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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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John 18:1-12

by Lon on March 1, 2011

Continuing our journey through John

1 When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was a garden, and he and his disciples went into it.

2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples.3 So Judas came to the garden, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.

4 Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, ”Who is it you want?”

5 “Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied.
“I am he,” Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.)6 When Jesus said, ”I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.

7 Again he asked them, ”Who is it you want?”
“Jesus of Nazareth,” they said.

8 Jesus answered, ”I told you that I am he. If you are looking for me, then let these men go.”9 This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled: ”I have not lost one of those you gave me.”

10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.)

11 Jesus commanded Peter, ”Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”

12 Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. They bound him13 and brought him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year.14 Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jewish leaders that it would be good if one man died for the people.

I wonder what the implications of regularly meeting in a ‘garden’ might be?  Could there be any implications in our world of concrete and electrons?

Judas and the soldiers came to capture and imprison Christ, but the question is the same – “Who is it you want?”

“Put your sword away” – What swords do we carry and swing today?

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John 17:1-5

by Lon on February 8, 2011

Continuing our journey through John

1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:

“Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.4 I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

We know God can hear our prayers, even the ones deep within our hearts – yet why would Jesus look to heaven and pray?  Is there some connection between our physical posture and our attentiveness to God in prayer?

Would you dare ask God to bring glory to you?  To ask for authority?  What would you do with glory and authority?  Would it be for the good of God and of others?

Do you have some notion of what ‘eternal life’ is?  Jesus spells it out as clearly as possible here ‘Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.’ – Does this differ in anyway from what you’ve known to be eternal life?

And where were you before the world began?

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John 15:18-25

by Lon on January 12, 2011

Continuing our journey through john

18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.23 Whoever hates me hates my Father as well.24 If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’

This passage reminds of our shared experience with Jesus himself as we follow him.

The problem with it though, is that these statements only carry truth if we’re actually following him and acting like him.

For example, if you’re caught stealing and persecuted, it’s not that the judge hated you first, but that you committed an obvious crime.

Or going further along with the passage, if ‘Christians’ become barriers and obstacles from people having ‘seen’ the ‘works’ of Christ, who truly is at fault then?  If Christians have mis-represented Christ – could it really be true that they hated Christ ‘without reason’?

Jesus almost seems to speak as if his followers would actually follow him, and not malign his name or sabotage his works; but maybe that’s to fulfill what’s written ‘we all, like sheep, have gone astray’…

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John 11:45-57

by admin on October 18, 2010

Continuing our journey through John’s Gospel of Jesus

45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs.

48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all!

50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation,52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.

53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

54 Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew to a region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.
55 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover.56 They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple area they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the Feast at all?”

57 But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that if anyone found out where Jesus was, he should report it so that they might arrest him.

It’s amazing how God was speaking to Caiaphas long before he encountered Jesus.  Could God be speaking to people in unlikely places – from someone who does not yet follow Jesus today?

Jesus for a period stayed away from the public.  We often think we ought to go big and make a splash – but there are times to continue our work beneath the spotlights and the public eye.  How does this impact what you’re working on or towards today?

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John 11:38-44

by Lon on October 8, 2010

Continuing our journey through the book of John

38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

39 “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

Take away the stone.  What ugly putrid parts of your life, your story, or your circumstances have you been covering up?

Could one of the most astounding things about God be that he might want to enter the most foul of places within our hearts?

Is there something dead within you that Jesus wants to summon alive?

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John 11:17-37

by Lon on September 29, 2010

Continuing our exploration of the gospel of John

17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.18 Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem,19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother.

20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;

26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
28 And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.”29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him.30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.

31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

35 Jesus wept.

36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Again this passage opens by stressing that Bethany was not that far away, and Jesus could have done something about it.

There are problems, issues, conflicts, pain, in all of our lives – and Jesus is no less capable of doing something about it – but why doesn’t he?

Christians believe that Jesus is God.  We have plenty of solid theological arguments to make the case.  Notice how when Mary refers to God as a separate being Jesus can make requests of, his response is not to make immediate theological corrections.

Jesus wept.  Is it possible that Jesus could be fully able of changing our circumstances, yet doesn’t?  Could it be that it is more in line with his character to join us in our suffering rather than removing our suffering?

Maybe Jesus is not just with us in our Sunday best, but in our very worst and lowest of times?

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John 9:35-41

by Lon on August 23, 2010

Continuing our journey through the gospel of John

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 

36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” 

37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” 

38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” 

40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” 

41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

It’s stories like this that get Jesus into trouble.

Why must he speak in such riddles?  Sometimes there seems to be a circular nature to Jesus’ arguments.  Last will be first, the blind will see… but then the first become last… and those who see are blind.

Maybe it’s not so much the destination, or the permanence of a state, but the dynamics of a living relationship.

Our desire for God leads to knowing him.  But as soon as we think we fully know him, would we still desire to know him more?

The truth of God is a dangerous thing.  Be careful of when your mind races faster than your hearts and your ability to respond to God.

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