Jesus Makes Everything Make Sense

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In the dark, it’s hard to see things clearly. What looks like a monster in your bedroom at night turns out to be only that old rocking chair in the morning.

Jesus is the light of the world, and one of the things he does is shine light into confusing and dark places.

In fact, John wants us to understand that reality itself only makes sense in the light of the Word made flesh. Even the Crucifixion makes sense, in light of the Resurrection.

Where in your life do you need the light of Christ to shine today?

 

Today’s Scripture

John 8:12-30

"Go and Sin No More"

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Jesus’s words to the woman caught in the act of adultery remind me of John 3:17:

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Jesus knows that if the woman persists in sin, it will go badly for her, and his desire is that she would have eternal life.

He wants the same thing for you, which is why he also wants you to turn away from sin and toward him.

What sin can you turn aside from today?

 

Today’s Scripture

John 7:53-8:11

The Pharisees Should Come to Munger on Xmas Eve

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Some quick geographic notes. Galilee is the northern part of Israel; Jerusalem is in Judea, which is separated from the Galilee by Samaria. Bethlehem is a little town near Jerusalem.

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The Old Testament prophets had foretold that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem; Jesus, however, was raised in Nazareth in Galilee, and did much of his ministry there. So, this is why the Pharisees are sure that Jesus can’t be the Messiah—since he’s from Galilee. But, we know what they don’t: that he was raised in Galilee, but born in Bethlehem.

The Pharisees should come to Munger on Christmas Eve, and then they would hear the Christmas story:

2 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while[a] Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. [Luke 2:1-7]

 

Today’s Scripture

John 7:45-52

Rivers of Living Water

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It’s a dramatic scene: on the last day of the Festival of Tabernacles, after keeping a low profile, Jesus stands up in the midst of the crowds in the Temple Courts and shouts:

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” —John 7:37-38

What a beautiful image of life in the Holy Spirit—when he is at work in your life, it feels as if an inexhaustible source of refreshment and joy is flowing through you.

Yes, Lord!

 

Today’s Scripture

John 7:32-44

The Only Way to Know If What Jesus Says Is True

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Jesus says that there is only one way to know if what he says is true:

You just have to do it.

“Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” —John 7:17

We wish it were vice versa, but it isn’t. We wish we could somehow find out if what he says is true before trying to actually do what he says, but that’s not how it works.

Just do it. And then you’ll know.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 7:14-31

Tent Camping in the Bible

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A little background on today’s passage:

When the Lord brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before eventually entering the Promised Land. During that 40 year period, they lived in tents, and at the center of the encampment was the tabernacle, the place where God’s presence manifested itself. (You can read about this in the Book of Exodus.)

As the Lord prepared the people to enter the Promised Land, he gave them a series of laws to guide their national life. One set of laws dealt with religious holidays. The last holiday mentioned was the Festival of Booths or Tabernacles, which was meant to remind the Israelites of their time wandering in the desert:

“‘So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days; the first day is a day of sabbath rest, and the eighth day also is a day of sabbath rest. On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees—and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’”

Leviticus 23:39-43

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Even today, Jews in Jerusalem will move out of their houses and apartments for a week and live in temporary shelters, in observance of The Festival of Tabernacles.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 7:1-13

"Where Would We Go?"

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Somehow we enlightened modern Americans think we’re the only ones who’ve ever been offended by Jesus.

In fact, Jesus has always been offensive.

Now, it’s true that Jesus offends different cultures in different ways. But, it’s very clear that Jesus has been offensive since the very beginning.

(Why else would they have wanted to kill him?)

After Jesus has driven off lots of his followers because of his offensive statements on eating his body and drinking his blood (seriously, he said that!), he turns to the Twelve and asks,

“Are you going to leave, too?”

I love Simon Peter’s response:

“Where would we go?”

What else is there? Where would we go, if we left?

Politics?

Socialism?

Hedonism?

Commercialism?

Career success?

New Age philosophy?

Eastern spirituality?

Where would we go?

Jesus is life. And there’s nothing else.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 6:60-71

Bread of Life

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There are whole libraries to be said about this passage, but I also think the basic meaning is clear:

food and drink are things that become a part of who you are.

When Jesus is saying that he is the bread of life, he is saying that his followers need to incorporate him into every part of their lives.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 6:25-59

Pickled Fish

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Apparently, they were probably pickled fish. The “two small fish” that the boy had? The word John uses here to tell us about the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 is a word that implies that they were probably small, pickled fish, meant to be eaten as a side dish on small barley cakes.

There’s something about that detail that makes the story vividly real to me.

A small boy with two little pickled fish….

I love Andrew’s question, when he presents the five barley loaves and the two small fish to Jesus:

“But what are they among so many"?”

Chances are you feel you don’t have enough today:

  • not enough time;

  • not enough money;

  • not enough influence;

  • not enough love;

  • not enough patience;

  • etc.

In the face of THAT, how is what I have enough?

The answer: even what we have is enough when we give it to the Lord.

What do you need to put in the Lord’s hands today?

 

Today’s Scripture

John 6:1-15

Good Short Summary of John 5

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Andreas Kostenberger has a good summary of John 5, which we finish reading today:

“For John, then, this fourth sign by Jesus [the healing of the lame man] points beyond itself to who Jesus is: the eternal life-giver. Tragically, Jesus’ opponents, in their concern for legal obedience, miss the coming of the one who is life itself; in their concern for the study of the Scriptures, they miss the coming of the one of whom the Scriptures spoke (5:39-40, 45-47); and their discipleship of Moses keeps them from following their Messiah (9:28).”

—Andreas J. Kostenberger, John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament)

 

Today’s Scripture

John 5:31-47

Start Planning Your Sabbath Today

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[Note to my subscribers: As usual, this post went live on my blog at 3:30 AM this morning, but yet again we had some technical difficulties in sending it out via email, which is why you are only just now receiving this. The reason is a good reason: my subscriber number keeps increasing, and so I keep burning through the limits set by the email provider. —AF]

Jesus makes an interesting point when the Jews attack him for healing the lame man on the Sabbath:

“My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”

The practice of ceasing work on the 7th day comes from Genesis 1, where God rests on the 7th day and ceasing from the work of creation. However, the rabbis also acknowledged that Sabbath doesn’t mean that God stops caring for and upholding Creation, and Jesus makes the same point.

There is a sense in which God never takes a day off (since nothing would exist without God’s continued care).

The good news is that we are not God.

How can you start planning today for a true Sabbath day this weekend?

 

Today’s Scripture

John 5:16-30

Do You Actually Want Things to Be Different?

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[Archeologists have excavated the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, where this incident takes place; I’ve been there.]

[Archeologists have excavated the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, where this incident takes place; I’ve been there.]

I’m convinced that many people would rather stay in the pain they know than risk changing the way things are in their lives. Chances are you know someone like this: constant complaint, but never any meaningful change.

I love how Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter when he sees the crippled beggar laying with the others by the Pool of Bethesday in Jerusalem:

“Do you want to get well?”

In other words, Jesus asks him, “Do you actually want things to be different?”

The man’s answer? An excuse:

Well, I’m stuck here and other folks get to the water first and it’s not my fault and blah blah blah.

How many times have I done the same thing? How many times have you? How many times have you listed a litany of excuses while never taking the responsibility to put yourself in a position to change?

Jesus, as usual, cuts through the crap. [Pardon my French.]

“Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

To the man’s credit, he does! His desire to get well meets Jesus’s ability to make him well.

I think that’s how it works: we have to want what God wants for us.

Do you?

 

Today’s Scripture

John 5:1-15

If Jesus Performed a Miracle on Live Television in the Middle of Times Square....

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would it make a difference? Would the world believe?

[Technical difficulties kept this from being mailed out on the normal day and time. My apologies. —AF]

Instead of miracles, John likes to talk about the “signs” that Jesus performs. Why? Because signs point to something else. The miracles that Jesus performed were meant to point to his identity: that of the only Son of God.

If you have the eyes to see, miracles can certainly be signs that point beyond themselves. The problem, however, is that often we prefer to focus on the miracle and not the miracle-worker. We are entertained by the power and miss the point.

Which is precisely what the strange story of the healing of the royal official’s son is about.

John tells us that Jesus knew that a prophet was never welcomed in his hometown, and then precedes to tell us that the Galileans “welcomed him,” which seems like a contradiction. However, Jesus has just come from Samaria, where the Samaritans trust him as the Messiah. What we will see as we read through the rest of John’s Gospel is that the Galileans—Jesus’s own people—are quick to appreciate his miracles but slow to recognize him as Messiah.

This explains why Jesus says what he says after the royal official begs him to come to Capernaum and heal his son: “‘Unless you people see signs and wonders,’ Jesus told him, ‘you will never believe.’"

To his eternal credit, however, the royal official himself decides to take Jesus at his word. He has wanted Jesus (ordered Jesus?) to come and heal his son, but when Jesus says, “Go, your son will live,” he goes.

The boy is healed, of course.

I like what John Calvin has to say about this incident:

“It is also worth noticing that although Christ does not grant his desire, He gives him far more than he asked. For he receives the assurance that his son is even now well. So our heavenly Father often does not comply with our prayers in every detail but goes to work in an unexpected way to help us, so that we may learn not to dictate to Him in anything.”

—John Calvin, as quoted in The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: John

The Point

We tell ourselves that if the Lord would only do this or that, then we would be filled with faith.

But that’s not true, as the Gospel writers tell us over and over again: the miracles were impressive, but they didn’t lead everyone to trust in the Messiah. And this is precisely why Jesus says what he says to the royal official: he knows that signs and wonders can attract a crowd, but they will not necessarily lead that crowd to faith in Christ.

The lesson for us is clear: just as with the royal official, Christ demands that we believe in his word without a sign. And when we do so, two things happen:

  1. We learn that Jesus performs miracles to teach us about himself.

  2. And we learn that he is always trustworthy.

So today, don’t be afraid: just believe.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 4:43-54

Not by Bread Alone

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When the Israelites stood right on the edge of the Promised Land, Moses gave a speech to the younger generation, the ones born in the wilderness and who, unlike their parents, had never known Egyptian slavery. We call this speech Deuteronomy. In it, Moses reminds this wilderness generation of all that the Lord has done for his people, and what they must not forget when the enter the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 8:3 he says:

“He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

This is a really profound insight, namely that we need God more than we need food, and obedience to God must come before even our biological needs.

So, in today’s passage when Jesus says

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”

He is reminding his disciples (and through them, reminding us), that God must be first in our lives, because any other way of living will not ultimately work for us.

A good reminder.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 4:27-42

Thirsty

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In the time of Jesus, Jews considered Samaritans to be half-breeds: Israelites who had intermarried with Gentiles centuries before. And so Samaritans were considered unclean, and they were considered heretics. They read the Torah (the first 5 books of the Old Testament) but rejected everything else in the Hebrew Bible: Psalms, prophets, etc.. Instead of Jerusalem, they believed that the Lord should be worshipped on Mount Gerizim.

Samaria was between 2 Jewish regions: Judea in the south and Galilee in the north.

Samaria was between 2 Jewish regions: Judea in the south and Galilee in the north.

So, Jesus’s interactions with this Samaritan woman are extremely transgressive:

  • She is an unclean foreigner;

  • She is a woman;

  • And she is someone who is currently in an ambiguous moral state (she was divorced or widowed 5 times—presumably through no fault of her own—but the man she is currently with is not her husband).

In spite of all of that—or because of it?—Jesus reaches out directly to her.

Jesus has a way of reaching out to outsiders.

To whom do you need to reach out today?

Do it.

 

Today’s Scripture

He>i

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He must increase, and I must decrease.

There’s a reason John the Baptist is one of the greatest men who ever lived:

He had a specific role to play, and that role was to point people to Jesus. And he did it perfectly.

In his day, John was a sensation in Judea. But, when his purpose was fulfilled, he graciously moved back and let Jesus take center stage.

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
— John the Baptist [John 3:30]

Today, how can you be as excellent in your role as John, and at the same time be as humble?

 

Today’s Scripture

John 3:22-36

Born Again

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Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. He’s a member of the religious establishment, and the conversation he has with Jesus shows just how little the establishment understands about what Jesus is doing.

In Greek, the same word means both “again” and “from above.” Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born from above, and Nicodemus thinks he means born again—he doesn’t get it. Jesus goes on to explain that the new thing that God is doing will require a complete change in a person, a change as drastic as being born all over again. And, Jesus explains, this new way of living is a gift from God—the Spirit of God makes it possible.

To be “born from above” or “born again” is to commit to the Jesus way, and to relearn how to live life in his image. What does that look like? It looks like the kind of life Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 3:1-21

Overturning the Tables

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In the ancient world, a temple was a place where heaven and earth overlapped. And, though the Jews knew that the Lord was not literally confined to the Temple in Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus they certainly saw the Temple as that kind of place: where God dwelt.

But in the day of Jesus the Temple had become a corrupt institution that preyed on the poor and vulnerable and kept the rich and powerful in power. So, Jesus here stages a spectacular protest in which he overturns the tables of the moneylenders and drives out the animals.

Then, he goes even further and implies that his body is now the Temple.

In other words, Jesus is telling those present that heaven and earth meet in him.

John tells us that though his disciples didn’t understand at the time, after the Resurrection they looked back on that moment and it all made sense:

“After 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.”

John 2:22

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Today’s Scripture

John 2:13-22

Water Into Wine

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John gives us a clue to the meaning of this strange story at the end of his account:

“What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”

John 2:11

In John’s Gospel, there aren’t “miracles”; rather, there are “signs.” Each miracle that Jesus does is meant to point to a larger purpose.

So, what is the point of the miracle/sign at Cana, the water into wine?

When the Messiah comes, he will prepare a messianic banquet of abundance. Jesus doesn’t just turn water into wine; he turns lots of water into really good wine.

No matter how high our expectations are, our future life in the Kingdom of God will exceed our expectations.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 2:1-12