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Questions & Thoughts

John 19:28-37

by Lon on May 26, 2011

Continuing our journey through John

28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ”I am thirsty.”29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ”It is finished.”With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

31 Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.32 The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other.33 But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.35 The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.36 These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,”t37 and, as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.”

“It is finished”, Jesus declared.  What exactly was finished, was it simply his life?  Or was something far grander far most cosmic accomplished upon the cross?  Does his death line up with what he spoke of and the way he lived his life?

The Jewish leaders did not want bodies left on the crosses during Sabbath – It’s amazing how we can get particular about the wrong things.  Here was a human being (regardless of whether they believed he was divine or not) who was just crucified at their request – and yet in this very next moment they are still hung up on keeping their religious ways.

Blood and water flowed.  This is bursting with possible metaphors.

It’s interesting the way John records his account of Christ’s death.  Quite often in scripture you’ll see the writer talking about how a current event was fulfillment of something written in the scriptures in the past.  I wonder if they missed any other tie backs from their times to the old testament accounts?

And more importantly, I wonder if we miss how scripture is fulfilled daily in our own lives?

 

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John 19:17-27

by Lon on May 16, 2011

Continuing our journey through John

So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.17 Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).18 There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle.

19 Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read:jesus of nazareth, the king of the jews.20 Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek.21 The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”

22 Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

23 When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

24 “Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.”
This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said,
“They divided my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.”t
So this is what the soldiers did.

25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ”Woman,t here is your son,”27 and to the disciple, ”Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

Pilate made an honorable gesture in fastening the notice that Christ was the king of the jews.  I don’t think he meant it mockingly, but he actually believed it in some ways.  However, he still played a role in the death of Christ.

I wonder how often we do the same.  We acknowledge him with our lips, all the while, denying him by our actions.

You could say the chief priests had more integrity in some ways – they believed crucifying Christ was the right thing to do, and followed through on it.

I can’t even begin to imagine what this scene was like for Mary mother of Jesus.  How must it have felt to have your own flesh and blood, your own child you’ve nurtured into adulthood, wrongfully tortured upon a cross to the point of death?

Yet, upon the Christ you don’t see him ever looking for pity, or playing victim, his concern was for his family, or others, for the forgiveness of those who sought to kill him.

Is there something we can learn from Christ’s example?  When we’re hung out to dry?  when we’re suffering?  when we’re blamed buy not at fault?  when we respond to those who seek to hurt us?

 

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John 19:1-16

by Lon on May 10, 2011

Continuing our journey through John

1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face.

4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.”5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”

6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”
But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”

7 The Jewish leaders insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”

8 When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid,9 and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer.10 “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”

11 Jesus answered, ”You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

12 From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”

13 When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha).

14 It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon.
“Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.

15 But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”
“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.
“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.

16 Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

It’s a bit odd the way the soldiers mocked Jesus.  I could understand someone just carrying out orders, but this was above and beyond.  There was hatred here.  The only other human emotion I could think of them having is some type of shocking disbelief of who Jesus was claiming to be.  They ridiculed him in order to express the insanity of such a claim.

Christ also seems to display a peaceful form of control and rebellion here.  His silence and his attributing of Pilates powers to God the Father shows a remarkable composure.

“We have no king but Caesar” – today we might think that the Jews here were outrageously misguided to have Jesus before them and pledge allegiance to Caeasar instead – but I’m guessing we pledge our allegiances in all sorts of places through our actions, our sins, and our desires, even when we know Christ is in our midst.

 

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John 18:28:40

by Lon on April 28, 2011

Continuing our journey through the gospel according to John

28 Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”

30 “If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”

31 Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”
“But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected.32 This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.

33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, ”or did others talk to you about me?”

35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”

36 Jesus said, ”My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, ”You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”

40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.

v36 is fascinating.

Jesus is announcing that the Kingdom of heaven is near, it’s begun, it’s here and on it’s way… obviously Christ’s disciples hadn’t embraced this reality, and that’s why his kingdom didn’t seem to be in effect.  But for the rest of us, today, if we’re really a part of this new kingdom Christ is ushering in, maybe we ought to be fighting for Christ to be king, in our lives and in our cities?

v38 “What is truth?” Pilate responds.  In our world today, many of us live with our own truths – much of it often never tested or thought about much.  We often believe what’s given to us.  Maybe followers of Jesus ought to really dig deeper into truth.  What does Christ really proclaim?  What’s ultimate reality in this new Kingdom of his on earth?

v40 The crowd shouted for Barabbas to be released instead of Christ.  I wonder, and this might be a stretch, would we, and do, do the same?

We’re often willing to accept what pains Christ to fit the way we think things ought to be.  ie. In retrospect we might demand that Christ be crucified, because without it, he could not be our ultimate sacrifice and atone for our sins…?

or for example today because Christ mentioned there would be wars, and the poor, and evil, as a reality in our world… would it not pain Christ if we did nothing about it?

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John 18:25-27

by Lon on April 20, 2011

Continuing our journey through John

25 Meanwhile, Simon Peter was still standing there warming himself. So they asked him, “You aren’t one of his disciples too, are you?”
He denied it, saying, “I am not.”

26 One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged him, “Didn’t I see you with him in the garden?”27 Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster began to crow.

Most of us can forgive others for a single mistake.  We know they happen in life.  But the second and third time, it starts becoming a habit.  You wonder if it was on purpose or speaks of something at the core.

The same goes with forgiving ourselves and experiencing the forgiveness of Christ.  Are you caught in unending sin?  Do you find yourself repeatedly damaging yourself or those around you?  Jesus forgives you.  Did you do it again?  and again?  The God who is love, continues to embrace you.

It’s harder to believe the more mistakes we make.  After a while it becomes a matter of trusting our own twisted voices within or the voice of the creator of the universe who pursues us unendingly with love.

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Justice & the Common Good

by admin on March 15, 2011

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John 18:19-23

by Lon on March 14, 2011

Continuing our ongoing journey through the book of john

19 Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.

20 “I have spoken openly to the world,” Jesus replied. ”I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret.21 Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said.”

22 When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby slapped him in the face. “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” he demanded.

23 “If I said something wrong,” Jesus replied, ”testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?”24 Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

The lens we see the world with shapes everything.

If our perspectives are skewed and we distrust reality then we can be staring at truth himself in the face, and we will not see him.

Why do we strike back at truth?  Sometimes it’s because it’s delivered unkindly.  But what of when it’s not?  How do you respond when someone speaks truth to your own wrong doing or your own mis-perceptions?

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John 18:15-18

by Lon on March 7, 2011

Continuing our journey through the book of John

15 Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard,16 but Peter had to wait outside at the door. The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the servant girl on duty there and brought Peter in.

17 “You aren’t one of this man’s disciples too, are you?” she asked Peter.
He replied, “I am not.”

18 It was cold, and the servants and officials stood around a fire they had made to keep warm. Peter also was standing with them, warming himself.

Who is this other disciple?  John referred himself in the third person sometimes, but what intrigues me is whether this disciple as identified himself as so.

When the servant girl asks Peter if he’s a disciple too, could it be that the other disciple had owned up to his affiliation with Christ?

Are there times when you’re caught, unable to acknowledge Christ?  Sometimes it’s easier to blend among the rest and warm ourselves by the fire isn’t it?

Another perspective on this is if we time sliced this incident, Peter spoke the truth.  In the moment he said he wasn’t a disciple he wasn’t.

And what does that say of us and our daily actions?  Are we disciples?  followers of Christ?  Betrayers of Christ?  Or some mixture in-between?

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