John 21 - Part 2

 

 Read John 21

Jesus rose from the dead and appeared twice to his disciples in a locked room.

He breathed the Holy Spirit upon them.

John the author of this gospel told us that we have all that we need to believe in Jesus Christ.  Now we come to the last chapter.

Cast your net on the other side.

A huge catch for a small boat—153 fish.

Peter getting dressed and jumping into the water to get to the shore.

Breakfast waiting for the disciples.

The third time that John noted Jesus had appeared to the disciples.

That should bring us up to speed.  Jesus and these disciples have been eating, surely a welcomed meal after a long night.

Jesus asked Peter if he loved him more than the others loved him.

Well, yeah!  Of course.

Jesus told Peter, he addressed him as Simon son of Jonah or John, feed my lambs.

In the last real conversation between Jesus and Peter, Jesus had told Peter that he would deny him 3 times.  Peter denied Jesus 3 times.  I’m sure that Peter was glad that Jesus didn’t bring that up at this breakfast meal.

But Jesus continued with the same question.  Do you love me?

Peter answers, you know that I do.

Jesus instructs Peter to care for his sheep.

A third time Jesus asked Peter if he loved him.  Peter was hurt.  Lord you know all things.  You know that I love you.  C’mon Lord, I swam to shore when I knew it was you, didn’t I?

Jesus said, feed my sheep and then follow me.  Jesus described what was ahead for Peter, at least the part about how he would die.  John followed Jesus and Peter and Peter asked his Lord, what about him?

Jesus told Peter, “If I want him to live until I return, what’s that to you?  Somehow this got twisted into John would live until Christ returned but that’s not what was said.  Somehow, the disciples seemed to miss what was in plain sight.

Jesus said to Peter, “You must follow me.”

Most of your Bibles have subheadings and the one for this half of the chapter probably reads:  Jesus Reinstates Peter.

It’s a good heading.  Peter who denied Jesus three times affirmed his love for him three times and Jesus told him to take care of the flock.  Peter was reinstated to lead this church into the age ahead. 

It was Peter’s profession of faith—one that could have only been revealed by God—that became the foundation for the church today.

Peter had been reinstated.  Jesus didn’t use the world reinstate, but it adequately conveys the essence of the conversation.  As I considered the word reinstate—to restore to a former position or condition—I considered a variety of words that begin with the letter R. 

Peter was reinstated.

We are restored.

We are redeemed.

We renew our minds.

Our spirits are revived.

We are released from the bondage of sin and death.

We have joy and hope in resurrection.

We are reborn—born again of the Spirit.

We with eyes to see, recognize what God has revealed to us.

I think to Ezekiel 37 when God asked the prophet, “Can these bones live?”

Can life be returned to the lifeless?

There is nothing which God cannot restore.  Think ahead to the end of the story as has been revealed to us.  Let’s consider the first few verses of Revelation 21.

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”

It’s the end of the Gospel of John.  It’s the reinstatement of Peter.  It’s a reminder that it is impossible to fit everything that Jesus did into a written record, but we have what we need to believe.

It’s also a reminder that we can never stray so far that we cannot come home.  We can never hit such a low that God cannot lift us up.  We can never sink so deep that we are out of the reach of God’s love.

God has called you not only to salvation but to discipleship.  He has called you to follow him.  For some of you, he has put special callings on your heart.  And some of you are saddened or shamed or discouraged because you know that God called you to something and you backed away from it.

God reinstated Peter.  He will reinstate you to that which he planned for you before you were in the womb.

Maybe you denied your Savior’s call.  You had selective hearing when he called you.  Confronting this might hurt, but ultimately it will heal.

God has purpose for us all and just for you.  So many combat esteem issues, or failure issues, or just the fact that you have grown comfortable with the distance between you and God. 

Jesus reinstated Peter.  God can handle any setback that we have experienced.  He wants us to live going forward not looking backwards.

There will be challenges ahead.  We will have trouble in the world but we are called to trust the One who has overcome the world.

If Jesus calls you to cast your nets on the other side of the boat, do it.

If he says follow me, do it, regardless of what your cost-benefit analysis says.  His sheep know his voice.  Follow him.

Sometimes we talk ourselves out of following Jesus.  Sometimes we avoid hearing his voice.  Sometimes we have the best excuses ever for not going where he sends us.

There’s this saying, sometimes attached to a meme, going around these days.  It says that God already factored in your stupidity when he called you.  I find encouragement in that.

God knows our humanness.  He knows our frailty; yet he calls us for his purpose anyway.  If you have fallen away from serving God, then return home.

If you have lapsed into apathy or malaise, then let God’s Spirit revive you.

If you seem to have lost your hunger for life, then learn to rejoice in the Lord, not your circumstances.

When you feel worthless, know that the blood of Jesus has redeemed you.

When you feel lost, know that God has revealed his love and his direction for you.  Rejoice in his revelations.

When you feel worn out and beaten down by the world, renew your mind through the reading of God’s word and prayer, never ending prayer.

Remain in the teaching of our Lord and the truth shall set your free.  Be released from the weight of sin and death.

Reinstating Peter was a big-time event, but it was not just to make Peter feel better.  Jesus had plans for Peter.  God had purpose for Peter.  He told him not to worry about what he had told anyone else to do.  Jesus said, “Follow me.”  Essentially:

Get your eyes off of everyone else and do the work I have given to you.  Follow me.  Feed my sheep.  Take care of my sheep.  Be a shepherd.

I go now to the Lord’s directions to the church in Ephesus as found in Revelation 2.

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.  Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.

Here is one more R word:  Repent.  Turn away and leave behind everything that hinders.  How can we follow the Lord if we are anchored in the ways of the world?

For however many mistakes and miscues we have made, we can repent and be restored.  We can be revived.  We can be renewed.  Know that you are redeemed.

We sing I have decided to follow Jesus, but let us also resolve to never turn back from it.  We are never too lost that we cannot be reinstated.  We are all on missions from God.

We all fall short.

We all receive forgiveness in confession.

We all can get back in our race of faith.

Return to the Lord.

Remember his great love for us.

If we are off course in any way, return to him.  Come home.

Amen.

 

 

 

John 21 - Part 1

 

Read John 21

We have arrived at the last chapter of John.  We celebrated resurrection.  We should celebrate it every day, but sometimes we regard one day more than another.

Jesus rose from the dead.  He appeared to Mary and the disciples and surely others, but as this chapter begins, some disciples are out fishing.  That had been the trade for many of them until the last few years, but they seemed to have lost their touch.

Peter, John, Thomas, James and John, Nathanael were those who were named.  Peter had inspired them to go fishing the night before but that had not been productive at all.

Then early in the morning they see and hear a man calling to them from the shore.  “Y’all catch anything?”  That’s from the Southwest Standard Version.

With a negative reply, Jesus—whom the disciples had not yet recognized—said, “Try the other side.”

Without further conversation they do as instructed and the net becomes so full they can’t bring it into the boat.

John’s awareness kicked in first.  “It is the Lord!”

Peter was the one who dived into action.  Actually, he put his going ashore clothes on and jumped into the water and swam and walked to shore.  They were just a football field from the shore.

It might sound sort of strange to put your clothes on first but if you were out on the boat fishing, you likely hanged your outer garment while you worked.  You wouldn’t wear boots and jeans to have a lake day these days, would you?

And you wouldn’t wear your bathing suit to go to Walmart—ok, bad example—to go to United or Atwoods, would you?

When Peter put on his clothes, it was to say, “I’m not coming right back.  You guys deal with the fish.”

They did.  They had to walk the nets in.  This was a catch.  You know how fishermen exaggerate.  “Yeah, that was a catch!”  They decided to count them.  There were 153.

You can find commentaries about the significance of the 153.  They are interesting but don’t seem to contribute much to what would take place ashore.  I just leave this with it being an incredible catch and just as incredible, the net didn’t break in any place.

Sometimes, something is just so incredible, you have to measure.  You count.  About 45 years ago I was at Quantico, Virginian for Officer Candidate School.  This training took place at Camp Upshur.  There was nothing there but Quonset huts and they were a long way from any signs of civilization. 

The place had all it needed:  heat, humidity, and hills.

Nobody expected to get a weekend off, but this was 1976—the bicentennial of our nation and everyone would have that weekend (Independence Day Weekend) off, even the lowly officer candidates.

Did I mention that this place was in the middle of nowhere?  Even on the East Coast of the United States, there are still places in the middle of nowhere and you didn’t get to bring your car to OCS.  We were told that anyone who wanted to leave the camp for the weekend was to muster in the gravel parking lot near the Quonset huts at 0730 the next day.

As you might guess, nobody wanted to stay behind, so many gathered that morning to catch a ride.  The Marine Corps has this thing called a cattle car.  It is essentially a 40-foot trailer with double bus doors in the middle and a bunch of pipes inside to hold on to during transport.  The passenger limit was 80.  We had more than 80.

When we were full, but there were still others waiting to board, we said, “we can do one more.”  We kept doing this until there was nobody left.  The young Marine driver knew that if the MPs pulled him over, he was going to the brig.  The cattle car only took us to mainside in Quantico.  We had to wrangle our own transport from there.  Most went to Washington, DC.  It was, after all, the bicentennial.

As we were riding in this sardine can of humanity with some people stacked on top of others and others balancing on one of the bars designed as a lateral handrail, somebody said, “This has to be a record.”

So, we counted as we disembarked:  218 had made that ride. Sometimes, you just have to count. Somethings were so amazing you just have to stop and count.

The disciples counted the incredible catch and found Jesus was cooking fish on the fire when they arrived.  Jesus told them to bring some of their catch to add to the meal that was already prepared.

Cast your next on the other side.

A huge catch for a small boat.

Peter getting dressed and jumping in to get to the shore.

Breakfast waiting for the disciples.

The third time that John noted Jesus had appeared to the disciples.

That was the transition to what followed.  And what followed?

Directions to share the gospel, to feed those who sought Jesus, and to be his disciples even while he was away, that’s what followed.

And it has been pretty much the same through this age.  Take God’s love and life in him to the world.

Our celebration was in last week’s reading.  This week tells us it’s time to get to work living for our risen Savior.

It’s time for discipleship!

Amen.

John 20 - Part 2

 

Read John 20

In the hymn I Love to Tell the Story, the third verse begins:  I love to tell the story, for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.

You know the story.  Many of you know it well.  You have been reading it all week.  It was surely a much easier read that last week.

Nobody comes to this part of the story and says, yeah, ok, I know how that comes out. Shakespeare may have consistently climaxed his stories in Act III, Scene II but John takes you all the way to chapter 20.

Put yourself in that time and place just for the moment.  Jesus is gone.  Mary thinks someone has taken the body.  OBTW—this huge stone has been rolled away.  Peter and John race to the tomb.  There are some burial cloths but no body. 

They go back to where they were staying.

Mary comes back and in a somewhat circuitous conversation discovers the Lord is alive.  For the second time that morning, she returned to the disciples with news.

I have seen the Lord!

On that same evening, the disciples were gathered in a locked room and Jesus appeared to them.  Peace be with you was his greeting.  Now there is joy.  Seeing is believing.

Again, Jesus said peace be with you.   He said receive the Holy Spirit and breathed on them.  You might think that the Spirit didn’t come until Pentecost but consider that the disciples received the Spirit at this time and it was fully manifest upon them at Pentecost.

These were some confused men.  It might take a few weeks to bring to recollection what they had been through and how it all fit together.

Jump ahead a little to Saul’s conversion.  He met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus.  This was a powerful conversion of a man well versed in God’s written word; yet, Paul spent some time in the wilderness after this encounter putting the pieces together.

He knew God’s word inside and out, but he had realized he didn’t know God very well.  Some time to process, digest, reconcile his education and experience with what God had called him to do was needed.

The disciples needed a little time as well.  About 7 weeks should do the trick, but the Spirit was given at this time. 

OBTW—Thomas missed this meeting and would not believe what had happened.  You know the story.  I won’t believe it until I see it.

Thomas wanted the forensics.  I want to see holes from nails and a spear.  Thomas gets the less than affection nickname in the modern times of Doubting Thomas. 

Perhaps a better title would be Be Careful What You Ask For Thomas.

Jesus appeared to Thomas later and told him to see and touch what he needed to.  Thomas believed and proclaimed, My Lord and My God.

Then Jesus speaking to Thomas speaks directly to us.

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

That is the story that we celebrate once a year.  This year, you get it again.  We should celebrate resurrection time and time again.

The crosses that we display on our church buildings and homes are empty.

We remember that the tomb was empty.

We sing Christ Arose.  Hallelujah, Christ arose.

But for the moment, I ask that we look at the very end of this fantastic chapter.

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

If you have read the Bible for a while, you have asked these questions or others like them.

How was Jesus as a baby?

Did he have to go through the terrible twos?

We see a glimpse of Jesus when he was 12 but what happened between then and when he turned water into wine when he was about 30?

Did he act like he knew everything when he was a teenager?  What if he did know everything?  Now there is a parenting challenge.

Did he ever get grounded?

How many days or weeks or months was it between some events in the Bible?

Will there be a college football season in 2020?

It seems like there is so much that is not included in the Bible that inquiring minds want to know. Listen again to how John ends this chapter.

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

We have enough to believe.  Our charge is to believe.  Our calling requires us to believe.  Our discipleship calls us to believe.

We are charged with more:  trust, obedience, love to name a few, but we must believe and this short closing to this chapter tell us that we have what we need to believe.  These written words are what we need to believe.  These testimonies passed from generation to generation are what we need.  We are blessed that we have them in writing.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Let’s celebrate our atonement in the blood of Jesus. Let’s celebrate resurrection. Let’s celebrate life eternal.  Let us celebrate the victory over sin and death that we know in Christ Jesus.

Let’s do this believing in what we have not seen. 

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

We have all that we need to believe, and we are blessed for believing.

Amen.

John 20 - Part 1

 

Read John 20

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding… But they just killed him.  They killed our Lord and our Teacher and our Master.

In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight…  But they just killed him.  They killed our Lord and our Teacher and our Master.

I want to trust the Lord, but my eyes tell me that the One who I followed as Messiah and Christ is dead.  The one who was to be my King forever and ever is dead.

Are they coming for me next?

Speaking of next, what would be next even if they don’t come for me?  Fishing? Moving? Trying to go back to normal.  What exactly will be my new normal?

Sometimes the toughest battles that we must fight take place in our own mind.  We often gravitate to the worst-case scenario, but who could blame the disciples, they had killed the Lord?  Surely that’s the worst-case scenario, right?

Then Mary Magdalene returned from the tomb with news.  The stone had been removed.

What?  Didn’t see that coming.  Who would move the stone?

Mary added that they had taken the Lord and we don’t know where they put him.   This was her assessment not raw intelligence.  She saw an empty tomb and made her own conclusions.  Who they was never is defined, but the body of Jesus was gone.

Peter and another disciple (probably John) raced to the tomb.  That was the race that we read about, but I think there were a couple other races.  Do you ever wonder what they were thinking along the way?  What thoughts raced through their minds as their legs propelled them to the tomb?

John won the foot race but stoped at the entrance to the Tomb.  Peter flew by John and entered the tomb.

Peter inventoried the cloths present, strips separated from the head cloth, but no body and no clues.

The scripture said that they saw and believed, but is not specific about what they believed.  Did they just believe he was gone?  Yep, Mary was right.  There’s no body here.

Or did they believe that Jesus had risen from the dead?  John’s gospel noted that these two did not yet understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead.  Did they believe he had risen but just did not understand that it was required by scripture?

Surely, there were many unanswered questions.

The next sentence gives me a run for my money as far as dry humor goes.  Having taken all of this in, the disciples went back to where they were staying. 

Yeah, ok, he’s not here.  Let’s go.

We are blessed to be able to look back across 2000 years and know the story.  We didn’t live it moment-to-moment.  We don’t have to wonder, what’s next.

We know, but what do we see with these two disciples?  These are two from what we might call the inner circle. They saw more than most, but what we see are sheep without a shepherd.

Understand that joy will come, but bewilderment and that feeling of being lost would come first.  He was gone—he died—and they mourned.

He was gone—his body was gone—and they did not understand.

Let’s go back to Peter and John racing to the tomb.  What were they thinking?  Theft? Resurrection? Somebody’s idea of a bad joke?  What had the Master said about…

Such was the condition of the disciples illustrated in these two.

Excitement, confusion, wonder, expectation, uncertainty, and who knows what else. 

We can look back and see these things clearly but do we see them in ourselves.  We want so much to trust in the Lord but we wonder what is going on all around us.

We want to be able to set aside our own understanding but what does our mind retreat to when the stress level goes up?  What goes on in our mind—things called negative fantasies—can be debilitating.

Do we truly acknowledge God in everything we do and say and think or are we just dumbfounded and confused at times wondering why God has not fixed everything?

Do we trust him that the path he has set us upon is the right path?

The disciples were at a loss.  What now?  First, they kill him.  Now they have taken him.  What now?

Because we have read the chapter and the rest of the gospel, we know, but sometimes we are just like the bewildered disciples in the tomb.

This morning, I want to remind you that there is always more to the story.  We will hit some low points in our lives, but we don’t need to stay there. 

We won’t always understand but we must trust.

We won’t always see God’s plan at work but we must acknowledge that he alone is sovereign.  He is Lord.

We know that there is more to this story.

Remember, there is also more to our story as we follow our Lord.

As you read and study, celebrate the resurrection of the Lord.

As you face today and the next, realize that there is more to come as we live out our stories.  Never fear the worst case scenario. 

Amen.

John 19 - One Liners

 

Read John 19

Everyone knows what a one-liner is right.  It’s supposed to be a joke with the story and punchline contained in a single line, sometimes it takes two or three lines, but you get the idea.

Working in a mirror factory is something I can totally see myself doing.

I came up with a new word yesterday:  plagiarism.

My grandfather has the heart of a lion and a lifetime ban at the zoo.

No matter how much you push the envelope, it will still be stationary.

I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

There are two types of people in this world:  those who crave closure.

 

Some of you are going to go to my Facebook page and do the angry face on all of my posts for that last one.

We are going to go over some one-liners in this 19^th chapter.  Instead of the contiguous text of the chapter being put into a message, I am cherry-picking a few verses this morning, not to concoct a doctrine not intended by the author, but to unpack so much that’s packed into a few one-liners.

Let’s start with verse 11. 

Pilate wanted to release Jesus but Jesus wasn’t helping at all.  He was on a mission and that mission led to the cross.  Pilate pleaded with Jesus to give him some sort of answer.  The Roman governor noted that he could release him or have him killed.

Jesus answered, You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.

Why is this important?  Look at the illogical events that led us up to this point.  A kangaroo court, Jews turning Jesus over to the hated Romans, and of course the words, “We wouldn’t bring him to you if he were not guilty.

Jesus could have put a stop to the nonsense at any point, but this was necessary to living out his Father’s will.  The power that Pilate held over Jesus in this moment was within the sovereignty of God. 

This verse couples two one-liners.  The second part is:  Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.

So, is Jesus presenting a taxonomy of sin?  You could read Leviticus and made a case that such a thing does exist.  But here, this is the more likely explanation.

Pilate, you and your method of execution were essential to the plan of God that would have Jesus lifted in in his act of atonement for the sins of humankind.  You didn’t know any better, but you were necessary.

Those knuckleheads that turned me over to you were necessary as well, but they should have known better.  They knew Messiah was coming.  They should have known him when they saw him.  They didn’t.

 

The next one-liner is crazy but completely in the context of what was required to get Jesus to the cross. 

“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.

What?

The Jews hated the Romans.  The Jews despised Caesar.  Most had never met him but they saw his image on the Roman coins and paid taxes to him and had nothing good to say about him.

This one-liner came in response to the follow question proffered by Pilate.

Shall I crucify your king?

We have no king but Caesar!

Realize that Caesar had declared himself to be god.  This was a thorn in the side for the Jews, especially the scribes and Pharisees and other high religious leaders.  To say we have no king but Caesar was to say, we have no God but Caesar.

Who is doing the blaspheming now?

Let’s read a couple verses beginning with 19. 

Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. 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.  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.”

Here’s my first one-liner out of this batch.  The sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. 

Do you know what the most frequent complaint on the Pilate hotline was from the Roman soldiers?

Why do I have to push 2 for Latin?

Now if the sign had only been in Latin, only the Romans could read it, and maybe not even some of them.  Greek was still the language of the Empire, but Aramaic belonged to the Jews alone.  Why did this have to be there.  It upset the chief priests among the Jews.

They wanted this man killed because he claimed to be the King of the Jews, actually the Son of God, but the religious leaders and Pilate concocted this title in the process of this circus.  The religious leaders wanted the sign changed to read, he said he was King of the Jews.

Here is your next one-liner.  Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written.

Pilate finally grew a backbone.  Pilate had early asked Jesus, what is truth?  Now Pilate has displayed the truth and won’t be talked out of it.  The truth would not be silenced by the kangaroo courts required to get Jesus to the cross.

The next example comes while Jesus is on the cross.  His mother was in attendance.  No mother should be preceded in death by her child, but this death was essential to the salvation of humankind.

In verses 26 and 27 Jesus makes provision for his mother.  To Mary he said:  Woman here is your son and to the unnamed disciple (presumed to be John), Jesus said:  Here is your mother.

Jesus provided provision for his mother after his death.  Perhaps Joseph was out of the picture.  His own brothers would not believe in him until he rose from the dead.  He would not leave his mother without support.

The man who moment-to-moment in these last hours had to choose the cross again, and again so that he might save humankind from its sin also had compassion for his mother.

Let’s jump to verse 30.  When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Jesus knew that the work of atonement was completed.  His fulfillment of the law and the prophets was done.  Mission accomplished.

Crucifixions often lasted into the night or the next day, but there was no purposeful reason to continue.  His work was done.  It is finished was mission accomplished for Jesus.

Sin lost its sting.  The atonement for humankind was completed.  There was more to come, but the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world had taken away the sin of the world.

Here’s where we finish up for today, with verses 38 and 39. 

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away.  He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.

Consider this line:  Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders.

Some had become disciples other than the few men who followed him for 3 years.  Many had followed for a while, but many abandoned him because his teachings were difficult.  Joseph was counted as a disciple.  Joseph was a named person in the Bible and a person of means.

Joseph was a disciple of Jesus but not brave enough to declare it publicly.

Here’s the last one-liner out of that same set of scriptures:  He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night.

We remember Nic at Night from chapter 3.  Nicodemus was a Pharisee, also a person of note, but showed respect for Jesus considering him to be a rabbi.  He had difficulty with being born of the Spirit and Jesus being the Son of God.

What is in this one-liner is what is not in it.  It does not say that Nicodemus was a disciple.  Was this just not important?  Was it an oversight.  Was John over his world limit and couldn’t include that part.

Nicodemus showed Jesus the respect due a rabbi and helped Joseph of Arimathea prepare him for burial and place him in the tomb.  He could not hang on the cross after sunset. 

Why single out these two one-liners?

Consider our world today.  How many have professed faith in Jesus but are afraid to publicly follow him?  How many Josephs are there in the church?

Consider our world today.  How many seem like good people and seem to want to do good things but have not received Jesus as Lord?  How many like Nicodemus are all around us.

Our job is not to take a census but make sure that not only the most obvious sinners hear the good news of life in Jesus Christ, but also those who seem to want to do the right thing.

Jesus is Lord.  Our mission is to lead people to his Lordship.

When we stand before our Lord, would we like to say, Mission Accomplished.  Wouldn’t we like to have our own one-liner?

Amen.

John 19 - Part 1

 

 Read John 19

Jesus is Lord!  I love saying that.  Jesus overcame sin and death for me.  What love!

Jesus conquered the grave.  Amen, hallelujah, oohrah!  Jesus made me right with my heavenly Father.  Praise the Lord!

Jesus said, remember me in this way.  We will partake of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper shortly and I asked that you receive it as a celebration. 

Jesus told me to be known by my love.  Let everyone know that I am his disciple by my love.

He said be salt and light to this world.  Mix it up in the world and let people see and taste the goodness of the Lord.  Yes!

We celebrate resurrection.  We rejoice in the atonement for our sins.  Eternal life—eternal relationship with our heavenly Father and Christ Jesus in heaven and on earth with time no longer a factor—is ours.  An inheritance stored up for us beyond our imagination.  Wow!

Christ going to the cross for us was big time.  Yes, we should celebrate, but as we read this chapter, we must empathize.  There’s no reading what happens in this chapter without a lump or two or three or three hundred in your throat.

Our nature is to struggle to live.  That’s human nature.  If I hold you underwater for a couple of minutes, you will fight.  If someone comes at you with a knife, you will fight or run.  You want to live.  It’s hard-wired in us and in everything with a heartbeat.

We understand the concept of death.  We don’t fully understand everything about death, but we know enough to fight to stay alive.  Some people suffer from depression and give up the struggle.  One of those unique groups is veterans.  I’m plugged in to some veteran networks, and suicide is a real thing for many.

Absent some debilitating condition, we are hard-wired to live.  There is something so special, so sacred, so holy about life.  It desires to prevail.

We sense danger if we think our life is threatened.  Fight or flight is a real thing.  We are hard-wired to live.  We are different from the rest of the animal world in this regard.  The rest of the world can sense danger to a degree and does fight to live, but we have an extra component.  We get to think about it, even if only in the instant.

If I put a .45 caliber pistol up to your head, your heart rate will go up.  Some might pass out.  If I put the same pistol up to my dog’s head, he will lick it and the hand holding it and wag its tail.  Your dog does not sense danger as we do.  We get to think about it.

We understand danger to a greater degree than other living things.  We understand existential risk—a threat to our existence more than other animals, even though they have survival instincts. 

Jesus knew the exact situation that he was in and chose to continue to the cross despite what was ahead of him.  He was not suicidal.  He was not depressed.  He was purposeful and his purpose involved existential risk.  Risk is not the right word. 

To fulfill his mission, Jesus moved towards certain death.  There wasn’t a risk that he would die.  He would die to fulfill scripture and accomplish the mission for which he was sent.

You might think, Yeah, but he knew he would live again.  He knew he would be with his Father in heaven.  He knew that the grave could not hold him.

That’s all correct, but he also knew that the human vessel that he was born into craved to live.  The human nature that came with the flesh desired to live. 

We desire to live.  I have told you before that I read minds.  I know some of you say, Oh just kill me when the sermon gets a little long, but really you desire to live.  Once again, I insert the disclaimer that the last statement was tongue-in-cheek.  After all, it is 2020 so you either have to wear a mask or explain your humor.

Jesus and Pilate had their initial exchange in the previous chapter.  We begin chapter 19 with Jesus being whipped or scourged.  This was not just a little pain here and there.  This was flesh-ripping, agony-filled, blood-drawing pain, and it would last until Jesus died on the cross. 

It wasn’t something you could put a Band-Aid on and make it better. The pain wouldn’t go away in the next 5 minutes.  This punishment in itself would have most people begging for mercy.

It takes a special—and by special, I mean sadistic—sort of person to flog someone, but whipping Jesus wasn’t enough.  They made him a crown of thorns to mock him and dressed him in a purple robe.

Then Pilate made one more appeal to the Jews.  This had graduated from a few Jews to a crowd, but the religious leaders who wanted Jesus dead were among them.  It was as if to say, isn’t this enough punishment for someone who hasn’t done anything wrong?

But the religious Jews who held the kangaroo court also incited the crowd.  Crucify him!

The Jews shouted that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God.  That was blasphemy, it was blasphemy unless you actually were the Son of God but the Jews would not see the truth.   The Jews just said it was against their law.  Blasphemy was not a big deal to the Romans.  Blaspheming the Jews  and their God was likely common place in Pilate’s palace.  So, the Jews just shouted he broke our law by claiming to be the Son of God.

Pilate wasn’t concerned about this breaking Jewish laws.  What he heard was Son of God.   He could find no fault with this man and the religious Jews who were such a pain in the neck, were the only ones who wanted him killed.

 He went back into the palace and spoke with Jesus again.  I will take a little liberty here.  Give me something to work with.  I don’t want to do this.  Don’t you get it?  Your life is in my hands.

Jesus did give Pilate an answer.

“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.”

There is an interesting rabbit trail about the greater sin should we want a Bible study on the taxonomy of sin again, but that is for another day.

At this point, Pilate really wanted to set Jesus free.  What has he gotten himself into?  He should have stuck to his guns when he told the Jews who pestered him to Go and try him by your own laws.  He made his last appeal to the Jews, but they manipulated Pilate to do their will.

Anyone who claims to be a king is no friend of Caesar.

We have no king but Caesar.

I remind you that the Jews hated the Romans, but they sure sounded like Romans themselves here.

We have no king but Caesar.

Remember, that Caesar had declared himself to be a god, so the Hebrew people were saying, We have no god but Caesar.  Who’s the blasphemer now?

As we consider this part that we know well but don’t dwell upon much, let us remember at any point along the way, Jesus could have said, stop, and it all would have ended.

Pilate wanted to let him go.  Had Jesus just proclaimed his innocence, Pilate could be rid of this mess.

Had Jesus called for rescue, a dozen legions of angels would have delivered him, but Jesus chose to continue to the cross and fulfill the will of the Father.

In every word or in his silence, in every lash of the whip, in the constant pain, Jesus chose to fulfill the will of the Father and continue to the cross.

 Moment to moment Jesus chose the cross.  He chose the cross.

He chose the cross because of God’s great love for us.

God loved us. God chose us.  God still loves us.

See his love in the moment-to-moment decisions of Jesus to continue to the cross.

Amen.