J—Jesus in Jerusalem

Journey through the Gospel of John from A to Z with rookie bloggers who are seeking 
to honor their good friend, Tina.

As we journey through John we should stop and observe a bit of the terrain that we are passing through. Geographically speaking, this gospel spans three major regions:  Galilee in the northern part of Palestine, Judea in the south, and Samaria in-between.

The other three gospels focus on Jesus' work in the north.  But John's gospel spends a fair amount of time in Judea, where Jerusalem and the temple were located.

Chapters 7 and 8 are primarily set at the temple where pilgrims gather to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, a commemoration of the time when God delivered His people from Egypt and they dwelt in tents.  This was a joyous week-long feast, rich in symbolism of water and of light. Jesus taps into those symbols to continue revealing who He is to the people of Israel.  One claim that He makes at this feast is issued as an invitation:

 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."  -John 7:37-38

This offer of living water is an echo of Messianic passages that were part of the scriptural readings for the feast. Jesus was identifying Himself as the Messiah here.  But even more than that, Jesus was identifying himself with the Temple itself. For the waters described in these Old Testament prophecies speak of the water flowing from the temple.

This would not be the first time that Jesus implied this. Jesus refers to his own body when he tells the Jews, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."  (2:19)  Later, when the dedication of the temple was being celebrated, Jesus tells the Pharisees that He is the one that has been "sanctified" or "dedicated" by the Father (10:36).

The beautiful meaning for us is clear.  Jesus IS where we meet God.  He IS the fulfillment of all that the Lord requires of us. 

This is the change that Jesus cued for the Woman at the Well when Jesus said, "a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem," instead it will be "in spirit and truth" (John 4:21,23).

The Temple is more than just a backdrop for this gospel. John's choice to focus on Jesus' travels to Jerusalem for feasts is very deliberate. It is a powerful symbol to teach us about our salvation. 

I—"I AM"

Journey through the Gospel of John from A to Z with rookie bloggers who are seeking to honor their good friend, Tina.

We now come to Chapter 6 in our Journey through John—a chapter full of activity and discourse, hope and disappointment, enthusiasm and abandonment

Two more signs open this chapter: the feeding of the 5,000, and Jesus walking on water and overtaking his disciples in their boat.

These are two incredible signs!  Surprisingly, they do not lead to faith.  When the crowd approaches Jesus, they ask him to perform another sign and remind him that Moses gave their forefathers manna.  Perhaps they are hinting at a desire to be fed again—maybe they wanted something more than ordinary bread, or to be fed regularly, or on a larger scale.

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life..."I tell you the truth, it is not Moses ...but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world"...Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty....I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life.  Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.  But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.  (John 6:26 ff.)

This is the first of seven I AM declarations in the gospel of John.  Each of these statements assert the divinity of Jesus by echoing the name that Jehovah gave to Moses, "I Am."  But they go further; each reveals something of Christ and our relationship to Him.

Here again, Jesus presents Himself as the Lifegiver, the source of eternal life.  Here again, we are called to belief.

The crowd swings from wanting to make Jesus king when their bellies are full to abandoning Him when their appetites aren't catered to.

 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.  
Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.  We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."  John 6:66-69

What about you?  Will you follow after the words of eternal life?

H—Healing

Journey through John from A to Z with rookie bloggers who are seeking to honor their good friend, Tina.

After recording Jesus' encounters with Nicodemus and with the woman at the well, John relates two healings with very different results.

First, Jesus meets an official who is concerned about his dying son.  Desperate, the father begs Jesus to come and heal his son.  Jesus challenges the father to believe, and then tells him his son has been healed.  When the father returns home, he learns that his son had been healed, from a distance, just when Jesus had pronounced him well.  His faith is reinforced by this grace, and he and his whole household believe. John clarifies that this was Jesus' second sign, a miracle intended to point to Jesus as Messiah.

Next, Jesus heals a lame man who had been sitting beside the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, hoping for a cure. Surprisingly, not even the invalid that is healed expresses faith in Jesus; instead he seems resentful toward Jesus, who cautions him to stop sinning. This is the third sign in the gospel, but the cure occurs on the Sabbath and leads to persecution from the Jewish rulers rather than to faith.  

Here Jesus explains that He works on the Sabbath because His Father works on the Sabbath.  He also makes clear that He is able to heal because He gives life and that ultimately He gives eternal life that conquers the grave.

"My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." 
... "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does... For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.  ..."I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life...I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live...For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. 
.... For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me.  (John 5:17-36)

Every one of us chooses how we will respond to the life-giving power of Jesus.  And the two possible choices will lead to very different results.

G—Grace

Journey through the Gospel of John from A to Z with rookie bloggers who are seeking to honor their good friend, Tina.

Today we will look at a theme that runs through the entire gospel of John, the theme of GRACE.

This theme is first sounded in the Prologue, when John explains that the very character and nature of God is reflected in Jesus:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Exactly what is grace? Grace can be defined as favor or blessing that is bestowed as a gift, without being earned.

John is telling us that this beauteous generosity is part of the essence of God's very nature, so of course it characterizes His dealings with us.  
And from his fullness we have all 
received grace upon grace.  (John 1:14-16)

In other words, because of who God is, He has given us favor we don't deserve, and He will keep on lavishing that grace upon us.

Grace is at the root of John 3:16 that says that "God so loved the world that He gave..." Over and over we see how God gives to us out of His own nature, a nature of love.

Grace is the core of what Jesus was trying to communicate to Nicodemus and to the woman at the well.

Nicodemus needed to hear about grace because he had bought into a behavior-based system where people had to try to work their way into being acceptable. Jesus sought to free him from this performance trap by explaining that coming into eternal life was more like a birth. And that birth would bring him into the very family of God. As a son, he would not have to work for acceptance.  "But to all who receive Jesus, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God."  (John 1:12)

The woman at the well needed to hear the message of grace even more desperately, for she had fallen to a place where she likely felt that she could never be acceptable.  But because grace is based on God's love and character, it didn't matter what she had done.  Jesus encouraged her to ask for the living water, she would be changed internally through His gift.

The GRACE that Jesus offers is really AMAZING.  We don't need to worry that our self-worth, our success, our security, or even that our salvation is based on our behavior. 

Do you know that God loves you and freely gives grace upon grace?

When you grasp that truth you can be free indeed.  Free from fear and striving.

F—Faith

Journey through the Gospel of John from A to Z with rookie bloggers who are seeking to honor their good friend, Tina.

One of the most beautiful aspects of the Gospel of John is how it relates Jesus' interactions with a variety of people. Yesterday, we looked at how Jesus talked to Nicodemus, a spiritual leader who came to see Him at night.  Today, we see Jesus as the one who comes and initiates a conversation with a woman who is on the opposite end of the social ladder.  Where Nicodemus was the one pursuing answers, here we have a woman at Jacob's well who is avoiding answers.  While Nicodemus might be considered upright and moral, this woman would more likely be labeled "immoral" as she had had a string of husbands and was currently living with someone she wasn't married to.

John makes it clear that "Jews do not associate with Samaritans," reminding us that Jesus did not respect cultural barriers. Even though the culture didn't value her, He cared about this woman and persisted in seeking to reveal the truth to her—that He is the Messiah. Here, Jesus describes eternal life as water that He offers, living water that will abundantly flow from within the believer.

"Everyone who drinks this [well] water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."  (John 4:13-14)

There is a marked contrast between the Samaritan woman's response and Nicodemus's.  He reacts with confusion, while she reacts with faith that does seem to spring up like a fountain from within—a fountain that refreshes everyone about her.

She testifies to her neighbors and challenges them to believe that He is the Christ. Her faith is somewhat contagious, leading her fellow townspeople to come to Jesus, spend time with Him, and then at last to believe.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony... So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  And because of his words many more became believers.  They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."   (John 4:39-42)

John writes this gospel to bring others to faith.  Like the woman at the well, John's faith in Jesus is contagious and refreshing.  Have you put your faith in Jesus?  Are you refreshing others with the living water of Jesus Christ?

E—Eternal Life

Journey through the Gospel of John from A to Z with rookie bloggers who are seeking to honor their good friend, Tina.

In his gospel, John tells us that Jesus' miracles drew a lot of interest:
"Now while Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in His name." (John 2:23)

The miracles also attracted the attention of the religious leaders. One of those Jewish leaders, Nicodemus, came to visit Jesus one night.  From the interview, however, it is clear that Jesus was not impressed with the spiritual insight of this "teacher of Israel."

Jesus didn't waste any time in getting to the main point of our spiritual need: eternal life. For eternal life is the answer to the problem that every person confronts.  Everyone struggles with moral weaknesses and failings, and everyone faces the prospect of death. He tells Nicodemus the key to dealing with this problem and experiencing eternal life.

Jesus uses two images to explain eternal life, He described it as being a birth and as being like the wind—two things that cannot be controlled by the person experiencing them.

Having dedicated his life to strictly adhering to a set of traditions, Nicodemus had a hard time shifting gears. Jesus was directing Him to move from a place where his effort and behavior were the focus of his acceptability, to understand it wholly as a work of God.

Jesus:   I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God 
             unless he is born from above.  
Nic:       How can a man be born when he is old? 
             Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!  
Jesus:   You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born from above.'  
             The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, 
             but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. 
             So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.  

Jesus explained that God sent His son into the world so as to save it through Him.

Perhaps Nicodemus did not understand until later some of what Jesus was saying.  But when he saw Jesus lifted up on the cross, the words of that night must have come to him:

The Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  (John 3:15-16)

After Jesus gave His life on the cross, Nicodemus and another secret disciple laid Him in a tomb.  When Jesus rose from that tomb, his followers learned the power of the life that He offers.
And that is the light that Christians walk in today.

Eternal life is not just living after you physically die, it is being united with Jesus and experiencing His power and His eternality from the moment you put your trust in Him.

"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." (John 3:36)

Have you come into eternal life through faith in Jesus? Are you walking in His victory?

D—Disciples Believe

Journey through the Gospel of John from A to Z with rookie bloggers who are seeking to honor their good friend, Tina.

Within days of John the Baptist's endorsement, several disciples were intrigued enough with Jesus' teaching to follow Him on the two-day trip up to Galilee. But surely they had some doubts of their new-found leader.  For example, Nathaniel, upon hearing of Jesus and his origins, asked, "Nazareth! Can anything good come from Nazareth?" But Nathaniel and the other disciples quickly respond to Jesus and the demonstrations of authority that He displayed.

The gospel of John records seven of these demonstrations of power or "signs"—acts that are intended to point to Jesus as the very Son of God, the Promised One.  John details not just the witnesses present when the signs were performed, but he also gives the geographic locations of where they occurred. The first miracle happened at Cana, a small village not far from Capernaum.

There Jesus and his disciples attended a wedding feast with His mother, who approached Jesus to explain that their host was facing the crisis of running out of wine for his guests.  In a culture that highly valued hospitality, this was a serious problem.  Jesus directed servants to fill six large urns to the brim with water, and then to serve some from an urn and take it to the master of the banquet.

"When the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside  and said, "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now."   This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him. (John 2:9-11)

Because the disciples had followed Jesus, they were in a position to see His amazing transformative work.  In seeing it, they responded in faith and they themselves would be changed.

Are your eyes open to the work that God is doing all around you?
Are you eager for Him to bring about transformation in your life?
Respond in faith and see Jesus bring about something new as you follow Him.