I See Jesus by Faith

 April 24 2022

John 20:19-31

As many of you know, I have been taking classes through Mount Vernon University as a requirement for my ordination. Let me just say that going to school was much more fun in my twenties than when I’m sixty. One thing that all of my classes have in common is that there is always a lot of reading. There is usually not just one textbook but more than likely three books that have to be bought and gone through. Usually, I have no trouble with the required reading. I enjoy learning about church history and theology but I did have some issues with one of the books that we were to study for the course which covered preaching. That book, entitled “When God is Silent” was written by Barbara Brown Taylor, was as the title suggests, about the aspect of God being silent, of God being hidden. To say that I struggled with this book is an understatement. It didn’t help either that we had to write a paper about what we thought about the text. I mean, how do you tactfully state that you considered this book to be a strange and disagreeable piece of work so as to not offend the teacher who wanted you to read it and cause him to give you a less than desirable grade. Looking back on the assignment, I can now see that what did not help is that I have been preaching from the gospel of John while I was reading this book. You see, John’s whole story is saturated with this God who speaks, a God who is not hidden but rather revealed, a God who by his very nature is in John’s terms known as the Word. Do you see how disorienting it might be to go from reading the gospel of John to reading a book whose whole premise is that we have to contend with a God who is silent?

So, yes, I agree with John that our God is a speaking God. He is a God who is known as being the Word, the Word who took on flesh, the Word who spoke through the life of the one named Jesus. Jesus is the one who came speaking of heavenly things, speaking of the truth, this undeniable reality of heaven which has invaded earth in a dramatic way, a way which could not be ignored. The disciples who followed Jesus discovered that he was the one who had the words of eternal life; who else could they go after to hear such words?

Jesus spoke of eternal life because eternal life is his life. He had come to earth from the realm of heaven, entering time from the experience of eternity. Jesus came speaking the words of his Heavenly Father, heaven rescuing a sin captured world through words. It is these words, this truth, that Jesus taught, this is what would set people free. This freedom would come about when the word of truth spoken by Jesus was heard and obeyed. In that moment, the Holy Spirit, the presence and power of heaven would take hold of the one who believed and in that moment, a person could go from being a slave to sin to being a child of heaven. This is the amazing power of the truth of Jesus. 

As we come to the scenes of the days after the resurrection as recorded in John’s gospel, we cannot understand the importance of what John has given to us without relying upon the importance of the words of Jesus. John’s account of the resurrection was written so that we might know that the new creation has at last broken into the old, that the one who walked out of that empty tomb was Jesus, the new Adam. Mary, who had met him there in the dewy darkness of that first morning, was unable to recognize him calling him instead, “the gardener”. This though, was still the correct assessment of who Jesus is, the new Adam who has been raised to fulfill what the first Adam had failed to do. In the second chapter of Genesis, God instructs the first Adam to tend and to keep, to guard, the garden that God has created him to live in. Yet, it is not too long until we find that this first Adam has not guarded the garden at all. Into the garden has come a snake, speaking words contrary to the word of God. Hearing these words, the garden is divided, humanity is severed from God, Adam is estranged from Eve; destruction has come through a voice.

Through the voice of Jesus, the new Adam, the garden will be at last, guarded over. The lies of Satan will no longer hold sway over the hearts of people. The grace of God, his holy love shown to us through what Jesus has done for us upon the cross has ended the dominion of Satan’s darkness. Jesus, the judge of all has stood under the judgment of all, standing in our place, the place that was ours because of our obedience to the lies of Satan. Satan ruled over us by instilling in us fear, anxiety and worry. Jesus, through taking on our judgment has removed our fear of judgment through his love for us. Now, the ruler of this world has been cast out because the perfect love of God has cast out our fear. Faith at last has come. The Greek word that is used by Paul to speak of the faith that we have been given by Jesus is a word that means to be under the authority of what one has heard. Thus when we hear Jesus we must not only acknowledge his voice but his words must create in us a response of action.

Yet, even as this is very much the truth of the resurrection of Jesus, what we find is that, here, a week after Jesus has risen from the dead, his disciples are cowering behind locked doors. They know that if the authorities came and crucified Jesus then they most assuredly will come for them. So, they lock things up and hunker down, waiting for the dreaded pounding on the door. No knock ever comes, though. No, there in the silence, Jesus came. He stood there among them, and simply said, “Peace to you”. Knowing the last prayer that Jesus spoke in their presence, the disciples would have remembered that Jesus, their high priest, spoke over them the blessing of Aaron, the first high priest. Jesus was indeed the Lord who had blessed them by demonstrating his great love for them, he had kept them, guarded over them, he had been gracious unto them inviting them to rejoice in his presence and now as they beheld him as his face shone with the glory of the resurrection, Jesus grants them, peace. In the Hebrew thought, peace is more than just the absence of conflict but rather this peace, which is also known as shalom, is about integrity, wholeness and flourishing. In other words, shalom is the original goodness of God’s creation, before the division, estrangement and destruction that Satan brought about. Though their world, and our world does not appear to be experiencing this peace, what we do know is that it is Jesus who is this new creation, he is our shalom.

Now, what we know about Aaron blessing the people of God, telling them of God’s blessing, that he is a God who keeps them, that he is a God whose face shines upon them and is gracious unto them, a God in whose presence is peace, all of this was given so that the people of God might have the name of God placed upon them as they turned from their worship in the tabernacle and headed back home. They were to be those who carried the very reputation of God with them as they went so that those they met might know that their God is a God of steadfast love, mercy, grace and faithfulness. So, it is no surprise then, that after Jesus displayed his wounds to his disciples and once again pronounced his peace upon them, Jesus announces that they as his disciples were being sent out into the world. No more hiding behind closed doors, no more waiting for trouble to find them, no more acting as if the resurrection had never happened. Just as the people of Israel had a mission to fulfill, that they were to not take the name of God that they bore in a trivial manner as if the reputation of God was some insignificant matter, so too the disciples were being sent out with the reputation of God on the line. Yet, they did not have to go out and uphold the name of God all under their own strength and power. No, here again it is God who wills and works in us to do his good pleasure. Jesus breathed on his disciples with holy breath. The wording here is the same as in the creation story when God first took some mud and molded and shaped it just so.Then we are told that God breathed breath into his creation and suddenly, God’s creation stood looking back at him. So, here again we find that as the first Adam became a living being the second Adam, Jesus, became a life-giving Spirit. As the first Adam was of the dust, so the second Adam was the man of heaven so that we might bear the image of the man of heaven. As John describes Jesus in the first chapter of his gospel, Jesus the only Son of the Father was full of grace and truth. Grace and truth is the very name of God, his unchanging nature and this name, this grace and truth are what fill us when the Holy Spirit flows into us, blowing over us and into us with the very air of heaven. In the fifth chapter of Romans we are told that it is the Holy Spirit which pours the love of God into us. When we know that it is God’s love which has taken hold of us then we can hear the certainty of Paul when he says at the end of the eighth chapter of Romans, that he is absolutely confident that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, not height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Paul is speaking to the very faithfulness of the God who loves us and has filled us with his love. So, now that the Holy Spirit has poured the love of heaven into our hearts, we are transformed into people whose lives speak of a God of steadfast love and faithfulness that the world experiences as grace, the welcome and favor of God and truth, the undeniable reality of the realm of heaven, from where every good and perfect gift comes from the Father.

Now, when we understand the work that the Holy Spirit does within us, then we may be a little confused when Jesus tells his disciples that they were to receive the Holy Spirit and when they do, then if they forgive the sins of any, they would be forgiven them. If they withheld forgiveness, then forgiveness would be withheld from that person. When we hear this, what is most important to hear is that we are to receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is what tempers us from thinking of those who hear these words of Jesus from becoming gatekeepers deciding that, yup, your sins are forgiven, but no, your sins, way to bad, you’re out. No, what we are to remember is just what Jesus taught about the Holy Spirit on the night he was betrayed. Jesus promised his disciples that he would ask the Father and the Father would send another one who would walk alongside them and speak to them, the Spirit of truth. This Spirit, Jesus promised, would come in the name of Jesus, in the same character that Jesus had,  and this Spirit would teach the disciples all about Jesus and bring to their remembrance all that Jesus had said to them. It is easy to hear that what Jesus knows will be of utmost importance is that his disciples will always have the assurance that his words will be ever with them, spoken to them through the very Spirit of truth.

Now, Jesus also told his disciples that not only would the Spirit witness to them about him, the Spirit would also be the one to prove the world wrong concerning three thing:sin, righteousness and judgment. The Holy Spirit will convince the world of their sin because they do not believe in Jesus. The Holy Spirit will convince the world concerning righteousness because Jesus has ascended to the Father and the world sees him no more. The Holy Spirit will convince the world of judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged. The first situation, of whether to believe in the words of Jesus hinges on two questions. The first question is this: are the words of Jesus the right words to believe? The answer to that question is yes, they are the right words to trust in because Jesus has ascended. Jesus was able to ascend to the Father because he is righteous.Because Jesus has ascended, the Holy Spirit has been given to us. How do we know the Holy Spirit has been given to us, one might ask? The answer is that we know the Spirit has been given because now the perfect love of God has been poured into the hearts of those who trust in Jesus. So, this resolves the question as to whether or not that believing in Jesus is the right thing to do. The second question is this: are we able to believe what Jesus speaks to us? The answer is that, yes, we are able to trust in what Jesus has said to us because Jesus has taken our judgment upon himself when he died upon the cross. Now, we no longer have any fear of judgment, no fear of punishment, so that we can be confident of our status on judgment day. So, again it is the perfect love of God which is the power which has taken our fear and has replaced it with faith. Do you see how, once again, we find the Holy Spirit has placed the name of God, his love and his faithfulness upon us through the power of the love of heaven? All of this then leads us to answer the first question which is do we believe in Jesus? The Holy Spirit has convinced us that believing in what Jesus says is the right way to live and we can now have faith to believe because the perfect love given to us by the Holy Spirit convinces us that we have nothing to fear on judgment day. So, yes there is no reason that keeps anyone from believing in Jesus. In other words, if a person has experienced what is meant by the forgiveness of their sins, they will believe in Jesus. When a person understands that Jesus has created a future for them where they now know that what he says is the right way to live and has created in their hearts a faith with which to believe in his words and they go forth and live according to what Jesus has spoken, this is the true meaning of forgiveness. But if they refuse to believe, refusing to accept the righteousness of Jesus, and if they are afraid that believing in what Jesus teaches will be too difficult for them, then all that can be said is that their sin has surely seized a hold of their life. You see, the love of God is the light of the world and through this love Jesus has for us he has made a way for all of us to come and live in the light. As Jesus teaches us in the third chapter of John, this is the judgment, the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come into the light, lest his works be exposed. You see, those who hate the light, those who love the darkness, these are those who refuse to hear and obey the words of Jesus. They are the ones that the disciples of Jesus are called to tell them that their sin has seized a hold of their hearts. The followers of Jesus are not judging these who refuse to believe; their judgment, as Jesus states, is that they have loved living in the dark, living in apathy and hatred and fear. Even so, this judgment does not have to become a permanent event unless the time to choose the future Jesus holds out for them has passed. This is why, we, as the followers of Jesus, we are to proclaim the truth. To those who know that the words Jesus speaks are the right way to live and know that the love of Jesus has made their faith a reality, it can be said, that truly their sins are forgiven. To those who refuse to accept that the words of Jesus are the right way of living, instead choosing to live life driven by fear, they must know that sin has seized ahold of them, yet even so, it is not too late to come and experience the joy of walking in the light. This is what is meant by stating that we are to speak the truth in love.

We see how this plays out in the life of Thomas. Thomas missed the first visit of Jesus, so he told his friends that unless he saw first hand the wounds of the crucified, he would never believe. Here, we see how Thomas was lost in his unbelief yet his friends did not kick him to the curb but instead stuck by him, trusting that Jesus would answer their prayers. Once again, Jesus came. Once again, Jesus proclaimed, peace. Jesus pleaded with Thomas to believe. Thomas at once believed, the first to confess that Jesus was his Lord and his God. Jesus is still speaking. His words come on the wind of the Holy Spirit. Do you hear them? Do you believe them? Do you live by them? To the honor and glory of God! Amen!

I See Jesus the New Adam

 April 17 2022

John 20:1-18

The Lord is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed! We rejoice today in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a day marked by some of our favorite songs, such as “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” with is familiar alleluia chorus. A more modern song written by the Gaither’s is the song, “Because He Lives”. Now, I’m going to preface what I am about to say that this is a wonderful song, it is very beautiful in its simplicity yet what I take issue with is that it portrays the resurrection as merely as a means to face tomorrow, an anchor for our hope because we know who holds the future, which is all so very true but my concern is that people will begin to think that all the resurrection is about is just about hope, just about a future joy, so much about tomorrow that it seems as if that the resurrection does not have much to say about life here in the present. Have you ever asked yourself just what does the resurrection of Jesus have to say about your everyday, ordinary life, in the here and now? Or is the resurrection of Jesus more like an insurance policy that when we believe in it we one day will be able to know that we will have an eternal life beyond our ultimate death?

You see, when all we think about the resurrection is that it is some future assurance of us being whisked off to go and be with Jesus then we are going to miss out on the very real fact that the resurrection of Jesus is not just about a future hope but the resurrection is about a very real faith for today. As Paul tells us in the fifteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, if Christ has not been raised then our faith is futile. But we proclaim that in fact Jesus has been raised from the dead, and so, now our faith, what we believe is true about our life with God, this faith is very much alive and well.

We have to keep in mind that the resurrection of Jesus is very much about what we believe, what we hold to be true about God, about who he created us to be and about just what it is that Jesus has done and continues to do for us. If we don’t understand that the resurrection of Jesus is about our faith then we are going to miss the message that John is trying to communicate to us. We encounter this message of John right at the beginning of the twentieth chapter of his gospel where he states that it was “the first day of the week”. In the Greek, what it actually says is that it is day one of the week which is a rather strange way of putting it. Yet to John, this stating that is day one, makes perfect sense because for him it was day one, the very first day of the new creation. Only as we understand that this is what John is telling us can we make sense of what Pilate exclaimed at the trial of Jesus as found in the nineteenth chapter of John where we hear Pilate say about Jesus, “Behold the man”. Now, the word translated here as “man”, is the Greek word for humanity, and it is the Greek equivalent for the Hebrew word, “Adam”. Here as Jesus is faithful unto his Heavenly Father as his Heavenly Father is to him, Jesus can be seen as being the true human, the one who reflects the very image of God in his earthly life. So, to John, this announcement that Jesus is the Adam, corresponds to the sixth day of the creation story, the story John references in the first chapter of his gospel when he speaks of Jesus as being the Word, the one through whom all things were made.

After Jesus was crucified and laid in the tomb, John expects us to understand that this was the seventh day, the Sabbath day of rest. And then came the first day. The very first day of God’s new creation. Just as in the first creation story, this story of the new creation begins in darkness, in the hushed waiting for the words, “Let there be light”. In the first chapter of John, we hear of how Jesus is the light of men, the light which shines in the dark, and the darkness has not overcome the light, yet here in the darkness of Easter morning we are left wondering if such a statement is true as Jesus has died and been placed in the tomb, his life, his light, extinguished it seems by the forces of darkness. There in the darkness came Mary Magdalene, to care for the body of Jesus but when she got to the tomb she found that the stone which had sealed the entrance of the tomb had been mysteriously taken away. Afraid, she ran to Peter and the rest of the disciples and told them of the tragedy that someone must have taken the body of Jesus because why else would the stone have been rolled away. So, the disciples took off, running, in the dark, desperately wanting to witness this crime for themselves. We are told that the disciple which Jesus loved, had gotten to the tomb first, and he merely peered in through the opening, perhaps not wanting to go in on account that if the dead body had been present he would have become ritually unclean. This is John’s subtle way of telling us that the disciples had not yet figured out that everything had changed, that what held true in the past creation no longer could be adhered to in the new that had come. Peter, as only Peter could do, rushed headlong into the scene of the crime, yet what he saw was puzzling. Yes, the linen clothes which had covered Jesus were there yet even more peculiar was that the linen cloth which had covered the head of Jesus was found to be folded up, nice and neat all by itself. What is universally known about grave robbers is that when they come to take a body they never take time to fold the cloths that covered the body. I’m sure at seeing this little neatly folded pile of linens and thinking through just what it must mean, Peter called to John to come in and see for himself the strangeness of that empty tomb. When the disciple that Jesus loved rushed in and took a look for himself, we are told that he believed. This is John’s way of pointing out that here in this empty tomb, this is where faith happens. We are not told just what it is that this disciple believed because they had not as yet understood the scriptures which told of how it was that Jesus was to rise from the dead. All we know is that instead of the fear that he had once had, now this disciple, in some strange way, believed.

The disciples, we are told, decided to go back home but Mary Magdalene decided to stay behind, to grieve the loss of her dear friend, Jesus. She also decided to go and look within the tomb but what she saw was very different from what Peter and the beloved disciple saw when they went in. We can’t help but hear the many references throughout John’s account that Jesus always invited people to come and see. We can almost hear an echo of these words as Mary Magdalene enters the tomb, as she is invited to come and see with her eyes of faith. What she beheld was the presence of two angels, one sat at the head of where Jesus was laid and one angel sat at the feet of where he was laid. Now, to us, this may be indeed quite mysterious, but in a Jewish context this scene would have been quite apparent. This scene beheld by Mary Magdalene in the tomb was that of the mercy seat which sat on top of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies. This mercy seat, was a lid which had on either end, the figures of angels guarding the most holy of places. It was there, in the Holy of Holies, that once every year the high priest of the Temple would enter with blood to sprinkle upon the mercy seat to make atonement for the people of Israel. So what John is whispering to us is that this very common, ordinary tomb of the dead had been transformed in some way, into what can only be described as a Holy of Holies. Here this stone ledge upon which the body of Jesus was laid, here where his blood flowed out upon this rock, here was the very mercy seat of God. This is what Paul wrote of in the third chapter of Romans, that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forth as the mercy-seat by his blood, to be received by faith”. This is what Mary Magdalene was given eyes to see, the place of God’s redemption, the place where we were cleansed and declared righteous before God by the blood of Jesus. In this vision, John wants us to know that Jesus has done everything necessary so that we might be forever united to God, to be at last one with God, as the term at-one-ment means.

The angels, see the grief of Mary, they watch as her tears stream down her face and listen as she cries and they ask her just why it is that she is weeping. This seems like an obvious question, doesn’t it, I mean, she loved Jesus, she watched as he cruelly endured crucifixion upon a criminals cross, and now she finds that his body is missing and has no clue as to where her beloved Jesus might be. Sensing someone behind her, Mary turns back toward the opening of the tomb and she sees a man who, in the darkness, she is unable to make out just who he is. This man asks the same question that the angels had asked her, why is she weeping. And then this man adds, just who it is that she is seeking. She must have thought, just what is it with everybody and their painfully obvious questions. Mary does not know just who this is who is speaking to her, her best guess is that this man is the gardener. We have to ask, just why is this detail so important to the story. Well, what is clearly implied is that the tomb which housed the body of Jesus is located in a garden, a garden just like the very first garden, a garden called Eden. In the second chapter of Genesis we are told that God took the man he had created and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.  Perhaps then, Mary mistook Jesus for the gardener because he in fact was the gardener, the new Adam, the caretaker of God’s new creation.

Mary asked the man whom she thought was the gardener if he had carried Jesus away. If he had placed him somewhere she would be glad to go and bring him back to this tomb. Then this man spoke and simply said, “Mary”. He knew her name. She knew that voice. This was the one known as the Good Shepherd, the one who knows our name, the one whose voice we know, this is Jesus. She turned to the voice behind her and cried out “Rabboni”, the Aramaic word for Teacher. Here, John is alluding to the writing of the prophet Isaiah, as found in the thirtieth chapter, “Therefore, the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait on him. For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it” when you turn to the right or to the left”. This is the very experience of Mary. She has seen the mercy-seat of God on which the blood of Jesus was spilled, she witnessed the graciousness of God in that most unlikely of places. She wept and at the sound of her cry, there Jesus answered her. The teacher she loves would no longer be hidden from her, her eyes at last could behold him. She had heard his voice behind her and she knew that this was the voice of the one she longed to hear, the voice of the one she obeyed.

Mary longed to rush and wrap her arms around Jesus. What joy she longed to share with him, yet he abruptly told her that there was something more important for her to do. Jesus told her that she was to go and tell the good news of his resurrection to his brothers. She was to tell them that he was ascending to his Father and he was ascending to their Father, to his God and their God. Here again we must go back to the beginnings of John’s gospel, to the first chapter and hear how those who received Jesus, those who believed in his name, trusting that in Jesus the God who is grace and truth is truly present with us, to those who receive and believe, Jesus extends to them the right to become children of God, children not born of blood, children born not by will of the flesh, nor children born by the will of man but rather they are truly children of God. This is the possibility that has at last been opened to us because Jesus has been raised from the dead. Now, because he has been victorious over death because death could not hold him as he was without sin, now Jesus could be for us, the new Adam, the firstborn of the first fruits of the new creation. Jesus, the new Adam is the first human to live in perfect unity with the Father through the Spirit and now, because we share in his humanity we can be for ever united with God as well, drawn into that same relationship that Jesus, the Son of God, has always had with his Father and our Father. This is why when Paul speaks about the resurrection of Jesus in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, he tells us that “the first Adam became a living being ; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit”. The first man was from earth; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have born the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” This is the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ! We at last are able to bear the very image of the man of heaven, the one who is perfectly what God created us to be. Jesus has made this possible because he has not only risen from the dead but he has ascended to the Father, his Father and our Father. When he ascended he sent us the gift of the Giver, the Holy Spirit, the one who is as Paul tells us in the eighth chapter of Romans, the very Spirit of our adoption, the one by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Father who has always known us, the very searcher of our hearts, he is now at last able to be known by us, through the gift of the Spirit of  sonship given to us by the risen Jesus. This is why Paul can also say in that eighth chapter of Romans, that those whom the Father has always known, these are the ones that he destined ahead of time to be conformed to the image of his Son so that Jesus might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Those who share in this destiny, these are the ones are Heavenly Father has called out to, these are the ones that our Father has declared to be righteous because of the shed blood of Jesus, and these are the ones who some day will be at last glorified with Jesus Christ.

You see, the very same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead now is given to us without measure to raise us up to sit with Christ in the heavenly places as a child of God. Yet this same Spirit is with us everyday here on earth. Through him we hear the voice of the Teacher, the voice that Mary heard there on that early Sunday morning. Now, because Jesus lives forever, his voice is ever with us, the voice of the Teacher who speaks to us every moment through the Spirit. This is what Jesus told his disciples, that when “the Spirit comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. The Spirit will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you”. In the garden of the new creation of which we now find ourselves, Jesus, our new Adam, tends and keeps his garden through his word. No more will the lies spoken to us by the devil bring catastrophe upon God’s good creation. Now, we will heed the words of Jesus because his is the voice of love, the voice we know we can trust because he gave his very life to save us.  Jesus speaks and his word does not return to him void because his word now accomplishes the purpose for which it was spoken. Jesus speaks to bring us the children of God to full maturity, to be like him. Jesus is alive. Jesus is speaking. Jesus is teaching us lessons of holy love so that he is not only the forerunner of our faith but he is the perfecter of our faith as well. This is the truth upon which we have our faith, in the here and now. Yes, the resurrection of Jesus is our great hope for tomorrow, but even more, the resurrected Jesus speaks his truth to us today and every day so that more and more we might be conformed to the man of heaven. The question then is this : “Do you hear him?”and if so,“Will you obey him?” To God be the glory! Amen! 

I See Jesus the Glorious King

 April 10 2022

John 19:1-30

We arrive at last at Palm Sunday, the beginning of what is called Holy Week, the day when we celebrate the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, the shouts of “Hosanna” filling the air. In a very short amount of time though, this same crowd will be shouting, “Crucify him” as they reject Jesus because he was not the king they were looking for. So, while the majesty of Jesus is magnified as the week progresses, it happens against a backdrop of human fickleness and indecisiveness. One of my difficulties with this week, ever since I was a child, is that the Friday on which we observe the crucifixion of Jesus is called Good Friday. I don’t know if I have shared this with you before but every year I am confronted with this puzzling name of Good Friday, I mean, for heavens sake, what is so good about it? Yes, it is good for us for there upon the cross the Lamb of God was slain not just for the sins of the world but for my sins as well, yes, this is good but it is just oh, so difficult, for me to speak of goodness in the shadow of the cross. As I meditated on the cross once again, as I do every season of Lent, I have come to believe that instead of being Good Friday it should be instead called Holy Friday. Holy denotes something that is not common, something that is so obviously not ordinary, and this is so very evident there when we look upon the one who is nailed to the tree.

To call the day when Jesus was crucified, Holy Friday, would help us to see this act in light of what was first spoken by God to his people as we find in the first verse of the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, where we hear God’s command to his people that they were to be holy as God is holy. The very holiness of God displayed in the very earthiness of humanity. When we know that Jesus is perfectly human, and perfectly God how can we not believe that, yes, there upon the cross, in his finest hour, we see holiness. Even so, we are left wondering just how can we define this holiness, this otherness of God. How can we put shape and form to such an ambiguous term such as holiness. It is Jesus, the very light of the world who brings the holiness of God into sharp resolution. We hear him define holiness in terms of love when after he had washed his disciples feet, Jesus told them that they were to love one another just as he had loved them, this is the way that they were to love one another. Here is the same structure of words, you be love as I am love, just like you be holy as I am holy.  Here are eyes are opened to see what makes God so other than us, so very holy, it is his self-sacrificing love, a love that comes to earth and puts on our flesh like a dirty pair of overalls, ready to be of service to us. Here is God who spoke all creation into being who is the Word who took on flesh and tabernacles among us.

So, yes, to be holy is to be in the possession of a love that drives us to give all of our self away for the sake of others just as God has done in the life of Jesus. When we know this, then we begin to understand the lone command of God, found in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, that we are to love him with all of our heart, with all of our life, with all that we have, we are to love God with all of who we are. If we loved God with all that we have, with all of our heart and with our very lives, there really would not be much else left over would there be? What God is commanding us then is to be people of self-giving love toward him just as he was a God of self-giving love toward us. Yet, even so, can such love actually be commanded? Can such a love be forced, given with a grimace upon our faces? No, what must be understood is that in giving this command, God was stating that this was his purpose for our lives, this was the goal, the perfection for which we were created. God knew that on our own we simply would never be able to fulfill this command. We discover this in the thirtieth chapter of Deuteronomy, where Moses tells the people of Israel, that one day God would circumcise their hearts and the hearts of their offspring, so that they would love their God with all of their hearts and all of their lives so that they would live. God, in his mercy knew our weakness, the weakness of our flesh, the poverty of our spirit, that kept our good intentions from becoming holy actions. God knew that he would have to intervene, to take away our reliance upon our own strength so that we might trust and rely upon his Spirit, the Spirit of holiness.

Are you beginning to see how Jesus is the “Yes” to the promise of God that he would be the one who would act so that we might at last be those who reflect the holiness of God by being people possessed by his self-giving love? This promise of God is the very foreshadowing of the cross. John, in writing his gospel, knew that Jesus came from the highest heaven, from the peace and security found in the very bosom of his Father, to be the one to give us his life of self-giving love so that we at last might fulfill the commandment of God.This is what Jesus reveals to us in the tenth chapter of John’s gospel, where Jesus tells us that he is the righteous one that his Father will open the door to his Temple and allow him to enter. The Temple is another name for our Father’s house so that those who follow him will be able to find their home in their Father’s house. Those who follow Jesus there into that most holy place will be those who love God with all of their hearts. They will not be those who love God with one part of their hearts and then turn and hurt, harm and hate those they encounter in their life. They will be those who love God with all of their life. They will understand that the life they have is a life that has been given to them by God, a life that is an abundant life, a life capable of bearing much fruit. So, they will not have to be people who are anxious about life, people who steal, kill, and destroy in order to keep their life for they will know that their life is kept safe in God. And they will be people who will love with all of what God has given to them. They will never be people who value their treasures above the value of the life of others. Their treasure will be the treasure in heaven, the God who treasures them. As they know of how they are treasures to God so they too will see in others that they too are treasures in the hands of God. So, here in the tenth chapter of John, Jesus unveils the plan of God, to bring all people into the holiness of God, into his life of self-giving love through his work of self-giving love. Through his act of self-giving love Jesus was going to create a new people who could at last reflect back to God his holiness, his self-giving love. They at last would be people who loved God with all of their heart, loving others as they loved God; they would love God with all of their life, knowing that their life is held safe in the arms of God; and, they would love God with all that God had given to them, treasuring God by treasuring the lives of others. Jesus is here setting the stage for what he will do upon the cross, his holy work that is done to make us holy people.

You see, all of this has to be kept front and center as we read of the account of the crucifixion of Jesus. We must not forget that when we witness this series of events in John’s gospel, Jesus was being delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, as Peter spoke of on the Day of Pentecost. When we understand this, then we must consider just who it is that is really on trial here as Jesus awaits his judgment. In this opening scene from the nineteenth chapter of John we discover the underlying motivation of both the Jewish leaders and Pilate, who represents Rome. When the chief priests and the Jewish officers come before Pilate, they do so with shouts of “Crucify him, crucify him”, on their lips. Pilate tells them to go and crucify him themselves because Pilate has found that Jesus has done no wrong. The Jewish authorities though keep pushing Pilate for a verdict because they want nothing to do with this Jesus who continually made himself one with the Father. Then we are told something very interesting. Pilate, at hearing that what enraged these Jewish authorities was that Jesus made himself the Son of God, became even more afraid. Here was a man who had the full weight of the authority of Rome behind him and yet, here he is a man with a fear that is gnawing away at him. Yet he was not the only one entrapped in their fear that day because when we look at the eleventh chapter of John we learn the underlying motive of the Jewish leaders who were insistent on the death of Jesus. There at the end of the eleventh chapter we are told that after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together to decide what to do about this man Jesus.Their fear was that if they allowed Jesus to go on performing miracles then everyone in all of Judaea would believe in him, and the Romans would take away their place and their nation. All those who surrounded Jesus on the day of his crucifixion were running scared, allowing their anxiety and worry to lash out at what they perceived to be the source of their fear this one named Jesus. What they did not understand is that Jesus was not the source of their fear; no, he was only the one who had become the focus of their attention because of their fear. The true cause of the fear that surrounded Jesus that day was, as he has earlier taught, as found in the eighth chapter of John, was the devil. The Pharisees sought to kill Jesus because it was the devil that they were listening to. Here Jesus is pointing out what had been known from the very beginning, at the temptation of our fore parents, the devil questioning the very word of God. Jesus teaches that the devil was a murderer from the beginning and he has nothing to do with the truth for the truth is not in him. When the devil lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Caught up in all the untruth about Jesus that had ensnared their hearts, Pilate and the Jewish leaders, were acting out of the fear that comes when one’s life loses its foundation in the truth. The tragedy of this situation before Jesus is seen in the judgment passed upon him. When Pilate asks the chief priests if he should crucify their king, they shout back at him that they have no king but Caesar! The central faith of Israel, that Yahweh, the one true living God is Lord over all, is gone in a moment replaced with blasphemy on the very lips of those who were to uphold the sanctity of their faith. Pilate, who represented the system of justice called upon to defend the innocent and punish evil, the very reason for any political system is turned into a travesty as the innocent Jesus is punished as one who had done evil. Here before Jesus we witness the terrible truth of the reality of this earthly realm in which we live. As the devil showed Jesus when he tested Jesus in the wilderness, all of the kingdoms of this world lie under the influence of the lies of the evil one.

Yet all is not lost, because as Jesus proclaims in the twelfth chapter of John, he had come to judge the world and when he does the ruler of this world, the devil, will be cast out. How could such a marvelous event happen, we wonder, at hearing this? The answer is that this is what will happen when Jesus is lifted up from the earth, when Jesus will be nailed to the tree. This is when, Jesus adds, that he will draw all people unto himself. This drawing people to himself through what Jesus will do upon the cross gives us a clue that unravels this mystery that Jesus is speaking about. We know from the sixth chapter of John that what draws people to the Father is his great love for them. It is this love of the Father, this is what will come to light when Jesus is hoisted up upon the cross. There Jesus displays in his very human life, the very holy love of God. There the one who had been given all judgment by his Father, the true judge of all, stood in the place of those who deserved his judgment. This is what we saw displayed before Pilate, Jesus, the true judge being judged by those who represented the world, and in self-giving love, accepting the judgment of death that has always been ours because of the lies of the devil which controlled our hearts. Yet, this is what Jesus had to do because the love within the heart of Jesus is a self-giving love, a love that treasured us because we are a treasure of our Heavenly Father, a love that offered us grace, mercy and forgiveness because this is the Father’s will, a love which loved his Heavenly Father more than life itself knowing that when he gave his life up to death for his Heavenly Father, his life would bear much fruit. 

Through Jesus taking up his cross and dying for us we have witnessed the glory of God. The glory of God is his victory over the ruler of this world, a victory won through his holy love. Seeing Jesus upon the cross we now know that the Father has indeed sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. There upon the cross we beheld the holy love of God for us in the very human form of Jesus. Jesus out of love for us has taken our punishment all the way to death so that now our fear of judgment is gone. Jesus has cast out the ruler of this world because the fear which used to hold sway over our lives has been cast out by the holy love of God which has entered into our hearts. Now, instead of fear we have faith, faith that Jesus is the Christ, and through this faith we live out the victory Jesus has secured for us upon the cross. Through Jesus we can say that we are people who have overcome the world. Now, just as Jesus displayed the holy love of God upon the cross, we too can display that same love in our lives. Through the holy love of Jesus we now can love God with all of our heart, with all of our life, with all that God has provided for us. No longer are we bound to a life of fear, anxiousness and worry; we have been set free to seek the kingdom.

All during Lent we have been walking with Jesus, and here we have arrived at Calvary. During our journey we have been attempting to see Jesus in a new light, with new eyes, to behold him in all of his wonder and glory. So, as you see that cross, out there on Skull Hill, as you gaze upon the one called Jesus, just who is it that you see? There, with nails pounded through his flesh, there exposed to the world, a man so weak and vulnerable, through all these earthly elements, can you see that this is the very Son of God who has come from the Father to be the Savior of the world? Can you see his glory, can you sense his victory? Are you able to  know him as your king, the one whose rule you obey? Yes, it is difficult to look upon the beaten and bloody Jesus and say that such a scene is good but I do believe that what we see when we look there upon him we can call it holy. Such a scene is holy because such a love as this can only be holy because it is a love that is anything but common, it is a love that is far from ordinary. There as we gaze upon our Savior do you now know of his self-giving love for you? Do you now believe the holy love that God has for you? As Jesus lived and loved and died in this world are you ready to live and love like him, with a holy love that witnesses that you like Jesus have overcome the world? Amen!

I See Jesus the Truth

 April 3 2022

John 18:24-40

I saw on social media a while back that Vladimir Putin, you know, the evil madman of Russia who has no trouble ordering his military to target hospitals and civilians, was quoted as using a scripture verse to motivate his troops. The scripture in question is from the fifteenth chapter of John, the very words of Jesus, who told his disciples on the night he was betrayed, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Now, in it’s context, this is a beautiful teaching that Jesus is giving here; from the mouth of Putin though it borders on blasphemy. Sadly, he is not the only one who has used these same words from the gospel of John. They have been also used alongside of pictures of U.S. military which I also must admit is a bit cringeworthy. You see, when people pluck the teachings of Jesus out of their settings it seems like they can be used to support whatever endeavor comes along. The irony of using this teaching of Jesus that there is no greater love than for a person to lay down their life for his friends for military purposes is that a mere three chapters away we hear Jesus tell us that if his kingdom were of this world, his servants would be fighting. So, its really hard to take this greater love of Jesus, the love which led him to the cross and associate it with fighting in service to the kingdoms of this world. Somehow, it just seems like an exercise in missing the point.

The point of pointing out just how wrong we can be when pulling the words out of context is that what this misuse of scripture does point out is just how wrong we can be about who Jesus really is, as if, you know, Jesus really wouldn’t mind his words being used for this cause or that, would he? This is why we need this season of Lent more now than ever, so that we can once again take a look at Jesus, that we might ask Jesus to heal our eyes so that we might once again see him for who he really is. The greater love of Jesus moved him to lay down his life for his friends but he didn’t lay down his life upon a battlefield but rather on a criminal’s cross. Once again, we must ask ourselves is this the Jesus that we believe in, is this the Jesus that we give our allegiance to? You see, only as we believe in Jesus as the one destined to die on the cross for his friends will we then understand just why it was that the cross was always a part of his plan and only as we understand the necessity of the cross will we ever be able to understand just why if there was a cross for Jesus then there is a cross for you and I as well. We must never forget that the reason John wrote his gospel account was not only to exalt Jesus but it was also written for the church, those who have placed their faith in Jesus, so that they might see the example of Jesus, understand the source of his strength, so that when the time came for them to lay down their life on account of Jesus that they could be true to what they believed.

This desire to be true to what we say that we believe, this idea helps us understand just why it is that when we come to the story of Jesus being questioned by Pilate, we hear Jesus begin to speak about the truth. Really, Jesus, you want to talk about the truth, now, of all things, now, when your life is hanging in the balance, is this really a good time Jesus, to be bringing up the truth? We have to ask ourselves just why it is that Jesus at this moment has chosen to speak about the truth. To even begin to understand just what Jesus is getting at, I believe that we first have to define just what Jesus means by the “truth”. As we learned when we looked at the High Priestly prayer of Jesus, the name of God in the Old Testament, was condensed down to two elements, steadfast love and faithfulness. These when translated from the Hebrew into the Greek became grace and truth. Grace and truth, I believe were the ways that those who followed Jesus experienced the steadfast love and faithfulness of God. God’s steadfast love was a love which welcomed people into the very life of God, a love which demonstrated the favor of God, the grace Jesus showed to all. The faithfulness of God was experienced as being the truth of Jesus whose words and actions were the same. As the followers of Jesus, those whom the Father have given to Jesus, we are to be the one’s who bear the name of God, his grace and his truth to a world. It is this grace and truth which cause us to live before God whose favor towards us is written all over his face. It is the Father’s joy that causes us to be filled with joy and with joy filled hearts we go out into a world living lives that unashamedly demonstrate that we have experienced the grace and truth of God and it is this grace and truth we extend to others.

So, it comes, then, as no surprise that Jesus would be speaking of the truth here before Pilate. Yet, we must still wonder why the truth, why the faithfulness of God, why this would matter so much, right here as Jesus was on trial. It was this truth, this is the very reason Jesus tells us that he was born, the very purpose as to why he came into this world. Here as we draw ever closer to Good Friday we find ourselves pondering on Christmas. Again, we must ask ourselves just what does the birth of Jesus, this coming into our world, by the Son of Man, what does this have to do with this moment, this time of the trial of Jesus? Here the definition of just what is meant by this word the “truth” might help us begin to make sense of what Jesus is saying. In the Greek language, the word we translate as being, “truth’, is a word that means that which is not concealed, that which cannot be hidden, and undeniable reality. The reality which could not be concealed, the reality that could no longer remain hidden, the reality that was now undeniable with the birth of Jesus, is the reality of heaven. Listen to how John writes about Jesus in the first lines of his first letter, “That which was from the beginning, before the foundations of the world, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon  and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life- this life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us…” You see, before Jesus was born all one could do was to speculate about heaven. Sure, people knew of God, but you know, God was pretty easy to ignore but then came Jesus. Suddenly, the invisible realm of heaven became visible and that reality looked an awful lot like us. So, in his very human life, Jesus bore witness to the truth, the undeniable reality of heaven.

This undeniable reality of heaven that is the truth to which the life of Jesus made real to us, this reality is the reality of our faithful Heavenly Father. Thus we can see that what was known in the Old Testament as the faithfulness of God, his unchanging character, this describes the very reality of heaven. Listen to how James describes the realm of our Heavenly Father, from the first chapter, the seventeenth verse where we read, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow from his turning away from the light.” Do you hear how good and faithful our Heavenly Father is? This is the heavenly reality that Jesus allowed us to witness in his life, as he lived as one of us upon this earth.

When we understand that the truth that Jesus witnessed to was the realm of our Heavenly Father with whom there is no variation, there is no deviation from anything but being pure light, then we begin to understand why Jesus would say that his kingdom was not of this world. This kingdom is the same one spoken of at the end of the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, where we are told that the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom that cannot be shaken. You see, the reason that the kingdom of God spoken to by Jesus does not come about by earthly battles is that it is a heavenly kingdom built on the unshakable nature of our Heavenly Father. There is nothing in all of creation that can affect the rule and reign of God because he is our unchanging Heavenly Father.

By now, it should become clear just why Jesus is speaking here about the truth. Jesus is speaking of the truth at his trial so that we might be able to face the trials we face. One more clue that we need to fully understand where Jesus is coming from is found in the ninth chapter of Hebrews, the fourteenth verse, where the author of Hebrews tells us that it was through the eternal Spirit that Jesus offered himself without blemish to God. The Holy Spirit is our God who reaches out from the heavenly realm and takes hold of us, anchoring us to that place beyond the veil. This is what Jesus knew there in the midst of the trial where all seemed lost, that as he had come from heaven into our world heaven remained the rock upon which he was steadfastly anchored.

How very different was the witness of Jesus to the witness displayed by Peter. As we hear in the thirteenth chapter of John, Peter professed to Jesus that he was willing to follow Jesus all the way to the cross, to lay down his life for Jesus. Jesus replied to Peter, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times! Jesus knew the fragility of our human condition and he knew that even though Peter had the very best of intentions, Jesus also knew that Peter had a spirit that was unable to overcome the weakness of his flesh. This was so evident as we learn in the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew, where Jesus goes to the garden to pray before his arrest and he asks Peter, James and John to pray with him but they instead fell asleep. The good intentions of Peter were never found to be true in his actions. This became so evident when Peter followed Jesus when they took him to the court of the high priest. There, outside of the court of the high priest, Peter was recognized and he was asked if he had been a follower of Jesus. To this Peter answered that he was not a disciple of Jesus.  Then some time later as Peter was standing and warming himself around a fire, there was another person who also asked Peter if he was a disciple of Jesus. Again, Peter denied that he had ever known Jesus. And then there came another who as they warmed themselves around the fire who pointed at Peter and said that he had been one of those with Jesus in the garden. Once again, Peter answered that he was never there, he had nothing to do with Jesus. Then the rooster crowed.  

Over there is Jesus, speaking about witnessing to the truth and here is Peter lying through his teeth to save himself. This is the contrast that we need very much to see. Peter, had anchored himself in the reality of this world, to the person that he had been created to be. He could boast all he wanted that it was he that would follow Jesus all the way to the point of laying down his life for Jesus, but the frailty of his own wherewithal, was no match for the consuming fear that Peter felt in the darkness of that night. For if his strength was only found within himself then they only way to remain strong was to remain alive and remaining alive meant denying that he ever knew Jesus.

It is the witness of Peter which explains the dynamic that is the unchanging nature of God, that his name is grace and truth. It is God who is the truth, the undeniable reality that could not be hidden in the life of Jesus. God, and God alone is the unchanging one, the one with whom there is no shadow of turning with him. God, and God alone is faithful. How so unlike us, who have great intentions yet fail so miserably to turn those intentions into actions. We are people who simply are unable to be true, to always follow through on just what it is that we say that we are going to do. This is why he is also a God who is known as being grace-filled because we are a people so in need of grace, people desperate for forgiveness because we are so unable to be true to what we promise. 

Jesus came from the very faithfulness of heaven to give us the gift of grace. Through this wondrous mercy and forgiveness we are at last able to follow Jesus  into the Fathers house. Yet as wonderful as this good news is, we must also remember that Jesus came not merely to forgive the sin of the world but to take our sin away so that we no longer have to live under the power of sin. No, through Jesus, instead of living under the power of sin we are able to live through the very power of heaven. This is what John witnessed to when he said in the first chapter of John that just as Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit he would be the one who would baptize us with that very same Spirit. You see, Jesus came to give us the very life that he lived, a life grounded in the reality of heaven through the power of the Holy Spirit. It was through the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus offered himself up to his Heavenly Father upon the cross. He offered himself up to the Father without blemish not only so we would be forgiven of our sins but also so that Jesus might anchor our lives in the heavenly realm through that same Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus promised his disciples as we hear in the sixteenth chapter of John that when the Helper comes, whom Jesus will send from the Father, he will bear witness about Jesus. Through the Spirit, Jesus told them, they would bear witness about Jesus because they had been with him from the beginning. Then Jesus adds, that he had spoken to them about the Spirit because it was the Spirit, he is the one who would keep them from falling away, the one who would make them into faithful witnesses. This is the reason Peter could not follow Jesus all the way to the cross because Jesus had not yet been glorified upon the cross, the cleansing of sin that was needed so that the Holy Spirit could be given to the disciples. Without the Holy Spirit, Peter and the rest of the disciples simply could not follow Jesus all the way to the cross because their spirit, their drive or wherewithal simply was not able to compel their flesh to comply with their intentions. But all was not lost, because Jesus promised his disciples, “You will follow me afterward.” After Jesus went to the cross, after he had laid down his life for his friends in the greatest act of love, then the true reality of heaven would at last be opened to them and the Spirit of that reality would come and take hold and anchor their life.

Jesus as we have often heard is the way, the truth and the life. Jesus is the way into the reality of heaven, into the Father’s house. Jesus is the truth, the reality of heaven which cannot be hidden, the undeniable reality of heaven that has descended to earth. Jesus is the life securely anchored to the reality of heaven, so that through the laying down of his life, this life might be come our own. Pilate, who represents the world, asks Jesus, “What is the truth?” The world, so caught up in making great claims that they have no ability to bring into being, is caught up in its delusion that they can create security through their own effort. This is why the kingdoms of this world must be fought for constantly because what is built is always built upon the sand of this created reality. But there before Pilate is Jesus who was born for one purpose, to witness to the truth, the undeniable reality of heaven. To enter the kingdom of Jesus does not involve any fighting but only requires that one is born from above, born of the Spirit, the Spirit of truth. When Jesus baptizes us into the heavenly reality that the Spirit brings upon this earth, we discover, a new life with a new hope for a world so tired of fighting over kingdoms. This hope is built on the unchanging character of the purpose of God which is a sure and steadfast anchor for our souls, a hope that enters into the realm of heaven where Jesus our forerunner has gone on our behalf. To God be the glory!Amen!

I See Jesus the High Priest

 March 27 2022

John 17

Have you ever thought how every age has its catchphrase? I was thinking about this because it seems like everywhere you turn on social media somebody is using the phrase “they understood the assignment” or some variation of it. Now, it never is clear just what the “assignment” exactly is, but from certain pictures and memes it can be seen that some people understood the assignment and some people did not. I am left wondering just how do we know when somebody has understood the assignment, where is the scorecard that lets us evaluate a person’s behavior and what does it have on it that lets us know, that, yup, that guy has definitely not understood the assignment. 

In the seventeenth chapter of John, we find Jesus praying to his Heavenly Father, before the watchful eyes and ears of his disciples. In this intimate moment we hear Jesus state that he has, in our vernacular, “understood the assignment”. He proclaims that the assignment, the work that he was sent to do, he understood it completely and not only that he also accomplished that work proving that he did indeed understand the assignment. What we cannot forget in this moment was that one of the followers of Jesus did not feel the same way and I’m sure if we could know the innermost thoughts of Judas he would most assuredly hold that Jesus was one who had totally not understood the assignment. Perhaps Judas felt that Jesus just needed a little incentive to help him understand what the assignment was all about; we will never know. All we do know is that even before his death on the cross, here we have Jesus stating that he has understood the assignment, the work that he left his home in glory to do, this is what he has accomplished. The question that must linger in our minds then is do we understand the assignment? Do we know that yes, Jesus did know what the assignment is and that he accomplished it, proving that he did understand because only if we do will we be able to understand the assignment that he has given to us.

You see, the assignment given to Jesus by his Heavenly Father was to give eternal life to those whom the Father had given to him. Jesus goes on to explain that this eternal life is that his disciples know the only true God, and Jesus Christ who has been sent to us from heaven. Here we must pause for a moment to hear what Jesus is saying to us. It is Jesus who has made known to us the true God, the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the God who Jesus has revealed to us and because it is Jesus who is the one who has come to us with this true understanding of who God is then it just figures that we must know him as well. We have to never forget that we cannot know anything about our Heavenly Father nor the Holy Ghost apart from knowing Jesus. This knowing the true God and Jesus who reveals this God to us, this Jesus lets us know the life that has existed for all eternity. This helps us to grasp that what Jesus means when he says that he revealed to us the one true God is that what is important for us to understand is the eternal life of God. So, this also means that when Jesus speaks about knowing he isn’t telling us that we are to know statements about God but rather we are to know God through the very life of God demonstrated to us byJesus. Through our encounter with Jesus we know the unchangeable nature of God, his steadfast character. We have to make sure that we understand that this is where Jesus is headed because otherwise we will be seriously confused when he states that he has manifested the name of his Heavenly Father to the people which the Heavenly Father had given Jesus from out of the world. What does Jesus mean when he says that he has shed some light on the very name of God? Well, this mention of the name of God should make us remember a very important encounter that Moses had with God concerning once again the name of God. This story is found in the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus. There we find Moses up on Mount Sinai pleading with God after the people of Israel have angered God with their worship of the golden calf. What Moses wants to see is God’s glory but what God tells Moses is that he  instead will make all of his goodness pass before Moses and then God states that he would also proclaim his name to Moses. So, here we find several connections with this story of Moses and the story of the last prayer of Jesus with his disciples. Jesus asks for his Heavenly Father to bring his glory upon the life of Jesus and just as in the case of Moses, the subject turns to the name of God. Well, God does just as he promised Moses, he passes by Moses and proclaims his name letting Moses know that he is the God who is to be known as the God who is merciful and gracious, the God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is the unchanging character of God, the very character of God that Jesus brought to light in our dark world.

What is interesting about the name of God that was shown to the disciples of Jesus is that a short-hand version of this name is found in the first chapter of John’s gospel. This shouldn’t surprise us because as we have gone through John’s gospel we find that John brings forth ideas he introduces in the first chapter such as the Lamb of God and Son of Man into his story, again and again. Yet one phrase from the first chapter has not really been brought forth until this last prayer of Jesus. This phrase is that “we have seen the glory of Jesus, glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Once again, here is this idea of glory and here we find the phrase, “grace and truth”. If you study the Hebrew and Greek languages, you can see that grace is the best equivalent in the Greek language for the Hebrew word for steadfast love. In a similar manner, truth is the best way to translate the Hebrew word for faithfulness. While this is most certainly true, I cannot help believe that John is stating something more when he uses the phrase, “grace and truth”, for what is known in the Old Testament as “steadfast love and faithfulness”. John had experienced the steadfast love of God through the life of Jesus as grace, as the acceptance and welcome and favor of God that allows us to know ourselves as the very children of God. This is what John writes in the third chapter of his first letter, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” Yes, the love of our Father is a steadfast love but how do we experience that love, in a personal way? We experience that love as grace, as God’s favor toward us that welcomes us into the Father’s house and allows us to experience the same relationship with our Heavenly Father that Jesus Christ has experienced for all eternity.

In the same way, God is, of course known as a God of extreme faithfulness in his dealings with his people throughout the Old Testament. This is the same faithfulness we find in the life of Jesus yet we experience this faithfulness as the truth. What we have to understand about this word, “truth”, is that in the original Greek the word did not necessarily mean a statement that has been proven to be verifiable, but instead truth meant reality, what is real. When John writes in his first letter, the second chapter, that the new commandment that Jesus has given to us is true in Jesus, what John is saying is that the love Jesus loves us with is an unshakeable reality. This is how the faithfulness of God is experienced when we encounter the life of Jesus.

So, when, in the seventeenth chapter of John, we hear Jesus say that he has brought to light the very name of God, I believe that John wants us to know that what Jesus is speaking about is what John has already written about in the first chapter, grace and truth.  It is this grace and truth that describes the very life of Jesus because he was one with the life of his Heavenly Father. The disciples knew the truth of God’s grace, through the reality of the life of Jesus. They knew that Jesus had indeed proceeded from the Father in heaven. Who was it that knew all of this about Jesus? The ones who knew Jesus in this intimate way were those who treasured the word, the commandment of God to love one another as Jesus had loved them. These were the ones who had their hearts washed clean from their desires for earthly treasures through the love which compelled Jesus to leave the highest heavens to condescend to the very depths of the dirt of earth, to come as one of us, to serve and to give his very life for those he considered his treasures. This is what we discover in the thirteenth chapter of John. So, here we see how the story John is telling us progresses because now that his disciples treasure the one who treasures them in heaven, they become those who treasure, or keep, his command to love one another.

Jesus prays to his Holy Father asking that his Holy Father keep these ones that Jesus loves in his name, the name that was given to Jesus by his Father. When Jesus asks his Father to “keep” his disciples he is asking his Heavenly Father to guard them, keep watch over them, and to do so by placing them in the reality where grace is alive and active. It is God’s steadfast love which we experience as grace, as the very favor and welcome of God, this is what must be the reality that our Father must provide for us if we are to remain united. Here again, John is reminding us of what we have learned in the tenth chapter, that as there is one shepherd there shall be one flock. Here in the seventeenth chapter, this same call for unity is heard from Jesus, how this unity will be possible when we are guarded over by the name of God, kept watch over by the grace and truth that has always been who God is. When we understand that this is what Jesus asks our Heavenly Father to give us, then he promises us that when we are guarded over by the grace of our Heavenly Father then we will have the fullness of the joy of Jesus in our life together. We have to ask ourselves just what is the connection here between living in the reality of God’s grace and experiencing a life full of the joy of Jesus? The answer, I believe comes to us from the sixth chapter of the book of Numbers, where the Lord spoke to Moses saying to him that he should instruct his brother Aaron, the High Priest, that he was to bless the people, saying to them, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord’s face show you his favor and give you peace.’ God then tells Moses that in this way the High Priest will put the name of God upon his people and bless them. When you here these words does it become a little clearer why this prayer of Jesus is called the High Priestly prayer? I mean, this blessing is that God keep his people, just as Jesus prays for his disciples.  The blessing also states that God be gracious unto his people just as we learn that grace is part of the name of God. Through this grace we understand that the love of God shows us favor and when all this is known by us then how can we not have peace? So, back to our text in the seventeenth chapter of John, where Jesus tells us that when his prayer is answered we will have joy, the answer to the source of this joy is that as the blessing of Aaron tells us, we live before the shining face of God. The favor of God toward us is written all over his face. In other words, his joy of having us in his presence is the very source of our joy. This is how, in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews that Jesus was able to endure the cross because of this very joy that awaited him after his death when he once again could bask in the glow of his Father’s face. 

What is important about us being joyful people becomes evident in what follows after Jesus speaks about this joy in his prayer. From this point on is when Jesus speaks of his disciples interaction with the world. The world, Jesus says, is going to hate you; how are you going to respond? Our answer is joy. The world is still under the sway of the evil one, what will keep you safe? Our answer is joy. Our joy comes from our life lived before the face of God upon which is expressed his love and favor of us, and here belonging to him in this way the only words we hear and follow are the words this face speaks to us. What sets us apart from the world, what gives us a quality of holiness which mimics the very holiness of our Heavenly Father is that we live in the reality, this truth where the word of God his commandment to love is being lived out before his face.

The whole importance of our being gracious people who know that we have a Heavenly Father who watches over us, a Heavenly Father who is gracious to us, a Heavenly Father whose favor is written all over his face, and in whose presence we experience a peace which is out of this world, is not just so that we can hole up and keep this experience to ourselves. We don’t build compounds to hunker down and wait for Jesus to come back! No, we go out into the world as transformed people so the world through us might believe that Jesus is the one who has come to us from the Father so that everyone might know the unchanging nature of our God and be welcomed into the very life of heaven. The reason why we needed to be cleansed of our desire for worldly treasures is so not only would we treasure the one who treasures us in heaven but that this treasure might be seen to be living in us. Jesus prays to his Heavenly Father to give us his glory, can you believe that? Yet this honor is not for us but this glory is given so people will know that Jesus came from heaven and our life is anchored there. The glory of God is that he is a God of dynamic oneness, moving earthward intersecting our lives pulling us in so that together we might also experience a life of oneness as well. As we see a world fractured in horrible, terrible ways is it any wonder that our greatest witness to the world that we have been blessed by Jesus our High Priest is a life where we are united together. Ours is a life where we watch over one another just as God is watching over us; ours is a life where we are gracious unto others, showing the love of God by welcoming others into the family of God to live before his face; ours is a life of peace knowing that before that face upon which the favor of God is written we know that we can rest, God can handle whatever comes at us. Do you begin to see how such a life can be a life of blessing? This is a life that displays the unchanging characteristics of the God we profess to believe, a life of grace and truth. In this life we, as the people of God, can live as one.

So, now do you understand the assignment? Or perhaps a better question is that as we live our lives before others, do they say that, yes, we do understand the assignment? Jesus our High Priest has blessed us and has made a way for us to live before the face of God so that his joy might abound in us. With this joy bubbling over our life we watch over others, we lead with grace and and we rest before the face of God, because this is what knowing the life of God is all about. I pray that  the blessing of Jesus our High Priest be upon all of us as we travel the road to Calvary this Lenten season. Amen!