John 6:60-71
Has anyone ever promised you that following Jesus would be easy? Maybe Jesus would fulfill your wildest dreams and make everything in your life go smoothly if you simply asked him into your heart. Though I believe it is true that life with God is the only “life abundantly,” I am also convinced that it can be life’s greatest challenge. Jesus doesn’t promise us ease in life, but he does promise us life. After all, what do we expect becoming disciples of an innocent and executed man?
The early disciples of Christ learned this in dramatic fashion during an extended conversation about the bread of life. Jesus turns the conversation from the topic of eating the bread of life, Him, and receiving eternal life, to eating his flesh and drinking his blood; a shocking and even odd metaphor in any culture. And it isn’t an option.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life...” (vs. 53-54)
At this point, it is only natural to wonder who this guy is. The crowd wonders about his stance on cannibalism, and his disciples are muttering among themselves that this is a hard saying. And it is a hard saying! Into a world full of religious options, this man says he is the only path to salvation. Into a Jewish culture with a well established set of expectations regarding the Messiah, Jesus comes claiming all those rolls and rights, but doesn’t look at all like what they expected. And to cap it all off, apparently, there will be blood.
The Gospels are full of crowds who both follow and reject Jesus. It is not uncommon for a crowd to gather because of the miracles, hear Jesus teach, and then split into groups of devotees, hangers on, and outright enemies. At this point in John 6 something relatively unique happens. John doesn’t remark on the crowd’s rejection of Jesus. It looks more like this:
“When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’....After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” (vs. 60, 66)
His disciples reject him. It looks like it will be too hard to follow him – to go through what it will mean to “eat” his flesh and blood, to associate so closely with Jesus that it will be like he is in them and they are in him. But there is one notable if not surprising exception.
“Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’...” (vs 68)
This is a profound moment of clarity and priority for Peter and the rest who stayed. It is less important that Jesus might be hard to follow. It is less important that he will say and do things that may be hard to accept. It is less important that blood might be shed in following Him. It is more important that Jesus has the words of life.
The disciples who walked away from Christ that day chose what looked like the easier path, but lost life abundantly and life eternal. Peter’s life did not become immediately easy or perfect, but in choosing to follow Christ come what may, he found God’s life.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Knowing God
John 7:1-18
Jesus is a controversial figure. Divisive, even. And I speak of the Jesus of Scripture, of course. The “nice guy” Jesus of our culture is not only uncontroversial, he isn’t even interesting. He wants everyone to get alone, he is OK with other gods, and he loves you just the way you are. But when we come into contact with the Jesus of Scripture he immediately divides the room. And such is the case with the story of John 7. Jesus reenters Jerusalem for another feast of the Jews and even before the people know he is there, they are divided about who he is.
If we put ourselves in the places of the people in Jerusalem trying to figure out who Jesus is, we are presented with a real problem. There are those who say he is a great teacher, those who claim he is a rotten teacher. There are those who go so far as to say he is the Messiah, and those who want to kill him for blasphemy. One way or another, Jesus was not – and is not – a boring figure.
So how are we to decide who Jesus is? Are there better or worse ways to understand who he is? If we put it another way, if our spiritual formation depends on getting Jesus right, how do we get him right? In the course of the conversations in chapter 7, Jesus gives us at least two answers to this question. The first is all about our desires.
“If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” (vs. 17)
If our wills are pointed in the right direction, Jesus promises us that we will come to a deeper and more accurate understanding of God and a more intimate relationship with him. If we can understand our will as something guided by our most powerful desires, if our desires are healthy our relationship with God will become healthier. And we have already seen this truth in action in John’s Gospel. In chapter 5, the Jewish leaders cared more for their Sabbath laws than the healing of a life-long paralytic, so they not only missed Jesus, they decided to kill him. The first story of John 7 involves Jesus’ brothers as mockers and tempters. As such, they completely missed who Jesus truly was. In contrast, after hearing a very difficult conversation about what it would mean to follow Jesus, Peter proclaimed that there was nowhere else for them to go. He would follow Jesus no matter what followed. That decision didn’t make Peter’s life perfect, but it did mean he found Jesus.
The second way is through our glory.
“The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.” (vs. 18)
As our example, the Son of God, the second member of the Trinity, God in flesh, lived for the glory of God and it resulted in the truth of God here on earth. I, a simple and broken human being, am tempted on a regular basis to replace God’s glory with my own. Through my daily life of taking care of people, tasks, and self I become habitually caught up in me and my life. But we learn through Christ that glory is a glimpse into who does and does not see God.
If Christ’s life on earth was lived to the glory of God and he is known because of it, how much more will I see, experience, and reveal that life if I live for the glory of God.
Jesus is a controversial figure. Divisive, even. And I speak of the Jesus of Scripture, of course. The “nice guy” Jesus of our culture is not only uncontroversial, he isn’t even interesting. He wants everyone to get alone, he is OK with other gods, and he loves you just the way you are. But when we come into contact with the Jesus of Scripture he immediately divides the room. And such is the case with the story of John 7. Jesus reenters Jerusalem for another feast of the Jews and even before the people know he is there, they are divided about who he is.
If we put ourselves in the places of the people in Jerusalem trying to figure out who Jesus is, we are presented with a real problem. There are those who say he is a great teacher, those who claim he is a rotten teacher. There are those who go so far as to say he is the Messiah, and those who want to kill him for blasphemy. One way or another, Jesus was not – and is not – a boring figure.
So how are we to decide who Jesus is? Are there better or worse ways to understand who he is? If we put it another way, if our spiritual formation depends on getting Jesus right, how do we get him right? In the course of the conversations in chapter 7, Jesus gives us at least two answers to this question. The first is all about our desires.
“If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” (vs. 17)
If our wills are pointed in the right direction, Jesus promises us that we will come to a deeper and more accurate understanding of God and a more intimate relationship with him. If we can understand our will as something guided by our most powerful desires, if our desires are healthy our relationship with God will become healthier. And we have already seen this truth in action in John’s Gospel. In chapter 5, the Jewish leaders cared more for their Sabbath laws than the healing of a life-long paralytic, so they not only missed Jesus, they decided to kill him. The first story of John 7 involves Jesus’ brothers as mockers and tempters. As such, they completely missed who Jesus truly was. In contrast, after hearing a very difficult conversation about what it would mean to follow Jesus, Peter proclaimed that there was nowhere else for them to go. He would follow Jesus no matter what followed. That decision didn’t make Peter’s life perfect, but it did mean he found Jesus.
The second way is through our glory.
“The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.” (vs. 18)
As our example, the Son of God, the second member of the Trinity, God in flesh, lived for the glory of God and it resulted in the truth of God here on earth. I, a simple and broken human being, am tempted on a regular basis to replace God’s glory with my own. Through my daily life of taking care of people, tasks, and self I become habitually caught up in me and my life. But we learn through Christ that glory is a glimpse into who does and does not see God.
If Christ’s life on earth was lived to the glory of God and he is known because of it, how much more will I see, experience, and reveal that life if I live for the glory of God.
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