Day Nine - Jesus and John the Baptist John 3:22-36

There have been many famous 'duos' in history. Some have been the invention of great writers, some have been entertainers, a few have been sports heros and others great competitors. But there are two names that are eternally linked in the great unfolding of God's story in scripture - Jesus and John the Baptist.

How did John become so clear about his role in God's purposes? Families can have a great influence in the spiritual formation of their children. No doubt, John's parents had a profound role in shaping his understanding of who he was and what he had been sent to do. How many times did he hear the remarkable story that surrounded the news of his conception! "Your mom was how old when you were born?" "Honest, your dad couldn't talk the whole time?" And when he could speak, Zachariah was clear about God's purpose for his son. Luke reminded us of his words. "And you my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him."

How did he keep from succumbing to the predictable jealousy that his disciples felt toward Jesus? They called Jesus, "that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan." John was clear in his own mind just who "that man" was. He is the one who comes from heaven. He is the one who speaks the words of God for God and gives the Spirit without limit. This was the Son, in whose hands the father has placed everything. He is the one who must increase.

Above all, John was clear about what was at stake in the gift of the Son - eternal life. His view of what mattered was just as radical as his dress and his calling. The issue was not about observing the law or having the right view of baptism or anything else that religious people think is important! It was about one thing - trusting the Son.

Do we get how outlandish that must have seemed to his hearers? It still seems that outlandish today - until God's Spirit gives you eyes to see. As you take this Lenten journey, reading through John, you'll be struck again and again just how clear the issue of faith really is. It is all about Jesus! And John made that clear!

Day Eight - Jesus and Nicodemus - John 3:1-21

Words sometimes lose their meaning. There is a great hymn with a line that says, "Here I raise mine ebenezer." I'm sure that generations have sung those words, never quite sure what they are raising, but singing about it anyway. It's actually quite a good word - a Hebrew term that means, "God is my helper or my rescuer." The problem is that the original meaning and the contemporary use of the word have become separated.

That's how I feel about the term 'born again' that we find in Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus. I like to think of Nicodemus as a religious seeker - one whose religious experience left him longing for more. There are a lot of those in our world today. Jesus had clearly captured his attention and impressed him. Nicodemus attributed everything that he witnessed Jesus doing to the presence of God in his life - no small recognition for a Jewish leader.

What fascinates me is the way people have taken the term 'born again' and fashioned it to mean whatever they want it to mean. In our world, it can be used to refer to a type of person, usually in the pejorative - "a born again type!" Or it can be used to infer identification with a particular political philosophy or stance on a moral issue - President Jimmy Carter who self-identified as being 'born again.' It can be used by religious people like a lion enclosure in the bush - a thorny word, a sharp fence meant to separate, keep people out who don't belong to their sort of group. Again, a separation of meaning and usage.

The reality that Jesus is describing in using the term is something we all long for. It describes an authentic work of God in the soul of a person that creates the reality of spiritual life. What Jesus was saying to Nicodemus is that the reign and rule of God - the Kingdom that's breaking into the world in the person of Jesus - cannot be perceived with understanding or experienced as transformational apart from a work of God's Spirit from outside ourselves - literally, 'from above.'

I almost never use the term 'ebenezer' and I rarely use the words 'born again.' I heartily believe in the reality of both. The problem though is bigger than just words that have lost meaning. Jesus told Nicodemus that the problem was really believing, trusting.

God's love expressed in Jesus, the giving of his Son in order save the world - to redeem and restore it to God's intended creation purposes - is like a bright light shining in human experience. Jesus knew us well when he reminded us that we are resistant to the light. We'd just as soon not be exposed.

The season of Lent is a focused, intentional time when we welcome the light that has come into the world to shine in our hearts, our souls. It may expose disordered desires, painful hurts and numbing wounds, places of resistance and rebellion, or indifference and self-satisfaction. But like Nicodemus, exposure to Jesus may become the beginning of longing for more. And perhaps, in an authentic way, those old words might connect with spiritual reality and the life of God, from above, might begin in a new way.

Day Seven - Jesus At the Temple - John 2:13-25

"And the Word became flesh" and turned the world 'topsy-turvy!' Jesus' appearing in the world puts things in a state of confusion or disorder - or so it seems.
We each settle into our preferred ways of ordering our lives. Those involved in the worship of the temple had settled into their way of supporting the worship of God's people, the Jews. It had all become predictable - that is until he showed up. This is not gentle Jesus, meek and mild. This is zeal - righteous anger, creating confusion and disorder.

Can you imagine being in the narrow streets of Jerusalem, headed for the temple and seeing an animal stampede coming toward you as Jesus drove them out?
Did people rush to pick up the coins that flew everywhere when he overturned their tables - like the people recently on a freeway when money started coming down out of the sky? Most stuffed their pockets and took off. A few turned it in to the authorities, knowing it didn't belong to them.

The leaders in the temple that day focused on the right question following the chaos that Jesus created. The Message puts it this way - "What credentials can you present to justify this?" If we've been following John's train of thought, we know the answer! Jesus is God in the flesh - zealous to put things right, the way they should be.

If we take the Lenten season seriously, it is a time to intentionally invite Jesus to turn our lives 'topsy turvy.' It is that period of a few weeks when we are open to realize that our preferred way of ordering our lives may in fact be disorder from God's point of view. Christ has come to to restore our lives and put the world - his world, back in the right order - to bring order out of chaos.

If I believe that Jesus is who John's witness tells us he is, then I guess he has every right to turn your world and mine 'topsy turvy.'

Day Six - Jesus and The Miracle at Cana - John 2:1-11

We've all been to our fair share of weddings. As a pastor I've probably conducted one hundered fifty weddings in the last fifteen years. Of particular joy have been the weddings of Jane's and my three children - they have each given me the privilege of performing their ceremonies. However, not one wedding in my experience has been anything like the wedding that took place in the foothills west of the Sea of Galilee in Cana. Rather than a few hours, these weddings went on for a few days!

Jesus and his new followers were invited guests. Jesus' mother Mary may well have been the wedding coordinator - after all, Nazareth was not that far away. She was the one trusted with the problem - they had run out of wine. In that culture, it was a social slur that could become the source of shame, some have suggested possible litigation. Not a great way to start off with your new in-laws! So you put the problem in the hands of someone trustworthy - Mary - who put it in the hands of her Son.

John will tell us later that Jesus never does anything on his own - only what he sees the Father doing. His actions that day are as startling as they are revealing. Part of the drama was this - it would not occur to an observant Jewish person to drink out of a water pot devoted to washing other vessels. Jesus heightens the drama by telling them to fill them to the brim, and then take some to the master of the banquet. The master of the banquet had no idea where the wine had come from, but the wine steward knew as did the disciples and they were holding their breath. The announcement was an unexpected compliment to the host and a shock to the few in the know- saving and serving the best wine for last!

Jesus never tried to draw attention to himself - he was no 'showboat.' But the word of the miracle must have spread rapidly - how could it not. John tells us that it was a 'sign' - a real event that pointed to an even greater reality - the revelation of Jesus' glory. As a result, even more people began to put their trust in him. This miracle led to worship, to awe and to wonder.

It is insightful to consider that all of Jesus' miracles were for the benefit of others. Skeptics who read this account might allege that a miracle is a suspension of the natural order - at best - something that just can't happen at worst. But I like what Tim Keller calls them - "the restoration of the natural order....His miracles are not just proofs that he has the power but also wonderful foretastes of what he is going to do with that power. Jesus' miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts that the world we all want is coming."

What to you think about this miracle? What do you think it is a 'sign' of?

Day Five - Jesus and the First Disciples - John 1:35-51

I'm a great fan of J.R.R. Tolkein, author of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and others. His wonderful character, the hobbit named Bilbo Baggins, reflects all of our ambivalence about adventures. We much prefer the comfort of the shire to the danger of adventures. What could be more shire-like than sitting in the comfort of your home, reading a few bible verses each day? But be careful - you never know when God's 'wizard' - not Gandalf, but the Holy Spirit - might just come knocking at your door.

Someone asks you, "What are you doing these days?" And you reply, "I'm involved in a forty-day spiritual adventure." "A what?" they ask. You explain, "I'm spending a few minutes each day reading through one of the gosples - John's to be exact." Curious, because you're not overly religious, they ask the obvious, "Why?" And you reply, "Because I'm finding Jesus to be the most extraordinary person in all of history - and in his unexpected impact on my life." What do you think their response might be?

It was just that sort of statement that led to Andrew and John's initial encounter with Jesus. and the start of their great life changing adventure. This isn't immediately obvious, because John never mentions his own name as he tells the story. But he's letting us know how it got started - out of curiosity, born of a spiritual hunger, in response to John's simple witness, "Look, the lamb of God."

It's extraordinary how asking Jesus such a simple question, "Where are you staying?" can become so life changing. Andrew and John spent the day with Jesus in response to his invitation, "Come and see." Have you ever considered doing that - spending a day with Jesus? What do you do? Well, you ask him questions and listen for his responses. Are you serious? Absolutely. How about spending one whole day in this adventure - just you and John's gospel - a day asking Jesus about himself, who he is and what he has come to do? It could be life changing.

At the end of that day, these seekers became influencers. They began to invite the people they knew who had a genuine spiritual hunger to meet Jesus. Jesus meets Peter and sees him, not for who he is, but for who he will become. When Philip introduces Jesus to Nathanel, he's every bit the skeptic. But Jesus knows what he was thinking, what was in his soul while he was sitting under the shade of a fig tree - a favorite place for Jews in Galilee to study and pray in the heat of the day. The Kingdom expands as the web of influence broadens.

What would your encounter be if you were to spend a day with Jesus? What might he say to you about yourself? What would he show you about yourself - the authentic self that he wants you and me to become out of a relationship with him? Would he crack open the heavens and let you see the supernatural dimension of God's Kingdom that's at work in and through His life? How would you evaluate the significance that your simple witness might have in seeing someone meet and begin to follow Jesus?

As John tells the story, his relationship with Jesus got started that day in Jerusalem. When he comes to the end of this story, he'll tell us, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."

Maybe, just maybe, these forty days could be the beginning, or the next step in that kind of journey for your life. But then again, maybe we're spiritual 'hobbits' who of course aren't supposed to take adventures - are they?

Day Four - Jesus and John the Baptist - John 1:19-34

Anthony Esolen writes that the mistakes of our day are born of over-familiarity. He says that with over-familiarity steals a weariness of the intellect and the imagination.

John's ministry awakened the minds and imaginations of the Jewish leadership of his day. It seems their minds were alarmed because he had failed to go through official channels before creating such a stir in all Jerusalem with his un-orthodox actions. In their imaginations, they could see this getting out of control - out of their control.

His ministry was a riddle. He failed to answer their questions regarding his identity and his actions. In answer to their questions of his identity, he replied that he was only a voice - but a voice whose message implied momentous events. He refused to explain his actions - actions that called on Jews to assume the place of Gentile converts - humiliate themselves in baptism in order to enter the Kingdom. His mindset was a riddle as well - humility, not self-importance. Why was he unworthy to untie someone's sandals - who is he talking about?

His explanations were riddles. He told them, "A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me." It only makes sense in light of what we have already read in John.

The most extraordinary riddle of all concerned the man whom he claimed not to know, but whose identity had been revealed to him. He was, "the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Why the world - Israel is our concern? He was the one on whom he saw "the Holy Spirit come down and remain." That had never happened before. - what's this all about? He is, "the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit." His testimony was that "this is God's chosen one." You mean this average looking guy who's standing in the crowd that we don't even know? When do we get to meet him to examine his credentials?

John turned their brains into scrambled eggs - the leaders that is. They knew what to expect. They were the learned ones -familiar with the ways of God. But for those in Israel who were turned off with the leaders deadening familiarity, John's message had an edge of exceptional life to it, and it created an unfamiliar expectancy.

As you travel the familiar terrain of this gospel, is there a weariness to your mind and dullness to your imagination. The problem is not with the story.

Day Three - Jesus and Redemptive History - John 1:6-18

Without realizing it, we have become jaded I think - worn out and weary the dictionary says - by people seeking to manipulate us to their advantage. They make claims that prove to be false. Doesn't matter whether its a Washington politician, a dear lady from Nigeria with millions to put in your bank account, or a Wall Street guru who absconds with billions leaving their investors devastated. The church in its institutional form should get lumped in there as well. Our Dyson vacuum cleaner is an exception ( I know...get a life)!

John is making a staggering - no hyperbole - staggering claim. The Word has changed - was made something unimaginable. It has become something it was not before. From all eternity, this Word has been one with the Father, and now...it has become one with us. The Word has become flesh and is living among us - the incarnation.

"The act of self-humbling on the part of God is irreversible; he is eternally 'Emmanuel', God with us. God the son, without ceasing for a moment to be divine, has united to himself a full human nature and become an authentic human person, 'God with us.' In Jesus Christ, God 'was made man.'"

The great English mystery writer Dorothy Sayers wrote, "from the beginning of time until now it is the only thing that has ever really happened...We may call this doctrine exhilarating or we may call it devastating, we may call it revelation or we may call it rubbish...but if we call it dull then what in heaven's name is worthy to be called exciting?" The lady was not jaded!

The eyewitness testimonials all agree with and support the claim. A witness in Jewish culture in the first century world was under a severe oath. "Unless you stake everything on the truth of what you say, you cannot be a witness."

The first was John the Baptist, testifying to the light (there's that word again) that is coming into the world. It didn't receive a warm reception - but the promise to those who do is staggering again - become children of God, born of God. The only advantage gained here accrues to those who believe - put their trust in the Word. Everything he did, he did for the sake of those he came to serve with his life.

John adds his word of witness - we have seen his glory - not pomp and circumstance, but the grace and truth of God in the humility of his coming to us.

And then there is the voice of the early followers of Jesus who paid for their faith, many of them with their life. They are not disappointed. "Out of his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace."

As you proceed through Lent, ask God to show you if, and where you have become jaded. Read and re-read these verses again and again until God's Spirit brings or renews life inside your soul. Sometimes we don't realize how polluted our thinking has become. This news is way more exciting than my Dyson vacuum cleaner!

Day Two - Jesus and the Created Universe - John 1:3-5

Summers in Sun Valley are a feast for the senses! We enjoy the warmth of the sun, the sounds and cool of the rivers and streams, the challenge of hiking to the verdant high meadows, being captivated by the profusion of wild flowers, and all this set amidst the beauty of the mountains. The world of creation at our doorstep is simply awesome.

In this next section of his gospel, John wants us to see the awesomeness of the one who created it all - the Word! He first states it positively - through him all things were made. Then he states it in a way that eliminates all other claimants to be the source of creation - apart from him, nothing, not one thing was made that has been made!

It should sadden us that the work of science and faith in God have been portrayed as adversarial - the idea that belief in one automatically excludes the credible possibility of the other. Nothing could be further from the truth! If you want to explore this, let me give you a direction to head. Read Dr. Francis Collins' book, The Language of God. Dr. Collins is an intelligent scientist - he headed the human genome project that mapped the human gene - and an intentional, devoted follower and disciple of Jesus Christ. His clear witness is that there is no conflict between the two. We can engage in the work of science and the worship of God! I think John would add his Amen!

Just imagine inviting John to go on a hike with you this summer. My guess is that he would be full of wonder, witnessing God's awesomeness and glory revealed through the things have been made. As you walked, he would encourage you to revel in the presence of the one through whom it all came into being - more about God's Holy Spirit later. I can imagine at a breathtaking vista on the trail, he would stop for a moment, and quietly invite you to worship and say, "Praise God!"

One other thought about summers in Sun Valley - the Summer Symphony! Those two weeks in August, are just the best. We sit on the grass in our chairs with a bottle of wine, a picnic basket and group of friends listening to the incredible orchestra. It is a highlight of every summer. If you're like me, you don't remember much from your music appreciation class back in your freshman year of college. That's why I particularly delight in the way our maestro, Alistar McNeal, introduces each work. He tells us about the composer. Next, he proceeds to hum or sing the themes that we are to listen for in the development of the work. It adds to our appreciation immensely! Then members of the orchestra applaud him with the polite sound of their feet drumming on the floor, and he smiles.

In this Gospel, John is a great composer. His inspiration is his experience of the truth as a follower and disciple of Jesus. He's one of a handful of eyewitnesses who were around from the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry. He wants to capture the majesty of God's revelation in Christ. He begins by introducing us to the composer of the great work of creation - the Word! You might think of these first fourteen verses as his overture to the gospel. In it, he introduces us to the great themes that we will meet again and again throughout the gospel. Look for them and mark them carefully, for they will add to our understanding immensely! And when you get what he is saying, you might even want to quietly stomp your feet, and I think he would smile, because God has been glorified.

In considering Christ and the created universe in these three verses, we find three of the themes or melodies that John is introducing. We'll have much more to say about them as we go through the gospel together. Here they are - life, light and darkness.

Take a quiet moment. Remember the simple prayer that I've asked you to pray before you read each day? It's this - Lord Jesus Christ, speak to me.

• What does it means to you that he is the source of life - all life in the world and your life in particular?
• Many people today seem to worship creation and forget about the creator. What difference does it make that God exists apart from his creation, and is free and sovereign in the ways he interacts with it and with us?
  
• What does it mean that Christ is the light of all people? Is Jesus just another 'spiritual Master' sent to bring enlightenment at his stage of history? Or are all other religious expressions shadows of the light that has shined in the world through his coming?
• What do you think of when you think of darkness? What circumstances in the world remind you of darkness? What circumstances in your own life? What does it mean that the darkness has not overcome the light? Do you sense a struggle or conflict between the two? Is the light just some impersonal force as in Star Wars?
  
• One final question. You invite me into your home and show me a piece of furniture or painting or craft that you had made, that you have invested your time and energy to produce. How would you respond if I thoughtlessly damaged it or demeaned its value by ignoring the time and effort you had put into it? This thought - when we walk into the world of God's creation, we are walking into the home that he has made for us. How do we treat it? How do we regard it? We are called to be stewards, caretakers of all the good things God has given us.

Well, its March and its snowing outside - really snowing - so don't put the skis away. But summer is coming!

Day One Jesus and the Eternal God - John 1:1-2

When you download a large file from the internet, a program will often compress the data. It shows up in as an icon on your screen with a zipper on the front. When you click it, out come all the contents that have been 'stuffed' inside! Its a packet of information, just waiting to explode! Well that's the way it is with the first two verses in John's Gospel - just seventeen words in both the original Greek and my English translations - but when you 'open it up,' is full of rich information that is exploding with insight and implications!

The first image that comes to mind in opening this information packet is the image of a bridge. A bridge connects or joins two places together over something that separates them. When John was writing, he had two groups of people in mind - Jews and Greeks. He needed to find a bridge - a conceptual bridge - that would connect these two disparate cultures with the message about Jesus he wanted to convey. To do so, he chose a word that had meaning in both cultures - the word...Word!

When you and I read, "It was the best of times and it was the worst of times...", we immediately think of Charles Dickens. When John's Jewish readers read, "In the beginning..." they immediately thought of the Book of Genesis. And in the Book of Genesis, the Word was nothing less than God in creative action - seven times in the first chapter of Genesis - 6,9,11,14,20,24 and 26 - check it out for yourself.

For the Greeks, Word was the logos - the principle that shaped, ordered and directed the universe. One of their philosophers, a Jewish teacher in North Africa, Philo, used many images to convey meaning of logos to the Greek mind - one of which was the 'captain and pilot of the universe.'

For the Jews, with their strict monotheism, the idea that the Word would actually be expressed in a person would challenge their very understanding of the nature of God. For the Greeks, the idea that the Word was more than an abstract concept would challenge their understanding.

Stop for a moment and reflect on this first little bundle of information. Put yourself in the ''shoes" of John's readers for a moment. How would you respond to his message in the use of this conceptual bridge, about the person he will ultimately refer to in verse 14, when he writes, 'And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us'?" In what way would it challenge your understanding of the nature of God, of the nature of reality?

There's a second image that occurs to me in unpacking this bundle - its the word boundary. John says that the Word was in the beginning. Now there's a mind-stretcher! Physicists are spending billions of dollars to build particle accelerators in hopes of discovering what happened in the moment of creation, the beginning. While they are getting closer and closer, there is a boundary that has to be overcome - the boundary of technology, the limits of power, etc. And one of the most important questions lurking beyond the boundary is this - "Why is there something instead of nothing?"

Physicists are attempting to overcome this physical boundary in their attempts to understand the forces released at the moment of creation. However they face another boundary. If you ask them what existed one nanosecond before that moment, they really can't say. But that's when we can begin speaking about Jesus - the Word. John is claiming that he shares God's eternity! And he is the reason, the creative activity of God that explains the why behind creation.

As you read through John's Gospel, keep in mind John's claim as to just who the person of Jesus really is!

The final word that comes to mind in reading this information packet is the word baffling. John writes, the Word was with God. In the original language, the strong idea is that the Word was 'face-to-face' with God - a distinct existence in an intimate relationship. John's final thought is that there is no distinction in essence between God and the Word. Both are distinct, both are equal. The Word is not all there is to God and there is more to God than either the Father or the Son. If I think about this mathematically, 1+1 does not equal 2 - it equals 1. And I find that baffling! John is clearly inferring the mystery of the Triune nature of God, which will become even more clear as we read through the Gospel.

Bruce Milne, in his wonderful commentary say this about the Word. God himself has come to us in Christ, who is the Word. Christ is always at the center of our approach to God and our thinking and relating to God. These two verses point to the supremacy of Christ, whom we are to worship without cessation, obey without hesitation, love without reservation and serve without interruption. To Him be all glory and honor forever.