics; the practice of worship has turned into an empty, hollow, market place where God is not at the center. As such, worshipers were marginalized, worship was de-sacralized, and other less vital functions were elevated and imperialized. It sounds strange to say it in such a way, but consider this: what dominates us controls us, what is important to us takes precedence. Here in the temple clearly what dominated people’s lives was not theology, not worship, and not the Presence, but economics, power, and control. It was a market, Jesus said, a place where buying and selling, bartering and bickering, haggling and harassing were taking place not necessarily to the exclusion of worship, but more prominently than worship and in distraction of worship. In other words, the place of worship, the atmosphere of worship, the spirit of worship were all subjected to the whims of humans. Human interraction, human function, human beings and their needs and wants were centralized; God was marginalized. Does this sound at all familiar?
Imagine you invited a friend over to your house for a nice dinner and conversation. Imagine you had planned out a nice afternoon together of fellowship, eating, drinking, making merry and simply enjoying one another’s company and conversation. Imagine, now, that your friend arrives and sets up a yard-sale in your front yard and begins hawking and hollering at other guests you had invited. There would be no fellowship, no companionship, no conversation that would be enjoyable. Intimacy would turn into rape. And, I suppose, you would be jealous that you had to compete with your guest for the affections of your friends and neighbors–in your own house! It’s not the best analogy, but I think it suffices. In the house of God there is only One Master and He is not keen on sharing the limelight. It’s His House. Now whatever else this passage teaches us I think it certainly teaches us this: Jesus’ purificaction of the temple was an act of judgment against those who had been invited guests. He wasn’t angry with a building, but with people; people he knew all too well. And His point was clearly this: The God who lives here will not tolerate competition. Would that such zeal would consume many of those who are invited guests in the house of God today. But I suspect that the same exact thing happens in many ‘temples’ today: There is competition for attention, competition for Centralization, competition for Glory & Praise. This is what happens when God is marginalized, when worship is economized, when the sacred is trivialized. God is moved out and man takes over; can man keep anything pure and righteous?
David Wells wrote, “It is hard to miss in the evangelical world—in the vacuous worship that is so prevalent, for example, in the shift from God to the self as the central focus of faith, in the psychologized preaching that follows this shift, in the erosion of its conviction, in its strident pragmatism, in its inability to think incisively about the culture, in its reveling in the irrational. And it would have made few of these capitulations to modernity had not its capacity for truth diminished. It is not hard to see these things; avoiding them is what is difficult” (No Place for Truth, 95). I think what was happening that day is this: Jesus was not only purifying the temple, creating space, centralizing God once again (we say ‘cleansing’), he was also emptying it of all that deadness that inhabitited it and preparing it for new life. This is precisely why he ties this action to his resurrection: Destroy this temple, he said, and I will raise it up again in three days. He was saying, through actions, that the true purpose for the temple will never again be found in Jerusalem’s physical ediface, but will be found in Himself. He was telling the people, through word and deed, that the temple would be destroyed: His was also an act of judgment. But no matter! The true temple would be raised up and the function and purpose of the temple will be reestablished and never again corrupted. Jesus is the true temple and in Him, the Resurrected Lord, God will never again be marginalized, man will never be centralized, man will no longer control and ‘change’ (‘you have turned it into…something you desire’) the purpose of the temple and worship will continue freely and unabated by those who seek God. (Why do we prefer busy markets to worship?)
I think it is no wonder that Jesus would not entrust himself to man. The Bible says, “He knew what was in man.” I don’t suppose that has changed. Man has found a way to corrupt the church, to ‘turn it into something it was not intended to be’, the make man the center and life of the church, and, worse, we have found a way to do this to Jesus. I hate to say it, but man, within whom lies so many evils and ills, has found a way to corrupt the temple once again. We have found a way to make Jesus serve our purposes. We have found a way to use him. If man could not rightly serve in the physical structure the Presence inhabited, do you think we can or will rightly serve the Lord Jesus who inhabits us? Or do you think that we, like the temple rulers then, will once again turn the temple into something we can control, corrupt, and use? I cannot help but wonder if this is not already the truth. David Wells again:
“This is why we need reformation rather than revival. The habits of the modern world, now so ubiquitous in the evangelical world, need to be put to death, not given new life. [This is essentially what Jesus was saying in his judgement of the temple that day. And a new temple would be established in Himself.] They need to be rooted out, not simply papered over with fresh religious enthusiasm. And they are by this point so invincible that nothing less than the intrusion of God in his grace, nothing less than a full recovery of his truth, will suffice…In this regard, the death of theology has profound ramifications. Theology is dying not because the academy has failed to devise adequate procedures for reconstructing it but because the church has lost its capacity for it. And while some hail this loss as a step forward toward the hope of new evangelical vitality, it is in fact a sign of creeping death. The emptiness of evangelical faith without theology echoes the emptiness of modern life. Both have elected to cross over into a world in which God has no place, in which reality has been rewritten, in which Christ has become redundant, his Word irrelevant, and the Church must now find new reasons for its existence” (No Place for Truth, 301)
Judgment. Destruction. Resurrection. I wonder if it would take this much for the church to realize afresh that we are slowly killing ourselves by removing God from the Center? What will it take for Jesus to entrust himself to us? Woe is us if we try to turn the True Temple into something we can manage, manipulate, and master. Jesus, the Lamb of God, is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah. And judgment begins with the house of God.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Church Membership, Grace & Sin, Preaching
PT Forsyth wrote, in 1908-1909, the following words concerning Church membership in his day:
“The reports that come in are clear about the cooling of that interest as they are about the drop in membership of the churches. The decay in membership of the Church is due to a decay of membership in Christ. Our social preoccupation has entailed real damage to personal and family religion For even among those who remain in active membership of our Churches the type of religion has changed. The sense of sin can hardly be appealed to by the preacher now, and to preach grace is in many (even orthodox) quarters regarded as theological obsession, and the wrong language for the hour, while justification by faith is practically obsolete.”–The Cruciality of the Cross, 33-34 (emphasis mine)
He said this nearly 100 years ago and I cannot believe he is less relevant today. The church needs a good dose of Christ and biblical religion. We need to learn again why Christ died on the cross: It was for our sin. Too much preaching in today’s pulpits simply disregard the issue of sin in favor of preaching about ‘your purpose’ or ‘your best life now’ or the ‘believer’s voice of victory’ or ’sowing your financial seed’ or some such other nonsense. Notice how it’s all about what is ‘yours’? Why is it there are no preachers, at least at the popular television, megachurch level, reminding people also of ‘your’ sin? But do we make light of God’s grace when we never broach the subject of sin? So many know so much about so much; too few know about the price Christ paid for our sins.
jerry
“The reports that come in are clear about the cooling of that interest as they are about the drop in membership of the churches. The decay in membership of the Church is due to a decay of membership in Christ. Our social preoccupation has entailed real damage to personal and family religion For even among those who remain in active membership of our Churches the type of religion has changed. The sense of sin can hardly be appealed to by the preacher now, and to preach grace is in many (even orthodox) quarters regarded as theological obsession, and the wrong language for the hour, while justification by faith is practically obsolete.”–The Cruciality of the Cross, 33-34 (emphasis mine)
He said this nearly 100 years ago and I cannot believe he is less relevant today. The church needs a good dose of Christ and biblical religion. We need to learn again why Christ died on the cross: It was for our sin. Too much preaching in today’s pulpits simply disregard the issue of sin in favor of preaching about ‘your purpose’ or ‘your best life now’ or the ‘believer’s voice of victory’ or ’sowing your financial seed’ or some such other nonsense. Notice how it’s all about what is ‘yours’? Why is it there are no preachers, at least at the popular television, megachurch level, reminding people also of ‘your’ sin? But do we make light of God’s grace when we never broach the subject of sin? So many know so much about so much; too few know about the price Christ paid for our sins.
jerry
90 Days with Jesus, Day 7: John 2:1-11: Something (One) Better
John 2:1-11
1On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” 4″Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied, “My time has not yet come.” 5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. 8Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, 9and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” 11This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.
When I was in college, I took a semester long class on the book of Acts. As part of the semester’s requirements, I had to produce 10 sermon outlines from the book of Acts. Recently, the church secretary was sorting through some of my files and one day, when she wasn’t looking, I snuck a couple of them out of the pile. One of the files I took out contained some old term papers I had written, all 4.0’s I might add, and also those old outlines that I produced for Acts class. My outlines were really bad and I think my professor was being generous when he marked a couple of them with 4’s. One of the 4’s that I received was on Acts 3:1-10. I wrote a pretty good outline, I thought at the time. The points were well made. I followed the flow of the text in the chapter. I thought I had done well until I saw, to the left of the 4.0, my professor’s rather lengthy paragraph written in stunning, glaring, red ink. He wrote:
I’m not sure our asking in prayer is really parallel to the lame man asking for money and receiving something better, but you have done a good job of expanding on a slightly shaky foundation.
Again, a generous 4.0 was given. I didn’t deserve the 4.0. I don’t suppose there are too many college sophomores who ever deserve 4.0’s—especially those sophomores who are learning how to ‘rightly divide the word of God.’ Strange though how after all these years it is the first part of his paragraph that stands out most in my mind. Even without the paper I remembered what he wrote: “I’m not sure our asking in prayer is really parallel to the lame man asking for money and receiving something better…” It’s that ‘something better’ that the author of the book of Hebrews argues, over and over again, that we find in Jesus Christ. It is this ‘something better’ that John illustrates by telling us the story of Jesus turning water into the best wine. It is no accident that Jesus chose six stone water jars that the Jews used for ‘ceremonial washing’ to complete his work. It is no accident that the wine was ‘the best wine’. It was no accident that this wine was ‘saved until after the guests had had too much to drink.’ It was no coincidence that after this sign Jesus errected that pointed to his glory that his disciples ‘put their faith in him.’ “The servants, Jesus’ mother, and his disciples knew, but the text mentions only the disciples as those in whom the sign accomplished its purpose: they ‘believed in him.’”—Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 94
I’d like to take time to say about a million things about this particular episode from the life of Jesus, but I stop short because that ‘something better’ keeps sticking in my head. I cannot get it out of my head, my heart, my eyes, my ears. It’s ringing around in my ears, bouncing on the walls of my skull. Jesus is the ‘something better.’ When that lame man was healed by Peter the ‘something better’ he received was Jesus. That wine that the steward took to the master of the banquet served as a metaphor that something better was at hand, something better than the rules & ceremonial washings of the Jews. It was something generous—filled to the brim! It was something abundant—six jars holding 20 to 30 gallons each! The most prophetic line in the text: “You have saved the best till now,” uttered by some wine steward at a wedding banquet. Ironic. It was something better, not the cold, hard, letter of law; but the warm, human, compassionate Jesus.
The book of Hebrews fills out the picture for us. All you have to do is read through the short letter to see how the author continually points out to the reader that Jesus is the something better that the Scripture hints at over and over again. Here’s the list (complete, I believe) of the something better in Hebrews: “Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case—things that accompany salvation” (Hebrews 6:9); “The former regulation is set side because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God” (Hebrews 7:19); “Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant” (Hebrews 7:22) (See also 8:6, 9:23, 10:34, 11:16, 35, 40, 12:24). The author of Hebrews is convinced that in Jesus everything else takes a distant second seat.
However, I must complain. I think the Christians have, by and large, settled for something far less than the something better. I think Christians have been sold down the river by preachers offering health and riches and cars and televisions and satisfaction with so much of life here on earth instead of preaching, simply, that in Jesus there is something better. Where is the holy dissatisfaction with this earth? Where is the longing and groaning for a better resurrection in Christ? Where is the despising of flesh and the longing for Christ? Where are the fervent prayers for Christ to hasten his return? Where is the conviction that Christ is Better and the living out of such a conviction? And those who have rejected Christ out of hand are missing out too, but I don’t have time to document their misery. It’s bad enough documenting the misery of the church.
Jesus is not just something better. He is Someone Better. I can’t get that out of my head. Of all that there is, Jesus is Better. Why isn’t the church convinced of this?
I hope your 7th Day of 90 with Jesus is blessed by your reading of His Word.
jerry
1On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” 4″Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied, “My time has not yet come.” 5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. 8Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, 9and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” 11This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.
When I was in college, I took a semester long class on the book of Acts. As part of the semester’s requirements, I had to produce 10 sermon outlines from the book of Acts. Recently, the church secretary was sorting through some of my files and one day, when she wasn’t looking, I snuck a couple of them out of the pile. One of the files I took out contained some old term papers I had written, all 4.0’s I might add, and also those old outlines that I produced for Acts class. My outlines were really bad and I think my professor was being generous when he marked a couple of them with 4’s. One of the 4’s that I received was on Acts 3:1-10. I wrote a pretty good outline, I thought at the time. The points were well made. I followed the flow of the text in the chapter. I thought I had done well until I saw, to the left of the 4.0, my professor’s rather lengthy paragraph written in stunning, glaring, red ink. He wrote:
I’m not sure our asking in prayer is really parallel to the lame man asking for money and receiving something better, but you have done a good job of expanding on a slightly shaky foundation.
Again, a generous 4.0 was given. I didn’t deserve the 4.0. I don’t suppose there are too many college sophomores who ever deserve 4.0’s—especially those sophomores who are learning how to ‘rightly divide the word of God.’ Strange though how after all these years it is the first part of his paragraph that stands out most in my mind. Even without the paper I remembered what he wrote: “I’m not sure our asking in prayer is really parallel to the lame man asking for money and receiving something better…” It’s that ‘something better’ that the author of the book of Hebrews argues, over and over again, that we find in Jesus Christ. It is this ‘something better’ that John illustrates by telling us the story of Jesus turning water into the best wine. It is no accident that Jesus chose six stone water jars that the Jews used for ‘ceremonial washing’ to complete his work. It is no accident that the wine was ‘the best wine’. It was no accident that this wine was ‘saved until after the guests had had too much to drink.’ It was no coincidence that after this sign Jesus errected that pointed to his glory that his disciples ‘put their faith in him.’ “The servants, Jesus’ mother, and his disciples knew, but the text mentions only the disciples as those in whom the sign accomplished its purpose: they ‘believed in him.’”—Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 94
I’d like to take time to say about a million things about this particular episode from the life of Jesus, but I stop short because that ‘something better’ keeps sticking in my head. I cannot get it out of my head, my heart, my eyes, my ears. It’s ringing around in my ears, bouncing on the walls of my skull. Jesus is the ‘something better.’ When that lame man was healed by Peter the ‘something better’ he received was Jesus. That wine that the steward took to the master of the banquet served as a metaphor that something better was at hand, something better than the rules & ceremonial washings of the Jews. It was something generous—filled to the brim! It was something abundant—six jars holding 20 to 30 gallons each! The most prophetic line in the text: “You have saved the best till now,” uttered by some wine steward at a wedding banquet. Ironic. It was something better, not the cold, hard, letter of law; but the warm, human, compassionate Jesus.
The book of Hebrews fills out the picture for us. All you have to do is read through the short letter to see how the author continually points out to the reader that Jesus is the something better that the Scripture hints at over and over again. Here’s the list (complete, I believe) of the something better in Hebrews: “Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case—things that accompany salvation” (Hebrews 6:9); “The former regulation is set side because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God” (Hebrews 7:19); “Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant” (Hebrews 7:22) (See also 8:6, 9:23, 10:34, 11:16, 35, 40, 12:24). The author of Hebrews is convinced that in Jesus everything else takes a distant second seat.
However, I must complain. I think the Christians have, by and large, settled for something far less than the something better. I think Christians have been sold down the river by preachers offering health and riches and cars and televisions and satisfaction with so much of life here on earth instead of preaching, simply, that in Jesus there is something better. Where is the holy dissatisfaction with this earth? Where is the longing and groaning for a better resurrection in Christ? Where is the despising of flesh and the longing for Christ? Where are the fervent prayers for Christ to hasten his return? Where is the conviction that Christ is Better and the living out of such a conviction? And those who have rejected Christ out of hand are missing out too, but I don’t have time to document their misery. It’s bad enough documenting the misery of the church.
Jesus is not just something better. He is Someone Better. I can’t get that out of my head. Of all that there is, Jesus is Better. Why isn’t the church convinced of this?
I hope your 7th Day of 90 with Jesus is blessed by your reading of His Word.
jerry
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
90 Days With Jesus, Day 6: John 1:43-51: Where He Leads Me...
John 1:43-51
43The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.” 44Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46″Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip. 47When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” 48″How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 49Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” 50Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.” 51He then added, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
We are again confronted with this man, this Jesus, who simply says, “Follow me.” He doesn’t say where he is going, or what he will be doing, or why he is going there (yet), or how he will get there. In fact, most of it he keeps a mystery. He said later, “You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come” (7:34). Yet Philip not only follows Jesus, but he goes and grabs up one of his buddies who happens to be enjoying an afternoon siesta under a fig tree saying, “We have found (discovered, eureka-ed!) the Messiah, the One Moses wrote about in the Law, the One the Prophets spoke of. Andrew had said to Simon, “We have found (discovered, eureka-ed!) the Messiah!” I sometimes wish evangelism were so easy! Then again, perhaps we try to make it far more difficult than it has to be. Perhaps it is as simple as saying, “Guess who I have discovered?”
Whatever else may be learned here, one thing I do know is this: Philip does not go to Nathanael unarmed. He went steeped in Scripture: Law and Prophets were on his mind and he knew who he was looking for because he knew who was written of (Philip recognized Jesus because he recognized Scripture). When he met the one who conformed to Scripture he knew he was on to Someone. Here’s another key point. People often say things like, “I can’t witness because I don’t know enough.” I say that is, well, junk. The only way, theologically speaking, to get to know Jesus is by spending considerable time in His Word. Philip made these deductions based on his reading of the Old Testament. How much more then should we be able to make the same deductions after reading the New Testament? Our problem is that too much fluff is spewed out of pulpits in the Church today. There is simply not enough (any?) thorough, biblical, theological exposition of Scripture taking place in American church pulpits. Is it because preachers cannot do so or will not do so? I suspect it is probably both. After all, we’d rather have a crowd listen to fluff than no one listen to Scripture. Right? Our problem is that we figure we can avoid testimony for Christ by avoiding the Scripture; so it collects dust on a shelf. But in truth, Scripture will not be avoided and if the church, the people who are the Body of Christ, does not return to Scripture I fear the church will be lost or destroyed. I hope it is not too late.
Nathanael is no dummy though: “I’ve heard about those ruffians from Nazareth. Brutes they are. Can anything good come out of there I wonder?” And all Philip says is the same thing John the baptizer said, “Come and behold!” So Nathanael goes and a dialogue takes place between Jesus and Nathanael after which Nathanael proclaims, “You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel!” All of this because Jesus knew where Nathanael took a nap each day! But then, who’s to say that Philip, steeped in Scripture as he was, did not take time to open Scripture to Nathanael on their way to follow Jesus? Nathanael makes a profound confession of Jesus to go along with John’s “Behold the Lamb of God, Andrew’s, “We have found the Messiah,” and Philip’s, “We have found the One Moses wrote about in the Law…” Now we also have, “You are the Son of God; the King of Israel!” These four appellations paint for us a comprehensive picture of this person who keeps on saying, “Follow Me.” When Jesus finally speaks he refers to himself as “Son of Man.” Yet another dimension of Jesus’ person; and all terms that are rich with Biblical imagery and meaning. I dare say that if one is not sufficiently immersed and submerged in the Scripture of the Old Testament these titles, names, and identifying markers might lose a bit of their meaning; most of it.
Again I think you have to know your Old Testament to make sense of Jesus’ words about angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. In short, they will not ascend and descend on a ladder or stairway as they did in Genesis 28, where we read of Jacob’s dream, but on Jesus. In other words, Jesus would be the bridge, or stairway, or ladder that bridges the gap between here and there. Or, better, Jesus himself is the Way between here and there. Jesus has replaced the ladder; Jesus is the ladder. There is no other way for angels, or men. Jesus has replaced the ladder. Jesus describes this, seeing angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man, as one of the ‘greater things’ that Nathanael will see. This is a bold statement; a radical pronouncement. This is simply off the hook. All of this, keep in mind, after Jesus said, “Follow me.” Who could resist? Who would be foolish enough?
Eugene Peterson’s book The Jesus Wayspeaks near the end about ‘other ways’ of following in this world or ‘other ways’ of achieving something in this world; other ways of achieving the goal or prize–ways out of sync with the Jesus Way. He speaks of the way of Herod, and Josephus and Caiaphas, men who embodied ways that would not cause a person or an angel to ascend to heaven. They were, by the world’s standards, massive success stories. By Jesus’ standards they were complete failures who led people exactly nowhere and Peterson assures us that we are fools if we do not dismiss these ways, these alternatives, as paths to hell. Peterson writes, “What stands out as we consider all these dismissed options is that following Jesus is a unique way of life. It is like nothing else. There is nothing and no one comparable. Follow Jesus gets us little or nothing of what we commonly think we need or want or hope for. Following Jesus accomplishes nothing on the world’s agenda. Following Jesus takes us right out of this world’s assumptions and goals to a place where a lever can be inserted that turns the world upside down and inside out. Following Jesus has everything to do with this world, but almost nothing in common with this world” (E Peterson, The Jesus Way, 270). This is what we are getting into when we follow Jesus. We will see great things, no doubt. But we must also be quite prepared to leave this world behind. No wonder one of the first teachings of Jesus in this book is a story about leaving this place and going to that place—and, better, the Only Way to do it: Through Himself.
So, who can resist? Who would be foolish enough?
43The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.” 44Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46″Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip. 47When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” 48″How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 49Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” 50Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.” 51He then added, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
We are again confronted with this man, this Jesus, who simply says, “Follow me.” He doesn’t say where he is going, or what he will be doing, or why he is going there (yet), or how he will get there. In fact, most of it he keeps a mystery. He said later, “You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come” (7:34). Yet Philip not only follows Jesus, but he goes and grabs up one of his buddies who happens to be enjoying an afternoon siesta under a fig tree saying, “We have found (discovered, eureka-ed!) the Messiah, the One Moses wrote about in the Law, the One the Prophets spoke of. Andrew had said to Simon, “We have found (discovered, eureka-ed!) the Messiah!” I sometimes wish evangelism were so easy! Then again, perhaps we try to make it far more difficult than it has to be. Perhaps it is as simple as saying, “Guess who I have discovered?”
Whatever else may be learned here, one thing I do know is this: Philip does not go to Nathanael unarmed. He went steeped in Scripture: Law and Prophets were on his mind and he knew who he was looking for because he knew who was written of (Philip recognized Jesus because he recognized Scripture). When he met the one who conformed to Scripture he knew he was on to Someone. Here’s another key point. People often say things like, “I can’t witness because I don’t know enough.” I say that is, well, junk. The only way, theologically speaking, to get to know Jesus is by spending considerable time in His Word. Philip made these deductions based on his reading of the Old Testament. How much more then should we be able to make the same deductions after reading the New Testament? Our problem is that too much fluff is spewed out of pulpits in the Church today. There is simply not enough (any?) thorough, biblical, theological exposition of Scripture taking place in American church pulpits. Is it because preachers cannot do so or will not do so? I suspect it is probably both. After all, we’d rather have a crowd listen to fluff than no one listen to Scripture. Right? Our problem is that we figure we can avoid testimony for Christ by avoiding the Scripture; so it collects dust on a shelf. But in truth, Scripture will not be avoided and if the church, the people who are the Body of Christ, does not return to Scripture I fear the church will be lost or destroyed. I hope it is not too late.
Nathanael is no dummy though: “I’ve heard about those ruffians from Nazareth. Brutes they are. Can anything good come out of there I wonder?” And all Philip says is the same thing John the baptizer said, “Come and behold!” So Nathanael goes and a dialogue takes place between Jesus and Nathanael after which Nathanael proclaims, “You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel!” All of this because Jesus knew where Nathanael took a nap each day! But then, who’s to say that Philip, steeped in Scripture as he was, did not take time to open Scripture to Nathanael on their way to follow Jesus? Nathanael makes a profound confession of Jesus to go along with John’s “Behold the Lamb of God, Andrew’s, “We have found the Messiah,” and Philip’s, “We have found the One Moses wrote about in the Law…” Now we also have, “You are the Son of God; the King of Israel!” These four appellations paint for us a comprehensive picture of this person who keeps on saying, “Follow Me.” When Jesus finally speaks he refers to himself as “Son of Man.” Yet another dimension of Jesus’ person; and all terms that are rich with Biblical imagery and meaning. I dare say that if one is not sufficiently immersed and submerged in the Scripture of the Old Testament these titles, names, and identifying markers might lose a bit of their meaning; most of it.
Again I think you have to know your Old Testament to make sense of Jesus’ words about angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. In short, they will not ascend and descend on a ladder or stairway as they did in Genesis 28, where we read of Jacob’s dream, but on Jesus. In other words, Jesus would be the bridge, or stairway, or ladder that bridges the gap between here and there. Or, better, Jesus himself is the Way between here and there. Jesus has replaced the ladder; Jesus is the ladder. There is no other way for angels, or men. Jesus has replaced the ladder. Jesus describes this, seeing angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man, as one of the ‘greater things’ that Nathanael will see. This is a bold statement; a radical pronouncement. This is simply off the hook. All of this, keep in mind, after Jesus said, “Follow me.” Who could resist? Who would be foolish enough?
Eugene Peterson’s book The Jesus Wayspeaks near the end about ‘other ways’ of following in this world or ‘other ways’ of achieving something in this world; other ways of achieving the goal or prize–ways out of sync with the Jesus Way. He speaks of the way of Herod, and Josephus and Caiaphas, men who embodied ways that would not cause a person or an angel to ascend to heaven. They were, by the world’s standards, massive success stories. By Jesus’ standards they were complete failures who led people exactly nowhere and Peterson assures us that we are fools if we do not dismiss these ways, these alternatives, as paths to hell. Peterson writes, “What stands out as we consider all these dismissed options is that following Jesus is a unique way of life. It is like nothing else. There is nothing and no one comparable. Follow Jesus gets us little or nothing of what we commonly think we need or want or hope for. Following Jesus accomplishes nothing on the world’s agenda. Following Jesus takes us right out of this world’s assumptions and goals to a place where a lever can be inserted that turns the world upside down and inside out. Following Jesus has everything to do with this world, but almost nothing in common with this world” (E Peterson, The Jesus Way, 270). This is what we are getting into when we follow Jesus. We will see great things, no doubt. But we must also be quite prepared to leave this world behind. No wonder one of the first teachings of Jesus in this book is a story about leaving this place and going to that place—and, better, the Only Way to do it: Through Himself.
So, who can resist? Who would be foolish enough?
God's Love for Us in Christ
"Whenever we gaze at the cross, we ought to be constrained to say, 'Does He love me more than He loves Him? That he would give Him for me?"--C. H. Spurgeon, as quoted in J Ligon Duncan III, Only One Way?, footnote, p 125
Tis something for you to think about today.
jerry
Tis something for you to think about today.
jerry
Monday, June 04, 2007
Fed Up with Your Church?
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55990
Think you got it bad here in America? Think your church stinks? Think you're not getting anything out of the worship on Sundays? Read this article.
"Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering"--Hebrews 13:3 NIV
jerry
Think you got it bad here in America? Think your church stinks? Think you're not getting anything out of the worship on Sundays? Read this article.
"Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering"--Hebrews 13:3 NIV
jerry
90 Days with Jesus, Day 5: John 1:35-42…Following Jesus
John 1:35-42
“The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” 37When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39″Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour. 40Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). 42And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter).”
I picture John shouting these words: “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” I sort of imagine that he was on the lookout, waiting, watching, keeping one eye on the crowd and one eye searching the crowd—and then it happened; He appeared. John ‘saw Jesus passing by.’ “Behold! I’m trying to get your attention! There is someone you just have to see! You cannot not take a look, a long gaze, a mesmerizing stare! Behold! Examine! Contemplate!” John’s disciples would later repeat these words. Philip went to Nathanael and said, “Come and See.” He uses the same Greek that John did: “Behold!” “Come and behold!” The author to the Hebrews would say something very similar: “Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of your faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” The message is always the same: Stay fixed on Jesus.
John has twice pointed out Jesus to the gathered crowd. Both times he has said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” I did a quick Internet search for the moniker ‘Lamb of God.’ I did not turn up one hit for the One named Jesus. I did, however, turn up an entire page of links to a group of musicians known by the same. They, unfortunately, have nothing to do with Jesus except to mock him. They are nothing worth paying any attention to. They are not worth beholding. They are not worth spending the day with. They are not worth concerning yourself where they are staying. Jesus was and that is what I noticed about these verses here.
John pointed to Jesus and said, “Look!” Then some of John’s disciples followed Jesus. Then they wanted to know where he was staying and when they found out they stayed with him an entire day. Next one of these men, Andrew, went and found his brother and bade him to come and meet Jesus also. Andrew makes what is one of the first open confessions, aside from the baptizer, about the identity of Jesus. “We have found!” “We have discovered!” Notice also that this newly discovered information was information that had to be shared with someone else. This was not something to keep to oneself.
There is another thought concerning this dawning, this awakening, this eye-opening revelation that overwhelmed Andrew. I notice that he came to this conclusion quite apart from any sort of displays of power, or miracles, or even teaching. Maybe I’m being too simplistic about this, but what actually caused Andrew to come to such a conclusion and make such a pronouncement? What took place during that day he spent with Jesus that caused him to conclude that Jesus was in fact the Messiah, the Christ? Was it something John said? But all John said was, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” (The only other things John had said were, “I am not the Messiah.”) Or was it something in Jesus’ words, “What do you want? Come, and you will see.” It would be fun to know what Jesus and these two disciples did that day. I’d like to know what compelled Andrew to conclude that this Jesus, with whom he had spent one day or so, about whom he had heard a couple really short sermons, was in fact the hoped for Messiah. It would not always be like that in John’s Gospel. Sadly, it is not nearly at all like that in our day.
Maybe it’s not tough at all. Maybe it was just a matter of spending a day with Jesus. And this is to say nothing of Peter who, evidently, had never even heard John say “Behold the Lamb of God!” Peter, evidently, took Andrew at his word and went to Jesus where from that day forward his life was altered. (Was he so persuaded because of Andrew’s conviction?) What shall we say then? That when we spend time with Jesus we will undoubtedly come to such a conclusion? That when we ourselves are convinced of who Jesus is we will make a beeline to someone we know and love and tell them the news? That we, having more information should be as convinced and convincing as Andrew was to Peter? Or, maybe we should ask, how Andrew could be so confident with so little information and we so unconvinced with so much information?
There is one last thing: It was Jesus who, from the get go, was the leader. “When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. And, they spent the day with him. And, ‘Andrew…was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.’ And Andrew brought his brother to Jesus. And they wanted to know where Jesus was staying. In other words, from the start, these men followed Jesus, spent the day with him, went to him, share him with others, told others about him. From the start, it was about where Jesus was. Eugene Peterson writes, “North American Christians are conspicuous for going along with whatever the culture decides is charismatic, successful, influential—whatever gets things done, whatever can gather a crowd of followers—hardly noticing that these ways and means are at odds with the clearly marked way that Jesus walked and called us to follow. Doesn’t anybody notice that the ways and means taken up, often enthusiastically, are blasphemously at odds with the way Jesus leads his followers? Why doesn’t anybody notice?” (The Jesus Way, 8 ) From that day forward they followed Jesus. Would that this were true of all of us: Stay fixed on Jesus.
“The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” 37When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39″Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour. 40Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). 42And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter).”
I picture John shouting these words: “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” I sort of imagine that he was on the lookout, waiting, watching, keeping one eye on the crowd and one eye searching the crowd—and then it happened; He appeared. John ‘saw Jesus passing by.’ “Behold! I’m trying to get your attention! There is someone you just have to see! You cannot not take a look, a long gaze, a mesmerizing stare! Behold! Examine! Contemplate!” John’s disciples would later repeat these words. Philip went to Nathanael and said, “Come and See.” He uses the same Greek that John did: “Behold!” “Come and behold!” The author to the Hebrews would say something very similar: “Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of your faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” The message is always the same: Stay fixed on Jesus.
John has twice pointed out Jesus to the gathered crowd. Both times he has said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” I did a quick Internet search for the moniker ‘Lamb of God.’ I did not turn up one hit for the One named Jesus. I did, however, turn up an entire page of links to a group of musicians known by the same. They, unfortunately, have nothing to do with Jesus except to mock him. They are nothing worth paying any attention to. They are not worth beholding. They are not worth spending the day with. They are not worth concerning yourself where they are staying. Jesus was and that is what I noticed about these verses here.
John pointed to Jesus and said, “Look!” Then some of John’s disciples followed Jesus. Then they wanted to know where he was staying and when they found out they stayed with him an entire day. Next one of these men, Andrew, went and found his brother and bade him to come and meet Jesus also. Andrew makes what is one of the first open confessions, aside from the baptizer, about the identity of Jesus. “We have found!” “We have discovered!” Notice also that this newly discovered information was information that had to be shared with someone else. This was not something to keep to oneself.
There is another thought concerning this dawning, this awakening, this eye-opening revelation that overwhelmed Andrew. I notice that he came to this conclusion quite apart from any sort of displays of power, or miracles, or even teaching. Maybe I’m being too simplistic about this, but what actually caused Andrew to come to such a conclusion and make such a pronouncement? What took place during that day he spent with Jesus that caused him to conclude that Jesus was in fact the Messiah, the Christ? Was it something John said? But all John said was, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” (The only other things John had said were, “I am not the Messiah.”) Or was it something in Jesus’ words, “What do you want? Come, and you will see.” It would be fun to know what Jesus and these two disciples did that day. I’d like to know what compelled Andrew to conclude that this Jesus, with whom he had spent one day or so, about whom he had heard a couple really short sermons, was in fact the hoped for Messiah. It would not always be like that in John’s Gospel. Sadly, it is not nearly at all like that in our day.
Maybe it’s not tough at all. Maybe it was just a matter of spending a day with Jesus. And this is to say nothing of Peter who, evidently, had never even heard John say “Behold the Lamb of God!” Peter, evidently, took Andrew at his word and went to Jesus where from that day forward his life was altered. (Was he so persuaded because of Andrew’s conviction?) What shall we say then? That when we spend time with Jesus we will undoubtedly come to such a conclusion? That when we ourselves are convinced of who Jesus is we will make a beeline to someone we know and love and tell them the news? That we, having more information should be as convinced and convincing as Andrew was to Peter? Or, maybe we should ask, how Andrew could be so confident with so little information and we so unconvinced with so much information?
There is one last thing: It was Jesus who, from the get go, was the leader. “When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. And, they spent the day with him. And, ‘Andrew…was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.’ And Andrew brought his brother to Jesus. And they wanted to know where Jesus was staying. In other words, from the start, these men followed Jesus, spent the day with him, went to him, share him with others, told others about him. From the start, it was about where Jesus was. Eugene Peterson writes, “North American Christians are conspicuous for going along with whatever the culture decides is charismatic, successful, influential—whatever gets things done, whatever can gather a crowd of followers—hardly noticing that these ways and means are at odds with the clearly marked way that Jesus walked and called us to follow. Doesn’t anybody notice that the ways and means taken up, often enthusiastically, are blasphemously at odds with the way Jesus leads his followers? Why doesn’t anybody notice?” (The Jesus Way, 8 ) From that day forward they followed Jesus. Would that this were true of all of us: Stay fixed on Jesus.
90 Days with Jesus, Day 4: John 1:29-34: Behold the Lamb
John 1:29-34
29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' 31I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel." 32Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' 34I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."
The word ‘behold’ is of singular importance in these verses. It is a word of urgency, importance, and direction. John saw Jesus coming towards him and he said, “Behold!” It is hard to mistake what was going on: He pointed to Jesus. But he did not leave his preaching (‘Look’) without interpretation. If he told the people around to ‘look’ he always told them what they were looking at: ‘The Lamb of God.’ However, that is still not enough. He did not leave ‘Lamb of God’ without interpretation either: ‘Who takes away the sin of the world!’ Now, if we misunderstood why we were looking at Jesus, and if we misunderstood what John meant when he referred to Jesus as the Lamb of God, there is no misunderstanding what John meant by ‘takes away the sin of the world.’ The only question we might be left with is: How will he do that? But even the word ‘lamb’ gives those baptized in scripture insight into his meaning.
This is also the first time Jesus has been publicly identified in John’s Gospel. We have heard other words about Him. He is the Word. He was with God and so on. But one day Jesus went for a walk and when John saw him he did not hold back his guns but fired the opening salvo to anyone listening: ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’ Ironically, or perhaps not, Jesus does nothing to dissuade John from this idea. People came to John and plied him with many questions about his own identity; and he denied every title or identity people tried to label him with. John says this about Jesus and we hear not a word from Jesus in denial. So the first time anyone says anything publicly about Jesus in this Gospel we hear about who he is (Jesus), what he is (Lamb of God), and what He will do (take away the sins of the world). This is His primary objective, above and beyond anything else, before anything else, instead of anything else: He is the Lamb of God.
Well this certainly defines the problem of the world: Sin. He did not come down to solve the world’s economic crises, or to elect politicians, or to solve poverty, or sickness, or marital problems, or anything of the sort. Jesus, the Lamb of God, came to deal with sin. PT Forsyth brilliantly wrote, “He so spared not His Son as with Him to give us all things. The true theology of the Cross and its atonement is the solution of the world” (The Justification of God, 122). He came once as the Lamb to deal with sin. Will he be so meek and gentle the second time coming? Or will He come as the Lion? Jesus, the Lamb of God, came to deal with sin. John points that out when he makes his first public announcement about Jesus. The world should have known, but they were blind. They welcome John who baptized in water, but not Jesus who baptized in fire. Jesus, in my estimation, is used for too many things in this world and in His Church. I think when his prophets properly point out that Jesus came to deal with sin we will make great strides in this world and among the lost.
The reason we don’t point to this Jesus, the Lamb of God Jesus who deals with sin, is because in the church we have not sufficiently defined the terms. We have believed that sin can be dealt with therapeutically and not at the cross. David Wells has many important thoughts on this very issue. I’ll share but a couple. He criticizes those who hold the opinion that sin can be ‘domesticated’ and that this domesticated sin can be cleared up by showing more concern for ‘technique [as in marketing strategies] than with repentance, and that neighborhood surveys are more crucial than the Word of God for securing the church’s spiritual growth’ (God in the Wasteland, 81-82). He writes: “Christ’s gospel calls sinners to surrender their self-centeredness, to stop granting sovereignty to their own needs and recognize his claim of sovereignty over their lives. This is the reversal, the transposition of loyalties that is entailed in all genuine Christian believing” (God in the Wasteland, 82). Many times, nowadays, the church has surrendered moral authority because it will not peach the cross. The gospel preaching that takes place in many churches now is described by one as a gospel ‘consisting of a God without wrath bringing a people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross.’ (H. Richard Niebuhr as quoted by Wells, God in the Wasteland, 82). This has to change or the church will die. Sin is not something we can fix by watching Dr. Phil, listening to stories about our purpose in life, or listening to motivational speakers who are disguised as Christian evangelists. Sin can only be dealt with in the cross. It is this cross we must preach.
Jesus came to earth willing, ready, able and only to deal with sin. It is the church that has changed this mission and this message. The church needs to get back into the business of preaching the Jesus who came to deal with sin. The church needs to get back to the business of preaching a cross centered Gospel. The church needs to properly expound on the doctrine of atonement—a doctrine seen fully alive in the Old Testament books and literally fleshed out in the New Testament books; in Christ. Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He is our message. He is the direction we point because there is no other direction we can point. Sin is taken away in no other place, in no other person. Jesus only is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Jesus only is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' 31I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel." 32Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' 34I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."
The word ‘behold’ is of singular importance in these verses. It is a word of urgency, importance, and direction. John saw Jesus coming towards him and he said, “Behold!” It is hard to mistake what was going on: He pointed to Jesus. But he did not leave his preaching (‘Look’) without interpretation. If he told the people around to ‘look’ he always told them what they were looking at: ‘The Lamb of God.’ However, that is still not enough. He did not leave ‘Lamb of God’ without interpretation either: ‘Who takes away the sin of the world!’ Now, if we misunderstood why we were looking at Jesus, and if we misunderstood what John meant when he referred to Jesus as the Lamb of God, there is no misunderstanding what John meant by ‘takes away the sin of the world.’ The only question we might be left with is: How will he do that? But even the word ‘lamb’ gives those baptized in scripture insight into his meaning.
This is also the first time Jesus has been publicly identified in John’s Gospel. We have heard other words about Him. He is the Word. He was with God and so on. But one day Jesus went for a walk and when John saw him he did not hold back his guns but fired the opening salvo to anyone listening: ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’ Ironically, or perhaps not, Jesus does nothing to dissuade John from this idea. People came to John and plied him with many questions about his own identity; and he denied every title or identity people tried to label him with. John says this about Jesus and we hear not a word from Jesus in denial. So the first time anyone says anything publicly about Jesus in this Gospel we hear about who he is (Jesus), what he is (Lamb of God), and what He will do (take away the sins of the world). This is His primary objective, above and beyond anything else, before anything else, instead of anything else: He is the Lamb of God.
Well this certainly defines the problem of the world: Sin. He did not come down to solve the world’s economic crises, or to elect politicians, or to solve poverty, or sickness, or marital problems, or anything of the sort. Jesus, the Lamb of God, came to deal with sin. PT Forsyth brilliantly wrote, “He so spared not His Son as with Him to give us all things. The true theology of the Cross and its atonement is the solution of the world” (The Justification of God, 122). He came once as the Lamb to deal with sin. Will he be so meek and gentle the second time coming? Or will He come as the Lion? Jesus, the Lamb of God, came to deal with sin. John points that out when he makes his first public announcement about Jesus. The world should have known, but they were blind. They welcome John who baptized in water, but not Jesus who baptized in fire. Jesus, in my estimation, is used for too many things in this world and in His Church. I think when his prophets properly point out that Jesus came to deal with sin we will make great strides in this world and among the lost.
The reason we don’t point to this Jesus, the Lamb of God Jesus who deals with sin, is because in the church we have not sufficiently defined the terms. We have believed that sin can be dealt with therapeutically and not at the cross. David Wells has many important thoughts on this very issue. I’ll share but a couple. He criticizes those who hold the opinion that sin can be ‘domesticated’ and that this domesticated sin can be cleared up by showing more concern for ‘technique [as in marketing strategies] than with repentance, and that neighborhood surveys are more crucial than the Word of God for securing the church’s spiritual growth’ (God in the Wasteland, 81-82). He writes: “Christ’s gospel calls sinners to surrender their self-centeredness, to stop granting sovereignty to their own needs and recognize his claim of sovereignty over their lives. This is the reversal, the transposition of loyalties that is entailed in all genuine Christian believing” (God in the Wasteland, 82). Many times, nowadays, the church has surrendered moral authority because it will not peach the cross. The gospel preaching that takes place in many churches now is described by one as a gospel ‘consisting of a God without wrath bringing a people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross.’ (H. Richard Niebuhr as quoted by Wells, God in the Wasteland, 82). This has to change or the church will die. Sin is not something we can fix by watching Dr. Phil, listening to stories about our purpose in life, or listening to motivational speakers who are disguised as Christian evangelists. Sin can only be dealt with in the cross. It is this cross we must preach.
Jesus came to earth willing, ready, able and only to deal with sin. It is the church that has changed this mission and this message. The church needs to get back into the business of preaching the Jesus who came to deal with sin. The church needs to get back to the business of preaching a cross centered Gospel. The church needs to properly expound on the doctrine of atonement—a doctrine seen fully alive in the Old Testament books and literally fleshed out in the New Testament books; in Christ. Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He is our message. He is the direction we point because there is no other direction we can point. Sin is taken away in no other place, in no other person. Jesus only is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Jesus only is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
In the Beginning: A Bonus Meditation on John 1
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world." (John 1:1-9 NIV)"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1 NIV)I'm warming up. The spring is upon us. The sky has been clearing and the precipitation getting warmer. I'm anxious for more though. I cannot seem to get enough of that warmth that melts the flesh and thaws the bones. The winter has been long and I have grown tired, tired, tired of the cold, the snow, the ice and the chill that is set deep in my bones. Throw me like a piece of meat on the counter and let my flesh begin to melt. I'm ready to sizzle and sweat. I'm ready for the taste of summer sweat to linger on my lips. I'm ready for summer, garden dirt to to dry underneath my fingernails. I'm ready for shoeless days and bare-feet ambling in the grass.
Lately I've heard the beginning rumblings of crickets in my backyard. It's a welcome sound that I will cherish all summer long. I wish I could store a small cache of them somewhere in my house during the winter. I know, sadly, they don't sing for me. Yet somehow I am permitted to evesdrop every evening. Their song is so majestic, so grand, so peaceful. We have been having warmer evenings so I have been stealing a listen as often as I can. I don't think they mind. I don't think they even notice.
I like beginnings. In the beginning--sometimes I wish I had been there too, at that beginning--now that had to be an amazing thing. Everything was fresh and new. Everything was clean and abundant. Nothing was broken or corrupted--nothing was on it's way down. It was, in God's own words, Good. I don't suspect that those first people had to endure what we call seasons. I like those Narnian times when the winter begins to thaw, but I have to admit that I am looking forward to the time when the Narnian thaw is permanent. In the beginning was the Word. I'm looking forward to the time when the crickets have no reason to stop singing. The beginning of something new is what I'm looking for and the changing of the season--the days when summer takes over and conquers winter again--is merely a marker of the something better that is coming. It's a foretaste, a glimpse, foreshadowing. It is the perfect literature.
When Jesus came down he marked the beginning of the Narnian thaw. He marked the beginning of what God set in motion the day Adam and Eve sinned--nay, before the foundation of the world! Jesus' arrival marks the beginning and the end at the same time. His arrival announces to one an all: it is time to sing, it is time to thaw, it is time for the crickets to make merry. Someone powerful was breaking in and breaking out.
90 Days with Jesus, Day 3: He was Nobody
John 1:19-28
Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ. ” They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’ “Now some Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
It takes a great deal of courage and restraint to confess to being nobody. John did not say he was a nobody, but that he was nobody. His was a relative comparison. Jesus certainly thought John was somebody. He said, according to Matthew: “I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” That’s high praise, but John took no note of it. He claims no mantle for himself. He claims no identity for himself. He simply says, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert.” How many of us can say with such certainty that we are willing to stand unadorned (voice), alone (one), and without audience (desert) in order to accomplish something for someone else—especially Jesus! John says he was one; how many ‘ones’ of us should there be?
John pointed away from himself. He ‘freely confessed…’ that he was not the Messiah, the Prophet, or Elijah. But clearly he was someone because the people were going to him, questioning him, plying him for answers about his activities. John could have made a show. John could have claimed something for himself. John could have attracted large hordes of disciples to himself. He could have went to Jerusalem or some big city nearby and stood on the temple steps and preached his Gospel. Instead he freely confessed to being nobody in comparison to Someone. Instead, John stood out in the desert and if people came, they came; if they didn’t, they didn’t. It takes a lot of restraint to remain anonymous. It takes a lot of restraint to do bunch of work for someone else to get all the glory. And so John stayed out in the desert, in the wastelands, in the barren, void where he was only a voice blowing on the wind.
John had a testimony but it was not about himself. I think this must be our role also. We point away from ourselves to Jesus just like John did. We can claim no disciples. We can claim no title. Our work is very much like that John: We are preparing the way of the Lord, we are preparing this place for his arrival, we are making straight paths in these deserts where we live. We are make preparations for the day when Messiah will be here, but we certainly make no effort to claim to be Messiah ourselves. Our ambition must always be to point away from ourselves to Him. And when we are brave enough to make ourselves nothing, to be mere voices in desert places, then I think we are doing all we can to exalt Christ. This is clearly John’s point. He will do nothing for himself that might detract from the glory of Jesus. Neither must we.
I hope the 3rd of your 90 Days with Jesus is Blessed!
jerry
Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ. ” They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’ “Now some Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
It takes a great deal of courage and restraint to confess to being nobody. John did not say he was a nobody, but that he was nobody. His was a relative comparison. Jesus certainly thought John was somebody. He said, according to Matthew: “I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” That’s high praise, but John took no note of it. He claims no mantle for himself. He claims no identity for himself. He simply says, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert.” How many of us can say with such certainty that we are willing to stand unadorned (voice), alone (one), and without audience (desert) in order to accomplish something for someone else—especially Jesus! John says he was one; how many ‘ones’ of us should there be?
John pointed away from himself. He ‘freely confessed…’ that he was not the Messiah, the Prophet, or Elijah. But clearly he was someone because the people were going to him, questioning him, plying him for answers about his activities. John could have made a show. John could have claimed something for himself. John could have attracted large hordes of disciples to himself. He could have went to Jerusalem or some big city nearby and stood on the temple steps and preached his Gospel. Instead he freely confessed to being nobody in comparison to Someone. Instead, John stood out in the desert and if people came, they came; if they didn’t, they didn’t. It takes a lot of restraint to remain anonymous. It takes a lot of restraint to do bunch of work for someone else to get all the glory. And so John stayed out in the desert, in the wastelands, in the barren, void where he was only a voice blowing on the wind.
John had a testimony but it was not about himself. I think this must be our role also. We point away from ourselves to Jesus just like John did. We can claim no disciples. We can claim no title. Our work is very much like that John: We are preparing the way of the Lord, we are preparing this place for his arrival, we are making straight paths in these deserts where we live. We are make preparations for the day when Messiah will be here, but we certainly make no effort to claim to be Messiah ourselves. Our ambition must always be to point away from ourselves to Him. And when we are brave enough to make ourselves nothing, to be mere voices in desert places, then I think we are doing all we can to exalt Christ. This is clearly John’s point. He will do nothing for himself that might detract from the glory of Jesus. Neither must we.
I hope the 3rd of your 90 Days with Jesus is Blessed!
jerry
Sermon Remnants, Sunday, June 3, 2007: John 7:1-52
Friends, I promised that parts of the sermon I didn’t get to Sunday morning I would post here. Below is the 2 pages of preliminary notes & observations that I did not include, and also the longer conclusion of the sermon that I did not preach. I’m actually happy that I ended the sermon where I did, although, to be sure, this sixth objection to Jesus should probably be mentioned. So, I do so here.–Jerry
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Now, before I get involved in the objectives I’d like to accomplish today, I’d like to briefly make a couple of observations about John’s Gospel as we have been led to this point in his narrative and as we see continuing to work out in this particular chapter. The first observation I’d like to make concerns his brothers sort of pushing him to make a public appearance. I think this goes back to the point Jesus made to his mother in the second chapter when she wanted him to solve the problem of running out wine at a wedding. He said to her, "Woman, why do you involve me, my time has not yet come." Here he makes very similar statements to his brothers: "For you any time is right; the right time has not yet come for me." In other words, people are not controlled or governed by some greater person or objective are free to do what they want, when they want. Jesus is telling his brothers: My schedule is not controlled by you or anyone here on this earth. My work and my schedule is governed solely by my Father whose work and will I am about.
I talked of this a bit last week when it came to the miracle of the bread. We cannot control Jesus. He has his own time schedule that will not be altered by our cajoling or ambition. We tend to look at things from a particular point of view. We see immediate objectives. We see short term accomplishment. I think that’s what his brothers wanted. "Hey, it’s a festival time, everyone is in Jerusalem, go do some miracles and win them over. That will make you a public figure." I hear in this terrible echoes of the devil standing on top of the temple with Jesus saying, ‘Hurl yourself down so He can command his angels to miraculously save you.’ In other words, ‘Go up to Jerusalem and do something spectacular, avoid the cross, do all you can to win people over without blood.’ But, God, I read, does not have a point of view as much as he has a complete view. God had the entire view in mind. And we have already discussed that Jesus is not coming to earth to be a bread Messiah.
* * * * *
The second observation that I must make is that there is an increasing level of violence that is being exercised against Jesus. He said at the beginning of chapter 7 that he purposely avoided going to a certain area because the Jews there were waiting to kill him—murder him. If you read slowly through John, and carefully, you will notice that the violence continues to increase all throughout the Gospel itself. The people were violently opposed to Jesus, to Jesus’ teaching, to Jesus’ disciples—at one point they even plot to murder someone that Jesus had raised from the dead.
Here in chapter 7 it is not different. He even asks them, ‘Why are you trying to kill me?’ He knows their intentions. He knows what they are about. Of course they deny it. But later someone says, "Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill?" In verse 30, it says they wanted to seize him. In verse 32, they send guards to arrest him. In verse 43, they are divided over him. In verse 44, they want to seize him again. And in verses 46-52, there seems to be a sort of trial of Jesus where he is found guilty of something and he has not even been on trial yet. And this sort of stuff is all throughout John. There’s always someone trying to kill him, or stone him, or seize him, but Jesus is always in control. Still, it matters very little what Jesus says, or what Jesus does, there is always one very clear response from the people who object: Kill him. They go out of their way to kill him, seize him, or whatever, and yet for all the times they try, they only succeed when Jesus determines they will succeed.
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Now, for the extended conclusion:
Well, the guards who were sent to arrest Jesus were thoroughly confounded, profoundly perplexed. What to do? No one ever spoke like this man does. We cannot arrest him. So more objections: He’s just a deceiver, none of the rulers or Pharisees have believed in him—we’re obviously smarter than all of you!—there’s a curse on the mob following him, he’s already guilty without a trial, and then one last thing, "Behold! Look! Nicodemus, you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee!" "Nazareth?! Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" "Come and Behold!" But I think about this one they might actually have been saying something right.You see, the things Jesus was saying and doing could not be attributed to mere human cunning and ability and Jesus never claimed that they did. He said his teaching was not his own. He said he was not doing his own will but the will of the One who sent him. He did miracles. He knew the One they didn’t know. He claimed to be the unique, sufficient way of salvation, the fulfillment of the Scripture, and the one who is hated by the world because he testifies against the world. They are right: No human being is foolish enough to do such things. No mere human is going to say these things, do these things, and divide people in these ways, claim to be God, and the only way to God, unless he were, in fact, the One He claimed to be. Humans would go for the miracle in the temple courts; Jesus goes for secrecy and teaching. Humans want the attention; Jesus claims he’s in it only for the Father’s glory. No, Jesus indeed was nota prophet from Galilee. He was definitely from some place else altogether and the only way to find out where is to believe in Jesus.
Maybe Jesus just was not fancy enough for them. Certainly, if a prophet were worth his salt, he’d be from someplace important, like Jerusalem. "Hey, if you want to be a public figure, go up and reveal yourself in Jerusalem. Show yourself to your disciples. Do your miracles there." No thanks, Jesus said. He came from simple origins, from simply family background, from humble beginnings. Surely this man cannot be the Messiah or even a prophet! He’s from Galilee. We know enough of that place to know that no one sent from God comes from such a place.
* * * * *
Jesus has been on trial. People objected to everything he said and did, but we find that actually it is we who have been on trial. All the objections people have are thrown back to us as if to say: Here’s your answer, now what will you do with Jesus? Do you object because he tells you that you are evil and in need of outside intervention to fix you? Do you object because his teaching is from God and about God things and not about hair things or therapy things? Do you object because he points out your hypocrisy while remaining sinless himself? Do you object, still, because he says that everything you ever knew or believed about God must be rethought through him? Do you object because he says He is the only way to salvation, to God? Do you object to Jesus because he’s from a small, backwater, town and not from the big city of Jerusalem, that he does things in secret and not for show and public consumption? Do you object that he won’t be your miracle worker when you want your miracle? Do you object because you know where he’s from and the element of mystery has been removed?
Just what objections do you have about Jesus? Your objections are on trial too. And the gospel is proclaimed so that your objections may be overcome or that they may overcome you. But either way, Jesus will be exalted and glorified. Surely this prophet did not come merely from earth; surely this is the Prophet sent from God. Surely we must listen to what he is saying and be overcome by his grace.
What choice will you make? There are only two choices given here in these Scriptures. One choice is to intensify your hatred, your violence, and your anger against Jesus. The other choice is to put your faith in Him, the only one who can satisfy your thirst. You will either kill him or be killed. You will either die without him or with him. Either way, you have a choice to make—and making no choice is close enough to choosing against him that no choice is not acceptable either. What is your verdict? What you say about Christ will be the most important statement you ever make in this world.
Soli Deo Gloria!
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