John 12.20-36

 John 12.20-36

We hear a lot about praise and worship.  That phrase has come to be synonymous with the specific music which has a style, volume, and tempo that pleases us.  If it is the kind of music that we can “get into”, that moves us in some way, we label it as praise and worship.   That understanding is, I think, foreign to the New Testament.   I am not advocating one style of music or another.  I have been blessed with a profound lack of musical talent.  My preferred style of sacred music is Gregorian chants.  This is not about hymns vs. choruses; it has nothing to do with organs and/or guitars. 

In John 12:23 Jesus says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”  We would do well to pay attention and understand what Jesus meant when He was talking about His glorification.  Antecedent to that statement about glorification some Greeks had come to Phillip because they wanted to “See Jesus”.  In John’s Gospel, to “see” was more than a visual encounter.  It meant to place faith in Jesus as the Messiah.  We must not miss this point.  A group of Greek non-Jews, perhaps converts to Judaism, had come to the conclusion that Jesus was in fact the Messiah; they were placing their trust in Him.  This is a momentous moment, it is so powerful and so important that the Greeks fade into the background and we hear nothing of them.  Instead we find Jesus talking about His glorification.  The context is critical.  The good news of faith in Jesus, of people crossing barriers and of ‘outsiders’ committing themselves to Him; this is the occasion of Jesus’ glorification.  It is not the perfect four-part harmony of a song written in the1800’s; it is not a praise chorus that repeats a catchy phrase.  It is outsiders becoming followers.  

This is not an anti-music harangue.  Music is wonderful and powerful and needs to be a part of every disciple’s life.  But we have made the mistake of thinking that the apex of praising the Lord is in a sing along or a concert.   In Jesus’ mind the apex is what we would call evangelism.  At the confession of faith the very angels in Heaven join in the celebration and the glorification of the Son.  

But Jesus points out that there is a cost to this glorification.  The cost is high.  In this same context He tells the disciples that if you keep your life you will lose it.  And of Himself He alludes to His death on the cross.  The Gospel message that results in the glorification of the Son is expensive.  At times it has meant missionaries leaving family and home and never returning.  It has called followers to die, in some cases their blood, as a witness to their faith becoming the seed of the Gospel.  It calls churches to reorient their ministry to focus on reaching the lost rather than serving their own whims.  To die to self is an extraordinarily high price to pay to glorify Christ.  So was being lifted up on the cross.  

Maybe we need to realize that music is, relative to the cross, not a very big deal.  In that realization, focus on efforts to present the Gospel to non-believers and when they come to faith, no matter the cost, we will know we have glorified the Son.  

“Lord, help me praise You by sharing the Gospel. AMEN”

John 12: 12 - 19

 John 12: 12 - 19

The picture of unbelief continues on the part of the religious leaders. The refusal to believe, their hard-heartedness is so extreme that they plot to murder Lazarus. A hard heart will go to any lengths to deny or suppress the evidence. Rather than believe in Jesus they see others coming to faith based Lazarus and his resurrection. So the Jews will try to hide the evidence by killing an innocent man. This would not be the last plot to do so. Proof or lack of proof was clearly not their problem.

In this passage we see a swelling multitude. The first is the multitude that went to see Jesus and Lazarus. Add to this first crowd another multitude of the pilgrims who came to Jerusalem for Passover.  They also went to see Jesus. At the core of this multitude were eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Lazarus.  John's description is falling all over itself to express the size of the crowd. We often picture the triumphal entry as Jesus and a few dozen disciples making their way into town. In reality this was a massive demonstration in a crowded city. It was a political powder keg and Jesus was being proclaimed as king. The Roman charge that Jesus was “King of the Jews” was no stretch of fantasy. At the moment of the triumphal entry it appeared that a revolution is only a word away.

The final phrase of this passage is an admission of Jesus' popularity and could be an indictment of the American church. The Pharisees state in frustration that “the world has gone after Him”. How grand it would be that every enemy of the Lord ought to say that as they look at every Church.

“Lord, help me to be so engaged in the life of faith that those near me are going after Jesus as well. AMEN”

John 12: 1-11

 John 12: 1-11 

Jesus returns for dinner to the place where he has raised Lazarus from the dead. It is informative that we hear nothing of Lazarus' comments of what happened to him while he was dead. In fact we never hear anything from people who came back to life about what it was like to be dead. In all the scripture about a half dozen people come back to life from the dead and not one word is given to us about them moving toward a light, or whom they met, or their warm safe feelings.   At this dinner is Lazarus who was recently dead and Jesus who soon we'll be dead.  Of all occasions to talk about what it is like to be dead we would think this is the time. But not a single word about life on the other side.

What we do have is the description of the life of the living. Martha is serving. Martha gets a bad rap because on one occasion she got a little bent out of shape about the distribution of labor.  But that notwithstanding this was a woman of great faith and love, who demonstrated that love by serving. Mary is there, she is more contemplative and expresses her love symbolically in the sacrifice of the nard perfume. We see Judas grasping and trying to find a way to work this to his advantage. His heart already turned; he was intending to betray Jesus. We see a description of people living on this side of the grave but not a word about what is on the other side.  

By all means we need to prepare for the end of our lives. We will one day be there on the other side. But what we see on the occasion  of this dinner is people living lives.  The way we prepare for life after death is by living and paying attention to how we live here and now.

“Lord, help me prepare for eternity by the way I live my everyday life. AMEN”

John 11: 45-53

 John 11: 45-53

Faith is not a function of evidence but of the will. It is in the first and final stages a choice we make. In the first stage toward faith there must be a willingness to consider the evidence fairly. But along with that openness for consideration of the evidence there must be a willingness to accept the truth and all it means and implies.  This is the final stage as we move into faith. When there is doubt and honest questions the evidence can be persuasive. 

But when there is unbelief nothing can convince, because the heart and the will do not want to be convinced. Even with the evidence that an incredible miracle has occurred and with more than enough evidence that signs are happening the religious elite began to develop a plan to kill Jesus.  This was not a problem of evidence. The healing of the man born blind and the resurrection of Lazarus should have been enough evidence of the truth of Jesus's message and the authority of His claims. But for those who do not want to believe even this was not enough.  

So what is the blockage? Verse 48 provides some inside. In this case of the Jewish leaders were concerned that Jesus was a threat to their power, the political control. That meant He was a threat to their wealth, prestige and privilege. People are still the same. The claims of Jesus's leadership over our lives will mean a significant change and we may have not wanted that change. We enjoyed our vices and would rather close our eyes to the evidence than be changed.  We would rather try to live life on our terms and in so doing reject Christ. God for His part will respect our choice.

“Lord, help me to have a heart that is open to You. AMEN” 

John 11:38 - 44

 John 11:38 - 44

Even the best of us are a mixed bag. All of us are part heroic faith while we still harbor genuine real doubts.  In verse 22 Martha said; “Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give You”. That is a statement of heroic faith. However when Jesus calls for the stone to be removed from the tomb entrance Martha said, “Lord by this time there will be a stench for he has been dead for four days”. Martha is at this point having more faith in death than in Jesus

We are all mixed bags of great and terrible, of faith and doubt, we have been anticipating God acting and believing that what is, is all that we will get. Thankfully God's grace and goodness is not wholly dependent on our faith. Jesus prays at the tomb not because He needs to pray to raise Lazarus, but He wants those around Him to know that He and the Father are working together, so that the Son can be seen doing what the Father wants. 

As a mixed bag of faith and doubt I don't have perfect faith. What I must have is faith in the perfect Savior. Faith and doubt often live together. Hopefully faith will be growing, and consuming doubt as we see the Lord at work. For those who believed but still doubted, especially Martha and Mary, much of that doubt was consumed in this miracle.  For Lazarus doubt would have been almost completely impossible. Can we be honest about our doubts and find in them a place to grow our faith? Unbelief is a different matter altogether and it's what we see in the next Passage.

“Lord, use my doubts as a place to grow my faith. AMEN”

John 11:17-37

 John 11:17-37

We have painted Jesus in colors that are soft pastels that have only a soothing effect.  We have misunderstood Jesus’ meekness, assumed it was passiveness, we made Him into a stoic that never experienced the full range of emotion.  We have tried to cut out of Him His passion. That picture of manbe pamby Jesus is only possible if we do not look too closely at Him. In our passage Jesus has come to the funeral of Lazarus. Here Jesus sees firsthand the misery of those who are mourning Lazarus‘s death. He hears the heartbroken accusations of Mary and Martha directed toward Him. He saw Mary weeping and Jews who came with her also weeping. That English word weeping is far too mild. This is literally the wailing of despair and gut wrenching misery. This was loud and messy and highly emotional.

What was Jesus’s reaction to this display? He was “deeply moved in spirit and was troubled” v 33. And in verse 35 Jesus joined in the wailing. The last phrase in verse 36 is difficult to put into English. Our language fails to express the depth of hurt and anger of this phrase. Jesus was angry. He was not miffed, He was not put out or aggravated. He was to His core furious and wrath filled. The grammar indicates that He was stirring up the emotions in Himself. When someone is angry and upset we often say “calm down”. What Jesus was doing was not calming Himself down He was troubling Himself.

What was causing this escalating emotional reaction of Jesus? Some have said it was His reaction to the lack of faith He saw. That is bogus, Jesus was never angry with the victim of sin. Jesus witnessed the full manifestation and expression of Satan’s kingdom, and He was furious. When we see the manifestation of Satan’s kingdom the hurt, the pain, the sorrow, the living death we ought to be angry. Not at the victim but at the manifestation. Passive indifference is not patients, it is apathy. When we see the manifestation of Satan’s kingdom perhaps in the prostitute, the addict, the homosexual offender.  These moments we ought to have anger. Not at these people but at the chains of their bondage. It ought to make us angry enough to be part of God’s plan for their liberation.

“Lord, grant me a holy fury as the evil of the kingdom of darkness and motivate me to declare Your freedom to those in bondage.  AMEN”

John 11: 1-16

 John 11: 1-16

Jesus having made it across the Jordan safely will stay there from the Feast of Dedication, late December, till His return just before His death and Resurrection. It is after this season of renewal that Jesus heals Lazarus from death. Grammar has much to teach us in this passage. The illness will pass through death but that is not the ultimate result. We see the whole story: we see the calling of Lazarus back from the dead. We have read the happy ending. But those who lived the story did not have that advantage while they were in the story. Lazarus experiences the difficulty of a terminal illness. There is every possibility that the journey to death was difficult and painful. There would have been little palliative care and there would have been very natural suffering for Lazarus and his sisters as death approached. We should not lose sight of the reality of the first part of John 11 just because we know the end of John 11. The glorification of the Son by the Father is displayed in this miracle, but that miracle came through the suffering of a good man.

There is for us an important lesson that on the road to the glory of Christ; we will be called to suffer. We have often developed the false belief that in following Christ suffering is either removed or mitigated to the point of a minor nuisance, that is a dangerous misunderstanding. In terms of Eternity our suffering is only a minor thing. But in the moment our faith is not pixie dust that we sprinkle on misery and make it go away. Sometimes misery is something we must accept, be strengthened during and endure completely before we experience God being glorified through us and in our suffering

“Lord, grant me grace to suffer in such a say that You are glorified.  AMEN”