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Journey Through John, #4, John 1.11-13, Born by the Will of God

March 23, 2020 0 Comments

Dear Friends,

This past Sunday was the second Sunday since our congregation got swept up in the storm called Covid-19. For two weeks now we have not gathered and that’s how it will be for the foreseeable future. I hate it.

I think I’m supposed to be excited about seeing you all online and connecting with you from a distance. But I’m grieving the loss of seeing you, just running into you on campus, gathering with you, seeing you in the city– and now of not even saying proper goodbyes. This storm has swept us up and scattered us across the globe.

I’m realizing that I can’t do this Journey Through John as if I’m just expositing the Word of God in a timeless vacuum. So, I’m going to write to my Dear Friends. That’s what you are to me. Yes I know I have served as a pastor to you under the guidance of Jesus our Great Shepherd. But even there I have sought to treat you as friends. 

My salvation testimony has its “event” prompted by the Holy Spirit when my my Sunday School teacher, Molly McCracken read from John 15:12-17. Even at 9, and even still, I am astonished that Jesus would call me a friend. It’s what I wanted at 9 and it’s what I enjoy now. 

As friends transformed by Jesus, I wish I was better at friendship with you and with Him. But I hope that’s the yearning of the Spirit in me for the communion of God and with His saints. 

I am eternally grateful to Jesus for choosing me. I pray often that He would choose you and that you would receive Him fully. There is tension in life for the friends of Jesus.

I believe John the Apostle was deeply aware of these tensions: the desire to treat all as friends of Jesus being stretched by the desire of God to transform all people through friendship with Him, and the reality that some people even though they have been granted the grace of God’s dignity towards them will not change their minds about HIm. Thus John writes that although Jesus came to those He created (the world) and those He had formed as His own (Israel) they did not recognize Him or receive Him. Yet…

12Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

John 1:11-13, NIV

I’m so grateful for this super work of God. To be born of God, by His will and not my own. To be born as a friend of God when I’m not all that great at friendship — amazing! This friends is our lot in Christ: we have been born of Him through the Holy Spirit-activated-act of seeing Jesus for who He is, and receiving Him for who He is. This is the will of our Heavenly Father — that we would be born of His will, not just our families’ will, but of His will!

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord Oh you friends of Jesus! Come all, come all and receive His friendship!

Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father,

Even in your family you would have us act as friends of Jesus. Even in this world you would have us treat all as if they could be a friend of Jesus — even our enemies. Thank you for the grace of recognizing and receiving Jesus. We have been born of your will, not our own, not of our families’ will, not of our parents’ will, nor of our nation’s will, but of your will. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! May our spiritual birth into a life with you be full of awe and new mercies.

In Jesus Name,
Amen.


Our next reading will be: John 1:14-15

(Note to those receiving this as an email. Click through to my blog if you would like to view the reading as a video.)

Journey Through John's Gospel, Relationships

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John 1.9-11 — The World Did Not Recognize Him

March 20, 2020 1 Comment

To talk about Jesus is to hold in mind the one who predates the Creation for He is creator within the Communion of God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

To talk about Jesus is to hold in mind the one who entered Creation as a participant with us in our common situation.

9The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 

John 1:9-11, NIV

John holds that Jesus arrived in the world as the true light that gives light to everyone.

He was received like a superstar right? Like a long-lost son, right? Like a long-lost friend, right? Like a king?

No — in general folks missed Him. They missed the one who made them, the one who knows them best, the one who loves them. They missed Him.

They did not recognize the true worth, value, and weight of the who walked their streets.

I do not condemn them. Apart from God’s grace I would be in the same stupor — I would not have recognized the incredible glory, majesty, and beauty of Jesus.

Our Common Situation: seeing but not knowing

Jesus though, did not condemn them for not recognizing Him. Instead Jesus felt grief  — many times he felt grief. (See Luke 19:41-44) He knows the full cost of our stupor, our blindness. We are already under a death sentence. His disciples were angry when Jesus was not recognized and welcomed. In their rage and indignation they wanted to call down fire from heaven. (See Luke 9:51-56) But Jesus, He rebuked His disciples.

The disciples give voice to what it’s like to be unrecognized, unappreciated, and unwelcomed. Jesus is familiar with the feeling and the pain of being under appreciated, unknown and rejected. Of course there were some who received him, whose hearts where opened by The Father and The Spirit to receive Him. (We will get to that in our Journey with John) But the pain of being the creator, the genius behind it all and not being recognized — Jesus knows.

It causes me to pause and recall C.S. Lewis’ insight about our human condition. We see with our eyes and then we don’t see. We too easily forget, ignore, or don’t even know about the unseen spiritual realities of this world and all our relationships. Too many folks live in a 3D world when they were made for a 4D world. You and I were created for a relationship with self, with people, with the stuff of earth AND for a relationship with God. All our relations are holy.

We all have blindspots when it comes to seeing people. Lewis writes:

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor.


The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.


It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.


All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.


It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.


There are no ordinary people.


You have never talked to a mere mortal.


Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.


But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.


This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn.


We must play.


But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.


And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.


Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.

C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, (HarperOne, 2001) pp. 45-46

Glorious Recognition

What would it have been like to have grown up with Jesus, watched his ministry, ignored His teaching, scorned him at his death as a felon, and then have to revaluate it all upon learning of His Resurrection?

O for the grace to say, 

“Oh, look it! My neighbour Jesus, He was the holiest of all!”

Prayer:

Heavenly Father,
I want to see Jesus. I want to see Jesus in all His glory: our Creator, Our Saviour, Our Lord, Your Beloved! Grant me the grace to see more. And in having recognized Jesus may I see all my neighbours with new eyes. May I long with Jesus for their full redemption and their glorious fellowship in your Communion. Oh come Lord Jesus — Shine on us.

In Jesus Name,
Amen.

Journey Through John's Gospel, Society

Silence is More Powerful Than Noise

March 19, 2020 0 Comments

This is a line from Frank Laubach in his book: Prayer the Mightiest Force in the Word: Thoughts for an Atomic Age. The book truly is written for his time. The world was still reeling from the throes of war. He writes:

Prayer is likely to under valued by all but wise people because it is so silent and so secret. We are often deceived into thinking that noise is more important than silence. War sounds far more important than the noiseless growing of a crop of wheat, yet the silent wheat feeds millions, while war destroys them. Nobody but God knows how often prayers have changed the course of history. Many a man who prayed received no credit excepting in heaven. We are tempted to turn from prayer to something more noisy like speeches or guns, because our motives are mixed. We are interested in the making of a better world of course, but we also want people to give us credit fro what we have done.

Secret prayer for others all during the day is an acid test of our unselfishness. Our little selves must fade out, leavening a self-forgetting channel, through which God’s warmth flows unhindered in lovely unending prayer. The highest form of communion is not asking God for things for ourselves, but letting Him flow down through us, our out over the world–in endless benediction. In the old Hebrew story Sodom needed ten good men to be saved. Now the world needs ten million. Anybody Christian enough to have read this far must be on that ten million or there will not be enough to save our age.

Frank C. Laubach, Prayer — the Mightiest Force in the Word: Thoughts for an Atomic Age

Let’s pray. For many of us, more secret prayer is what our social-distancing and staying home is making possible.

Prayer

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John 1.6-9 — A witness to the light

March 19, 2020 6 Comments

God in Christ Jesus, didn’t show up in Israel unannounced. Jesus had the prophets who spoke of His coming and he also had a man called John. Some of you may know him as “John the Baptist.”

The Apostle John’s view of the world was one that included the possibility and even the expectation that God might send people to others in order to give them a message. God had not abandoned His Creation. God was still involved. The evidence of the Scripture and of the history of Israel gave witness to the close association of God with their lives.

The very personal and bodily involvement of God in Christ was going to exceed what they expected.

When kings and lords sent messengers, there was an expectation for the messenger and for the people who received the message. The messenger’s task was important — though she or he was not the source of the message, they were to speak faithfully the message and to point to the source of the message. Through their presence and their words the messenger became a witness of the message’s source. The receivers of the messenger were to believe and adjust accordingly.

So it is with John and with Israel and all who resided among her.

6There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.9The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 

John 1:6-9

We will see more of John the baptist, even in a few verses. But here’s what we must understand about John the Baptist: God sent him. He was a witness. He testified about the light. He was not the light. He came as a witness to Jesus — the true light that gives light to everyone. God sent John so that people might believe. God is a sending God! God expects belief.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, I praise you! You have never abandoned your Creation. You keep sending people to give light to those who walk in darkness. Shed light on who Jesus is for more people in our world today. Keep sending people like John the Baptist to point to Jesus the true light. You desire for people to believe. You desire for people to get out of darkness. Unbelief is evidence of darkness. May those of us who know you be your witness. Light up our world Lord! Light up our hearts and minds Lord! May we testify of your light in our lives. In Jesus Name, Amen.

Journey Through John's Gospel

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John 1:1-5 — Jesus shines

March 18, 2020 0 Comments

The Gospel of Jesus is an announcement, “God reigns.” No matter the darkness of the night, or of our souls, or of the corrupt behaviour infecting our lands. God reigns. The Gospel of Jesus has a historical reach that includes all the time humanity experiences. In fact God has exceeded our imaginations: before Creation the Communion of God existed. All we see in the cosmos has its origin in Him.

The Apostle John has written his book, so “you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may life in his name.” (John 20:31) Let’s read this Gospel with John’s intention: to believe and to receive the life Jesus gives.

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome

John 1:1-5, NIV

This morning I was reading the Prophet Jeremiah in chapters 21-23. Not pleasant. Even Jeremiah himself felt the weight of God’s Word in respect to the days to come. He says, “My heart is broken with in me…” (Jeremiah 23:9) Yet in the midst of God’s judgment on the kings and the prophets, and the people, God offers glimmers of hope.

5“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,“when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch ,a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. 6In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Savior.

Jeremiah 23:5-6

If there is darkness; The Lord is still present. If there is light; The Lord is present with us.

This morning I looked through the spaces between my house and our neighbour’s house; this is what I saw:

O wee moon sliver
it’s morning and I see thee.
The Day cometh soon.

In the Gospel of Jesus we have the announcement: we — all people — live now between the Resurrection and the Return of Jesus. His light shines. Generations of people lived between the Creation and The Cross. But we live now between Jesus’– life-death-burial-resurrection-ascension AND His return. We have much in common with people on the “other side of the Cross of Jesus,” including this: the light of God has never, never, never ever stopped shining.

Jesus, Journey Through John's Gospel

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