Tuesday, March 15

Jesus said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” John 6:38

Thought for the Day: God’s Plan for His People

It appears as though God had a plan to give eternal life through his Son, Jesus. John 1:4 declares, In him was life, and the life was the light of men. For God so loved the world, says John 3:16, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And 3:36, Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. To the woman at the well Jesus said, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (4:13-14).

Jesus is the source of eternal life. He gives life. What all books of the New Testament tell us is that there is only one place for new life, eternal life, and that location is in Jesus himself.

During my sabbatical, my family and I drove from Provence in southern France to Barcelona. The route looked easy, but a warning sign said there was traffic between Nimes and Montpelier. Little did we know that the traffic was caused by an overturned eighteen-wheeler carrying a load of shampoo. The traffic turned out to be complete grid-lock, and we came to a crawl, traveling at about one kilometer per hour for three hours.  We were stuck.

My daughter noticed that workers were removing a section of the barrier three lanes to our right to allow a truck with bottled water onto the auto route to aid thirsty, imprisoned motorists.  A truck driver let me turn in front of him, and then I slowly made it across the other lane to the temporary opening and soon we were free to bypass the accident and make our way to Barcelona. Two cars behind us they closed the barrier, shutting our escape route. Location is everything.

Being in Jesus, finding the location of eternal life in him is profoundly more significant. For in him we find not only an escape from death and slavery to sin, but we also find truth—truth of what God reveals to his people. To the woman at the well Jesus declares, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. 

Earlier in John’s Gospel we read: 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. . . . And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known (John 1:14 & 16).

Jesus reveals the glory of God to us. In Jesus we hear and see the true God, the only God. This is why Jesus says to his disciples, I am the way and the truth and the life. For in him God is fully revealed. In him God’s plan for his people is fully revealed. In him we experience the glory of God, which is grace and truth for us. It is grace in that we did not deserve to see and experience this glory. It is truth because it is from the only reliable source of truth, God himself. As Jesus says to his disciples after talking with the woman at the well, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.  Jesus reveals the glory of God in his birth, teaching, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to the Father.

But ultimately the glory of God through Jesus is the people of God who are located in him.  God created Adam and Eve as the crowning achievement of creation. He created them in his own image, male and female he created them, and gave them dominion over the earth. But they rebelled and God responded by evicting them from their location of life, the Garden of Eden. However, for those who believe in the Son of God—that is that believing in Jesus means that we are changed, born again, and find a new location being spiritually united to Jesus—we return into the presence of the image Creator because we are with Jesus. As John 1:12-13 declares, To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Self-examination, repentance, prayer, and worship:

Before you pray, take some time to reflect on your sins. Perhaps there is one in particular about which you are concerned. Tell the Lord you are sorry, ask him to help you stop this sin, and then pray a prayer like the following:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. Wash me through and through from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions only too well, and my sin is ever before me. Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, have mercy upon us through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Spend time in worship before studying the Gospel of John below.

Study: John 2:13-25, Jesus Cleanses the Temple

 ¹³ The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. ¹⁵And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶And he told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade." ¹⁷His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me."

 ¹⁸So the Jews said to him, "What sign do you show us for doing these things?" ¹⁹Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." ²⁰The Jews then said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?" ²¹But he was speaking about the temple of his body. ²²When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

 ²³Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. ²⁴But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people ²⁵and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

Reflection Questions:

1)  What is the relationship between the temple (the physical building) and Jesus’ body?

2)  What does it mean that Jesus knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man? What is it in man that Jesus knows?