Partakers Christian Podcasts

Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 57

Gems in the Gospel of John

Part 57 - John 14:6
the Way, the Truth and the Life

And so we come to what is arguably the greatest of all the I AM statements of Jesus. He said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

We have 2 major problems here. The first is understanding the full force and the wonder of that first three-fold declaration; the second is knowing what to do with the following statement that seems to exclude all but us from access to the true God.

In this study we just consider the statement.

Being a Christian was commonly referred to as following the Way in the book of Acts (9: 2; 19: 9, 23; 22 ; 4; 24 ;14, 22). This is an interesting and important contrast to too much thinking in the present day church where great emphasis is sometimes put on the act of conversion. Starting is always important as is a wedding but in the end it is the marriage, the way in which the act of marriage is worked out over the years, which is far more important. So it is with faith. It is easy to overlook the statements about living well, such as “we will all stand before God’s judgment seat”, which is in Romans chapter 14 and is surrounded by too many comments about living well as Christians to quote. Paul told the folk in the church at Philippi “to work out your salvation”. That he went on to say “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” does not in any way reduce the force of his command.

The well known commentator Don Carson wrote some poetic lines on the subject. Here are some extracts from them:

I am the Way to God: I did not come
To light a path, to blaze a trail, that you
May simply follow in my tracks, pursue
My shadow like a prize that’s cheaply won. …..
My path takes in Gethsemane, the Cross,
And stark rejection draped in agony.
My way to God embraces utmost loss:
Your way to God is not my way, but me. …..

And so it is. When Jesus said ‘I AM the way’ he was reminding the disciples that it was in identity with him that they would get anywhere at all in their search for God and their endeavour to travel the same way as Jesus – which is what occasioned his statement in reply to the question of Thomas (v5). In a few moments he will go on to talk about how this can and will be done through the work of the Holy Spirit within the believer – but that is a topic for an other Gem.

For the moment he goes on to say that this will be done through truth and is the only way to a full and rewarding life.

To quote Carson again:
I am the Truth of God: I do not claim
I merely speak the truth, …..
The Triune God decided that the Word,
The self-expression of the Deity,
Would put on flesh and blood – and thus be heard.
The claim to speak the truth good men applaud.
I claim much more: I am the Truth of God.

The thought is very close to that of Wisdom, the Old Testament expression of the truth of God working in the believer to enable them to live a good and fulfilling life. Which thought takes us on to the third and last quote from Carson:

I am the Resurrection Life. …… I’m the drink
Of life. ….. By my triumph, I deal death to lusts and hates,
My life I now extend to men and women, …..
I’m the Resurrection and the Life.

Here only is full, true, satisfying life: following the Way of Jesus. That is the stunning claim that Jesus makes in these words. Not acceptable in many parts of the world in different ways as we shall see in the next Gem. Here is all the Good News about Jesus and our relationship to him in 9 words, only 5 of them of great significance, the others are but ‘the’ and ‘and’. Think of them often. Treasure them. Build them into your life.

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Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 56

Gems in the Gospel of John

Part 56 - John 14:1-3
Our final destination

Well perhaps not quite the final one – let me explain. But first the verses. Jesus said: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

Jesus is clearly talking about where we are eventually going. He recognizes that the apostles are a very troubled and worried bunch. They had expected a great event in which they would have been the heroes of their nation but, instead, it seems that Jesus actually expects to die and that they will be left in a leaderless state. Leaderless, that is, except for Peter and he doesn’t seem to have shown any great leadership abilities. He has been best at speaking out of turn and saying the wrong thing!

Jesus is now talking about ‘rooms’ or ‘dwelling places’ in his Father’s house, which is clearly in heaven. Sorry, but I don’t find that a very attractive image. It seems to suggest that we will all end up in a small bed-sitting room in some giant residential block like a student’s residence. Perhaps if Jesus had been talking in our 21st century he would have chosen a different picture to tell us what heaven will be like. I don’t know what you think of. My suggestion would be that he would have said something like ‘in my Father’s team there are many vacancies. There will be an active role for each and every one of you playing attack or defence as your abilities may suggest.’ That way we are talking of something active, outside and, above all, in the immediate presence of the team captain, Jesus.

Actually the idea of a near relationship to the Lord is included in the house and rooms image. In John’s Gospel the idea of close proximity with the Lord is sometimes included in the image of somewhere to live (‘he dwelt among us’, ‘building a temple’,’ the gate’). So the ‘place that Jesus will prepare’ is a place that will bring us into close relationship with the Father.

And where is this place? It really isn’t very clearly defined. It sounds as though it is in heaven but the unanimous opinion of the New Testament writers is that our final destination is not heaven but the New Earth. Thus Paul says “the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. … For the creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8: 19, 21) Peter says “we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3: 13) John of Patmos talks about seeing “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. …. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,” (Revelation 21: 1, 2).

All of which is very puzzling. The renewed earth seems in some remarkable way to be involved in our final destination, but so does heaven. One day we shall find out and our puzzles will all be resolved. We just mustn’t get too impatient.

For the moment we simply have to take to heart the clear intention of Jesus for his disciples and therefore for us. However troubled, anxious, frightened, worried or ill we may be we have the sure promise of the Lord that there is a future for us, that Jesus knows what it is even if we don’t, and he has prepared a place for us. Furthermore he will one day return, to us here on earth, or to us wherever we may be in the life after this one and that he will take us to that final destination where we shall be in close relationship to him, our Saviour, and to the Father who originally chose us, called us and acknowledged that we, you and I, are his people.

No one has a greater future than you have – if you are one of the people Jesus recognises as his!

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Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 55

Gems in the Gospel of John

Part 55 - John 13:15

The example of Jesus

Now we come to the statement of Jesus that “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” That is the part of this whole episode of the foot-washing which is most often emphasized. But we must not think of this as a general statement about following his example without considering what he has just said about our relationship with him, explained through the picture of washing.

Peter spoke up asking Jesus not just to wash his feet but his whole body. By doing so he showed that he had completely misunderstood what Jesus was doing. Jesus was not doing anything with water, as water, but using it as a picture of the relationship that the disciples were to have with him. This had been established once and for all in the event pictured by baptism. As we noted in the last study the bond between Jesus and the disciples was to be very tight. In the first few verses of chapter 15, the next chapter but one, he would use the picture of a vine tree and its branches to illustrate what he meant. He would then go on to explain how this was to work through the effect of the Holy Spirit. This event is all about relationship.

Jesus goes on, having said that they had all had a bath – a complete washing - to say that they did not need another one. In fact if they tried to insist on one they would downgrade the significance of the first one entirely. Sadly some branches of the Christian church do just that when they teach about a ‘second blessing’. There is only one blessing of conversion. It comes once; it signals entry into the Kingdom, it includes the once-for-all gift of the Holy Spirit; it cannot be repeated.

Jesus does talk about a need to ‘only wash feet’ (though this phrase is disputed as perhaps being a late addition). If accepted it may well be a reference to the Lord’s Supper. We are to be baptized once, but participate in the Supper many times.

Jesus then goes on to say that he has set them an example that they should copy. Not copy with water but with the depth of their relationships within the people of God, which is a much more difficult thing. Churches, communities of the Lord’s people, are never entirely free of inter personal strife. In fact they often seem to have more than their fair share of it. Because people have committed themselves to something - or rather somebody - very deeply they feel much more concerned than they are with their more superficial attachments. Our everyday work lives are controlled by the amount we are paid for what we do. That is a much less significant bond than our faith commitment. So people will tend to be far more upset if things don’t go the way they think they should go in church than in the office or the workshop. But the people we are with in church are more than work colleagues – they are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Have you ever stopped and looked round your local gathering on a Sunday morning and said to yourself something like, ‘these are the Lord’s people; these are my brothers and sisters; these are the people I am to be in closest relationship to, at least outside my immediate family.’ It can be a sobering thought: that cantankerous old so and so, the woman that has an acid tongue that pulls everyone down, that young fellow who makes a speciality of annoying everybody, etc. Jesus knelt down and washed the feet of people like those – indeed of one who was shortly to betray him and consign him to a cruel death. That was the example he set. “you should do as I have done for you” he said.

It can be hard to walk in the Way of the Lord given the sort of people we may have as family! It is a good job that we have the Holy Spirit, the comforter, the advocate, that Jesus is going to talk about so much in the next 3 chapters, to help us. Thank you, Lord.

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Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 54

Gems in the Gospel of John

Part 54 - John 13:1
Foot washing –Jesus and us

“Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

In this very striking and well-known episode Jesus washes the feet of the disciples. This story says some very significant things about Jesus, and therefore about God, and also gives some very specific instructions to his disciples and the church down through the ages. We will look at the first of these in this study and the second in the next one.

What Jesus did constitutes a visual comment on what Paul said in Philippians 2: 6 – 11, that is:

“Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Jesus came from heaven down to this earth. He existed before he took on human form as a baby in Bethlehem; he was already the Son of God, joint creator of all that is. “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God”. He chose to suppress all those things that were part of his divine nature. So we see in this passage that he did not know that Judas would betray him when he chose him as one of his 12 disciples. It was his ability as a man to read the thoughts and intents of the people round about him that enabled him to see what Judas was going to do.

What Jesus proceeded to do is quite extraordinary. Presumably the evening meal that was in progress was a very private affair; so private that there were no servants present in the room. It was usual for any foot washing, carried out by the lowest ranking servants, to take place before the start of the meal. Feet could get very dirty in the streets of a town in those days.

Try to imagine what the atmosphere was like when Jesus did this. My imagination gives me a picture like this: The disciples would, at first, just be puzzled when Jesus got up and took off his outer tunic and wrapped a towel round his waist. Then he filled a basin with water – what is he going to do they will have been wondering. There will have been shocked surprise and horror when he started to wash the feet of the disciple next to him, probably the beloved disciple. Then the next one, and the next one, until he came to Peter. By then the initial stunned silence will have given way to a general muttering as one disciple after another will have started to whisper to his neighbour, “what on earth is he doing now? Why is he doing that?”

Peter protests: “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” It is all too easy to hurry on to where Jesus says he has set an example for us and to miss the significance of what he has just done. Jesus was the leader, the boss, the captain, the managing director of their threatened revolt against the Roman occupying powers, he was the greatest prophet seen in Jerusalem for hundreds of years, he was God – and he was placing himself with them, or below them, in the social order. It was a very deliberate act clearly equating himself with ordinary human beings.

What an amazing God we have, that places himself so low, so close to us. Jesus made possible the things that Paul says in Romans 6 where we are said to be ‘with him’ 5 times in 5 verses: we were baptized into his death, the death of Jesus, the death of the Messiah, the death of the Son of God; we were buried with him so that as he was raised from the dead we too may live a new life; we are united with him in his death; we are united with him in his resurrection; we died with Christ so we will also live with him. We are in a very special way ‘with him’.

None of that would have been possible had Jesus remained aloof from his disciples, if he had shown all the time that he was a different order of being, that we could not emulate, we could not match in any way. No! Our God, our Jesus, was prepared to lower himself so that we could meet him at about the same level. We, you and I, can talk about how we are part of the body of the Messiah, the Lord of Creation. This is our royal status. WOW and triple WOW!

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Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 53

Gems in the Gospel of John

Part 53 - John 12: 37
End of course exam

Now welcome to the end of term, or rather for all except the 12 disciples, the end of the course and it is time for the report on progress. Those first 12 chapters comprise the course often called the Book of Signs. Starting immediately in the next chapter we move into the Book of Glory. Signs are now finished – except for the last and greatest sign of all, the Cross.

John passes 3 different comments on what has happened. There doesn’t seem to be any unifying idea or theme behind his 3 things that I can see, which annoys me somewhat because I like such things to have a unifying theme. See if you can see one as we work through them.

First: John is not surprised that there has not been a greater reaction, with more people following Jesus. He looks back to the call of Isaiah to ministry and the word from God warning him that he would have a tough time of it because there would be no great positive response to what he would have to say. In fact both Jeremiah and Ezekiel got similar warnings when they received their calls to be prophets. John reckons the same principle applies to the ministry of Jesus even although he has performed many sign-miracles, not all of which have been recorded, of course. The only encouragement John can see in what happened is that many of the senior leaders, by which he presumably means members of the Sanhedrin, Sadducees and Pharisees, have believed even if they have not been prepared to say so openly for fear of exclusion from the synagogue and therefore from all the social life of the Jewish community and their positions of power. John will have been interested in this because many of his own people as he wrote will have been facing the same risk of exclusion.

Second: John is as keen as ever to emphasize the status of Jesus as the God-man. Also he wants to tie this whole book of 12 chapters together in the way that they did in those days by mentioning the theme of light which had so prominent a place in the first few verses of chapter one. There John promised that Jesus would be the light of all mankind. Here, by quoting something Jesus said, he argues that what has happened has fulfilled that promise.

Third: again quoting Jesus, John argues that all that Jesus has said and done is positive. Jesus has not judged people; he has given them a wonderful opportunity to move into the realm of eternal life. Only in rejecting that opportunity have they lost that glorious life possibility. So the judgement has been carried out by the people themselves by their reaction to his message.

Can you see an over-riding theme in those 3 things?

The best I can do is to say the result has not been good. Many people in Galilee and Jerusalem have heard his teaching and seen the sign-miracles he has done but not many have accepted that he is indeed the long awaited Messiah, to be followed and obeyed because he spoke the very words of God.

We have not seen Jesus. We may have witnessed miracles, though they constitute a shaky basis for faith. Much more important is to remember what Jesus is recorded by John as saying in 20: 29, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

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Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 52

Gems in the Gospel of John

Part 52 - John 12: 23
The Glory of the Son

Very soon Jesus will die. So he now says some things about the meaning of his death. He says them in conversation with some people described as Greeks, therefore probably Gentile God worshippers. This is interesting because it is the first place in this Gospel where there is a clear reference to the non-Jewish world.

There is a big problem here. Three main ideas about the meaning of his death have been widely accepted in the World-wide church through the centuries. They are, in ascending order of importance and acceptance: 1) he died to set us an example of consecration and love; 2) in his death he conquered Satan, paying the ransom for all mankind (but not to Satan – the recipient of the ransom is never specified), and established his reign over all the earth; 3) he died as the supreme sacrifice for the sin of all those who would accept him. In fact to some degree all these are true and part of what he accomplished on the Cross, as can be clearly established by reference to different parts of the New Testament. The trouble is that none of them is clearly in view in this Gospel. We do see that he is an example to us, though how far we are able to imitate him is open to question; he does show his ability to overrule the work of the devil in many of the actions he took, but all on a local scale rather than a world wide one; the idea of sacrifice does not appear at all anywhere in John’s story.

What does Jesus himself say here then about his death? There is the striking metaphor of the seed that dies and thus multiplies; there is the challenge to all who would serve him to follow him and in doing so to sit loose to any desire for life in this world in order to concentrate on the better and deeper eternal life of the spirit; there is the remarkable statement that he would draw all people to himself when he was lifted up on the Cross. What happens when we put all those things together and try to arrive at one statement to add to the three above?

I think this: Jesus died to attract to himself a vast number of people, to create a fellowship, which we now call the church. Why he had to die to do that is less than obvious. His death on the Cross has given us this one great symbol: the Cross, towering above and over all subsequent human history, and still going strong. His death has given us him, in that by taking to himself the one inevitable and final act of all humanity, death, he has made himself available to us all. We are now able to walk in step with him – as we have seen several times on our way through this Gospel he allowed a strange collection of very varied people to do just that. So the word ‘reconciliation’ captures much of what has lain behind most of the incidents John recorded. The double phrase ‘restored relationship’ is another possibility to express John’s view of what Jesus achieved. John chose these things from all the many that Jesus said about himself. This is the glory of Jesus.

To remember it clearly let’s stick with that simple phrase ‘walk in step with Jesus’ or even ‘walk hand-in-hand with Jesus’ as our summary of what we have been enabled to do through the death of our Lord on the Cross.

And that comes down to a very simple personal challenge for each one of us.

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Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 51

Gems in the Gospel of John

Part 51 - John 12:12, 16
Jesus enters Jerusalem

The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” … “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”

This is usually called the Triumphal Entry but how much triumph there was in it is a matter for dispute. Perhaps it should rather be called the well-timed entry because Jesus had clearly decided that he wanted to be crucified (WANTED to be CRUCIFIED!!!) on the day of the Passover so he had carefully organized things so that that would happen. The other gospels tell us that he arranged for two disciples, who may or may not have been two of his inner circle, to fetch the donkey and it even sounds as though he had arranged with the owner of the donkey to borrow it without most of his disciples knowing what he had done.

He wanted to be convicted and judiciously murdered. He went about that by doing something that would really upset the Jewish leaders. He may even have made sure there were some people in the crowd to start the chanting of the Psalm and create the general excitement. The Psalm that was used was number 118, where we read, “Lord, save us! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. … With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession.” Just to make matters worse, or better from his point of view, he made sure they added words from Zephaniah 3: 15, “The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you;” thus making sure he fitted in with Zechariah 9: 9 where it says, “See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey”.

So this all appeared to be an open claim to kingship. The crowd were interpreting it as a conquering hero act. We may be sure the Roman authorities and the Jewish leaders, who will have been closely watching what was going on, will have come to the same conclusion. It all looked like the first move in a revolt against the rule of Rome and those Jews who were profiting by the help they gave to the occupying authorities.

The next day Jesus cleared the Temple courts, as John recorded in chapter 2, just to make doubly sure of his death! That is what the Son of the Living God did for us, for you, for me.

Once a year most churches celebrate Palm Sunday (also called Passion Sunday). When we are involved it is important that we grasp the full significance of what is well expressed in the old hymn: “Ride on, ride on, in majesty/In lowly pomp ride on to die.” It is an act of remembrance, but we need to remember not just this moment of apparent triumph, but the deep and lasting triumph that was only achieved through death, the grave and resurrection.

We are told that, “at first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.” So it is with us. We too will not at first grasp much of the significance of what Jesus did for us. Indeed, to a considerable extent we never will be able to get our minds and hearts properly round how the Son of God could die for us, what that means for us, how that should affect our day-to-day living and where we shall end up as a consequence.

But with the gift of the Holy Spirit to help and encourage us we walk on, hand in hand with Jesus. What glory is ours! Hosanna and hosanna and hosanna.

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Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 50

Gems in the Gospel of John

Part 50 - John 12:3
Mary’s worship

Now we come to a quite amazing episode: “Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair.” Amazing because up to this point John has recorded many things that Jesus did and said, nothing about what anybody else did of any consequence. Everything flowed out from Jesus; nothing flowed in to him. It is Mary who breaks through in a spontaneous demonstration of an act of pure loyalty to Jesus. Of the two sisters it is the one who sat at his feet drinking in the words and ideas that he said who carries out this wonderful act of dedication. She is a good example for us - it is only as we spend much time learning from the Master that we will get to the point of true devotion to him, and as we shall see in a moment that is all important.

All four gospels record an anointing of Jesus by a woman. It is likely that this happened on 2 occasions. We have to remember that these are the first written accounts of what must originally have been verbal stories told about Jesus passed on from the people who knew him to the next generation. In this case we have 4 written accounts of what are probably 2 incidents: here, and in Luke 7, Mark 14 and Matthew 26. The one in Luke 7 almost certainly refers to a different occasion because although there are some similarities there are also some considerable differences. But the one recorded here and those in Mark 14 and Matthew 26 in spite of some differences, probably all refer to the same event. The main difference in these accounts is in what was anointed: head or feet. Most probably both head and feet were anointed. The two accounts in Mark and Matthew emphasize that it was Jesus’ head that was anointed thus emphasizing his royal standing as the King of the Kingdom. John emphasizes the anointing of the feet of Jesus as he is more interested in his humility. John has moved the event forward to before the entry into Jerusalem to suit his theological requirements rather than stay with the strict historical order. He is intent on telling us about what Mary did before he tells us about Jesus washing the disciples feet.

John seems to have been always more concerned about the order of meaning of the various passages in his Gospel than the historical order so he puts Mary’s action ahead of the very similar washing of the disciple’s feet by Jesus. We have to ask the obvious question - why? The more obvious and natural thing to do would have been to use the historical order and tell us first about the washing of the disciples feet by Jesus and then to tell us about this anointing by Mary as an act of worship. They are probably in the order they are because it is not the obvious order! The obvious order would have highlighted the act of service carried out by Jesus and therefore as something we should imitate. The unobvious order John actually used throws the emphasis of both events on Jesus. Jesus is the target of the act of worship by Mary and he is the one who carries out the act of humble service in the foot-washing incident. As always John has sought to put Jesus first and make him the focus of each event. The foot washing by Jesus is often taken in both writing and preaching to be mainly an act for imitation, but that was not how John wanted us to see it. He wanted to emphasise Jesus as Lord, and as a very special sort of Lord. We too should always place Jesus first in all our thinking - not to let even the most worthy of considerations, like concern for the poor usurp our prime focus on him. That is why this episode emphasizes the over-riding significance of Jesus above all else.

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to understand what Mary’s motives were. She did not know Jesus would die so soon. She did not know he would die for many years to come. Was it an act of pure worship using what was perhaps the most expensive thing she possessed as a token of homage to him? With so much strong perfume being used some must have got onto his clothes and he would have smelt good right through the ordeals of the following week. That would have been a real encouragement to him.

The basic point in this account is to compare the importance of the worship of Jesus with the importance of caring for the poor. Perhaps rather surprisingly it is the former that is the more important. There are many who would challenge that order of priorities. Yet it is so. When you go overseas to a country that needs much help, both spiritually and practically, it is the evangelicals with their determined focus on the Lord and his Word, just like Mary, who are the active ones in all spheres. The more liberal wing of the church is conspicuous by its absence!

For us it is a great challenge to be always prepared to step out for our Lord in outrageous consecration.

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Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 49

Gems in the Gospel of John

Part 49 - John 11:44
Unbind him and let him go.

The NIV that I have been using adds in extra words in this verse 44 that have no equivalent in the original Greek. I prefer to use the shorter, more accurate and more significant wording of the NRSV, “unbind him and let him go”. Although John was clearly applying the words to the situation in front of Jesus we may see some deeper meanings in what he said. John probably intended that these were to be seen. We can think about how these refer to Lazarus, to Jesus and to us.

Lazarus must have been an amazing sight as he tottered out of the tomb. With his feet bound together and doubtful vision through the bandages round his head he will have had a fair old struggle to make any progress. No doubt he was delighted to find he was back to life with his sisters. In the beginning of the next chapter we find him feasting with Jesus. What an honour! He will have been less pleased to find himself the centre of a large crowd of sightseers shortly after. Then he had to hide away because he heard plans were being made to kill him as well as Jesus just because he was attracting that crowd. And, of course, he still had to die again – poor chap.

When Jesus called him out of the tomb he said, “let him go”. Jesus passed no comment on his spiritual state. He did not say ‘go and sin no more’ or anything similar. We may conclude that all that had happened to Lazarus, his fatal illness, was one of those things that may happen to anybody for no apparent reason. Life seems to be completely chaotic to us. Most of the time we cannot understand why a good and gracious God should allow the things that happen to us. We just have to accept that these are his characteristics and this is the way the world he has given us to live in works.

Much of what happened to Lazarus seems to be a forerunner of what was shortly going to happen to Jesus. But there is also one interesting contrast, which John may well have meant us to see. Lazarus left death behind but not his grave wrappings. When Jesus rose from the dead, not to his old life to continue for a few more years as Lazarus had to do, but to new life, resurrected life, he left his grave clothes behind. John records that when Peter went into the tomb where Jesus had been laid, “He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen”. Jesus had, so to speak, melted out through the grave wrappings. He was still Jesus, recognizably the same yet different. Even those who knew him well struggled to recognize him after his resurrection yet were quite sure it was him. He would eat with his disciples shortly after but he would no longer be in fear of his life. He did not have to hide, as Lazarus did. He was in his resurrected glory.

And then there is the message to us. ‘Unbind him and let him go’ can refer to us too. We have been unbound when we met Jesus just as Lazarus was. Paul uses a clothing image writing to the Colossians. “Put off the old self” he says, strongly suggesting an unclothing. He goes on to say, “clothe yourselves” with various good things. And, as an overcoat, put on love over everything else. And when we have done so at conversion or, pictorially, at baptism we are to return to the world to live our lives in the same place and among the same people as before but differently, as I am sure Lazarus did after his death experience. Jesus will ‘unbind us’ from our former lives of sin and pointlessness and send us on our ways to better and greater things.

What a wonderful story this culminating sign-miracle of John’s Gospel is. Jesus conquered death for himself and for Lazarus – and for us.

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Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 48

Gems in the Gospel of John

Part 48 - John 11:35
Jesus Wept

That is famously the shortest verse in the Bible but it is far from being the easiest to understand. The obvious and ultimately unanswerable question is: why did Jesus cry? The thought of the Son of God, an integral part of God, with tears streaming down his cheeks so much that other people saw them and commented on them is amazing. But so it was. Here in no particular order, each behind a single identifying word, are seven possibilities:

1. Annoyance that Martha, Mary and their friends were making such a fuss;
2. Grief; that people’s ultimate destination is death;
3. Solidarity in his mind with the grief that was going on all around him;
4. Anger at the demonstration of the work of Satan and the power of sin and death in front of him;
5. Beginning of his great conflict with the evil powers rampant in the world;
6. Foreboding at what the death of Lazarus reminded him of – the far worse things that would happen to him in his near future;
7. Strain from the stress and pressure of what he knew lay in front of him;

My first thought was to suggest that you should try to put them in some sort of order from the least to the most significant but, on second thoughts, that is probably too hard to do if you are listening to this and do not have the various words in front of you. The description of his attitude in the immediately preceding verses, “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled” certainly suggests that the trigger was what he saw in the human reactions going on around him. The Greek word for ‘deeply moved’ does not suggest compassion but rather anger.

I would discount the first one on my list: annoyance at the sister’s fuss. I think he would have accepted that as the natural expected reaction in their culture and not a wrong thing to do.

The next two focus on grief; the first grief that death is always the end of human life is less likely than the next. That he was acting in solidarity with those around him is much more likely. He was human and we tend to pick up the attitudes of those around us, particularly if we know them and like them.

The next two, both concerned with the ultimate conflict with evil powers; the first in a general way, the second about the beginning of his role in that conflict must surely have played a part.

The last two both refer to his personal internal reaction to what it must have reminded him of so strongly: his own approaching passion and death. Sometimes men have shown the ability to approach the most appalling deaths with unflinching fortitude, as he was to do, but that is not to say that they have not been severely affected by what was to come even if they succeeded in hiding that from other people. Perhaps we are seeing here just a little bit of what it meant to him to die for us - a beginning of his struggle in the garden when we are told that, “being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”

The writer to the Hebrews gathers together these thoughts when he says, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are” and “he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”

What a wonderful Saviour and Lord we have. Think on these things. Jesus wept!

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