Tag: gospel of john

Get Low Enough To See (John 7:25-36)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Messiah? But we know where this man is from; when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.”

Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.”

At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. Still, many in the crowd believed in him. They said, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?”

The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him.

Jesus said, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I am going to the one who sent me. You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.”

The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live scattered among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? What did he mean when he said, ‘You will look for me, but you will not find me,’ and ‘Where I am, you cannot come’?” (New International Version)

Once in a while, I pray something like this: “Lord, if I’m not seeing you when I ought to, or am not getting something you’re trying to show me, please use your divine baseball bat and whomp me upside the head!”

That’s because, far more often than I would like to admit, I miss seeing the Divine whenever God shows up. That’s true for all of us, as well. We tend to mistake experiencing God when the Lord comes and stands in front of us.

In the New Testament Gospels, some who followed Jesus ended up turning around and going back to their old life. Either the situations with Jesus got too dicey, or Christ’s teaching seemed too confusing. When that happens, it’s too easy to forget Jesus altogether, and never pay attention to him.

There are others who treated Jesus with contempt, simply because they didn’t recognize who he really is. One cannot have faith if they don’t know or acknowledge the object of faith. You cannot believe Jesus if you don’t believe he is from God.

And, of course, there are those who see Christ for who he is. Yet, some of them see Jesus as a threat and want to be rid of him. Others see him as a great healer and teacher, and follow Jesus in order to gain something from him.

However, there are others who see through spiritual eyes and gain the faith to believe and follow him.

All of us, in some way or another in our lives, have misread Jesus and mistaken him for the gardener or some other person.

Many of the Jews in Christ’s own lifetime rejected him because they believed him to be a common nondescript Jew. They knew his parents, and his family. Jesus was too familiar to be special, let alone the Son of God. Besides, everyone knows nothing good comes from the Hicksville that’s Nazareth, right?

The thing is: People miss seeing Jesus for who he is (sometimes including you and me) because we have particular expectations and requirements of our personal Jesus. In other words, it is awfully easy to make Jesus Christ into our own image of how he should be.

Having worked with college students for many years, I continually got a kick out of some of them who had precise requirements for a spouse, and certain expectations of how their potential kids were going to be someday.

It went well beyond having the same core cardinal values. Handsome and beautiful, smart but not too smart, assertive but not sassy, subservient but not a washrag, a 3-point Calvinist but not 5-point, willing to eat anything on the table except weird food that would embarrass, willing to live on a shoestring budget, funny but not quirky…. Actually, I could keep going; there’s a lot more. But you get the idea.

You may be curious as to my counsel to them. I typically said something along the lines of “I guess you’ll never get married, because marriage has nothing to do with any of that stuff. If you’re willing to have your eyes open and see a good person when they come along, and if you’re patient enough to develop a solid relationship built on grace, truth, and love, then you’ll likely find yourself a spouse you can be with for a lifetime.”

I remember one day on a college campus talking with a student after he asked me why he should ever be a Christian. I don’t think he expected my answer. I had already assessed that the guy was looking for a philosophical debate, so I went in a different direction. I said something like:

“I don’t think you should be a Christian. Jesus had people misunderstand him all the time. He was ridiculed and persecuted, tortured and killed. And he had the chutzpah to tell his followers that suffering would be a big part of being his disciple. Many of them followed him anyway. If you’re interested in why they did, we can talk. But if you just want to try and feel good by talking about Jesus, and avoid facing life’s pain and suffering, then I’m not wasting my time. So, what do you want to do?”

We will miss Jesus altogether if we are looking for a particular person. Whenever we get married to specific outcomes, then we’ll miss him for sure.

I wonder how many times Jesus showed up in your life this week, and you didn’t recognize him. In truth, Jesus is with us, by means of the Spirit, all the time. If you don’t see him, it’s not God’s fault, or anybody else’s.

Humility accesses spiritual sight. The religious leaders of Christ’s day were flummoxed and fuming all the time because of their arrogance, and their settled theological and biblical dogma. And so, they could not see who Jesus is, even though he was smack in front of them.

Yet, even though we may be spiritually blind and deaf, and finally see a glimpse and catch a sound of Jesus, that graciously means he is still there, beside you, never having given up on you.

Even a blurry and faint awareness realizes Jesus coming in the people we meet each day who encourage and bless us. Christ even comes and speaks through those we would not expect to hear a word from God.

Whenever we may wonder where Jesus is in our suffering and pain, he is there, sometimes even holding us and carrying us, despite our lack of awareness.

In reality, Jesus is in front of us, beside us, and holding us, all of the time. It’s just a matter of whether we know it, or not. Christ is in everything we experience. He is in both our sadness and joy, the noise and the silence, our work as well as worship, business and leisure, at night when we fall asleep and in the morning when we open our eyes.

So, if we are looking and longing for Christ, he has already come. Jesus came in the most humble forms possible. So, in order to see and experience him, we need to get low enough to see and hear him.

My Lord and my God, help me to see You in all of the ways You come to me today. Teach me not to despise any of the forms in which You come to me as being too common, humble, or ordinary. 

Wake me with Your presence in the morning and tuck me into bed when I sleep. Labor with me in my work today, and cause my leisure to lead to thanksgiving. 

Speak to me through the people You have ordained for me to meet today, and speak even through me, in spite of myself. 

For good and for ill, better and worse, in sickness and health, and in richness and poverty, reveal Yourself to me that I may receive whatever blessing You have chosen for me this day; through Jesus Christ Your Son, my Lord, who with You and the Holy Spirit are One God, now and forever. Amen.

The Lord of Life (John 6:56-69)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Bread of Life, by Kennedy Paizs

“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which the ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things while he was teaching in a synagogue at Capernaum.

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.”

For Jesus knew from the beginning who were the ones who did not believe and who was the one who would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”

Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (New Revised Standard Version)

This is a hard teaching – which is why a fair number of Christ’s disciples unfollowed him, literally, and not just socially and virtually.

Perhaps they believed they were following a great moral teacher, only to find Jesus prattling-on about being bread from heaven and divinely related to God.

The late great C.S. Lewis commented on Jesus, saying this:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

It seems Jesus cares little about whether we think of him as a moral teacher or some monstrosity. But he does care about moving people to a spirit-filled confession, a settled claim of faith, and a bold proclamation of his person and work.

Indeed, Jesus Christ, Son of Humanity, Son of God, leads us to hear his own confession, claim, and proclamation: “I Am.”

The crowd of people listening to Jesus were having a hard time wrapping their heads around his message. There were simply no existing categories of thought to which they could put Jesus neatly into. Everyone was rather puzzled with Christ’s words.

Jesus was in the Capernaum synagogue, a village on the Sea of Galilee, 30 miles from where he grew up in Nazareth. Any talk of eating and drinking and religion within any faith community is likely to be a charged discussion. Typically the politics of faith is not for the faint of heart.

We are to abide in Christ, to be in vital union with him. To have Jesus close, to have his words and ways within us, is akin to eating a satisfying meal that goes throughout our entire body and effects our being. Connecting and remaining with Jesus is true living and abundant life.

But the synagogue crowd wasn’t having any of this crazy talk of eating flesh and drinking blood. The lines between meat and metaphor were severely blurred for them. They did not accept the wedding of the spiritual and the material, of word and flesh, of God and Jesus together as Father and Son.

Jesus was causing the men to fold their arms in disgust, and the ladies to squirm in their pews with agitation. They looked upon this Jesus in front of them as causing a religious scandal of the first degree.

Rather than back off the scandalous words, Jesus stuck with them. Furthermore, he intensified what he was saying. At the heart of it was a claim to be the ladder between heaven and earth, the one who is manna from above, given for the life of the people.

His flesh is bread, and his blood is drink. He is life itself. He is even spirit, the one who breathes new life into people. At this point, Jesus was being as scandalous as it gets for his audience in the synagogue.

All of Christ’s talk is meant to bring people to consider him, to contemplate God, and to come to a point of response. Because nobody encountered Jesus without deciding if he is a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord who is life itself.

Many of Christ’s own disciples bailed on him. The scandal was too much. They didn’t sign up for this. To stay with Jesus means to really stay, to abide, to believe and know who he is.

Throughout the New Testament Gospels, Jesus honors people with questions and choices – and does not simply bypass human dignity and worth. He asked his closest twelve disciples if they also wanted to retreat from the scandalous message and messenger they’d been following.

Peter, of course, still had to learn this lesson of respect; he answered for the entire group. Jesus is where, and in whom, he found life, along with the rest of them. They didn’t know how all of the scandalous talk was going to shake-out specifically, although I think each of them had a pretty good idea.

But it didn’t matter. The twelve disciples were stuck on Jesus. Or, to be more accurate, the eleven disciples. Perhaps it was at this point that Judas Iscariot no longer had to wonder what was going to happen, and what exactly Jesus was up to.

Abiding in a movement that did not include a Roman takeover and a glorious wealthy kingdom was something Judas was unwilling to invest in. Maybe it was here that he began considering his exit plan.

Recognizing Jesus as Son of Humanity, Son of God, and the Word made flesh for us, requires both belief and knowledge – because you must have the one to have the other. C.S. Lewis discovered this. So did I. And may you, as well, my friend. For Jesus is the Lord of life.

Gracious God, although we once were strangers, you receive us as friends and draw us home to you. Set your living bread before us so that, feasting around your table, we may be strengthened to continue the work to which your Son commissioned us. Amen.

Living Bread from Heaven (John 6:51-58)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Art by Nigel Wynter (1957-2024)

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 

So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day, for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which the ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” (New Revised Standard Version)

To the religious leaders of Christ’s day, Jesus was making more noise than a couple of skeletons dancing on a tin roof. And they neither liked it, nor appreciated him drawing so much attention to himself.

Tensions had been escalating between Jesus and the religious establishment. The atmosphere was thick with grumbling leaders, as they tried to make some sense of Christ’s words to them.

Jesus offering his body for people to eat was causing far too much noise for the Jewish leaders. What in the world is this guy talking about?

Rather than making the meaning clear for them, Jesus added drinking his blood to the discussion. What’s more, Christ got up in their grill and confronted them with a choice, instead of a straightforward explanation.

Using some good old double negative language, Jesus flatly stated that there’s no life without any eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood. Then conversely, stated positively, Jesus affirmed that eternal life is found in those who eat his flesh and drink his blood.

This was next level communication of Jesus to the religious leaders. Earlier, Christ let them know that they needed to make the choice of coming to himself, of engaging in a life-giving relationship with him.

Yet now, it’s a matter of outright participation in Jesus, of eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ. Both the choice of relationship and of participation are radical decisions, which requires ditching some old traditions, and beginning some new ones.

Christ’s words are difficult, because they demand a change in thinking and behavior. Indeed, his words demand a change in our very way of being.

Christian discipleship requires that we stop the false ways of being in this world, and start a different way of being, according to the true self. In other words, Jesus was insisting on repentance and faith.

We are all on the hook to not just talk some theology and take some communion elements. It’s a lot more involved than that. Jesus demands our very lives, and not simply to sign off on some doctrinal statement about him. It’s about life itself, the power of life and death.

By eating and drinking Christ, there is meaningful relational connection, and ongoing participation in his life and ministry.

None of this is about literal cannibalism, and not even about actual bread and wine. This is deep metaphorical stuff which is meant to convey to us who Jesus is and how we can be related to him.

When we ingest food and drink, it goes into us and throughout our entire body. You cannot get much closer to something than by eating it and having it inside you. Just as eating bread goes to our very core and helps sustain life, so ingestingJesus is about allowing him to be as close to us as possible, into the very depths of our soul.

And by taking Christ into us, we will truly live and connect; and not be separated and die.

Art by Soiche Watanabe

We can no more spiritually live without taking Jesus into us, as we could live without eating on a regular basis. Christ is our breakfast, lunch, and dinner; our midnight snack and our birthday cake. Jesus is all that, and more.

Perhaps you are wondering why Jesus didn’t just state plainly who he is, why he came, and what will happen. Because it’s too much to handle.

We don’t simply accept Jesus into our heart, and then go on our merry way. Jesus Christ is someone to search for and discover, as if we were looking for fresh water or for the best baguette in the world.

Anyone can affirm a few belief statements, or do some good deeds. But it takes real courage to go hard after the spiritual life and find out what it’s all about:

It requires some solid bravery to explore the depths of your own true self and face the internal crud that’s been hiding in the shadows of your soul.

It demands identifying the bogus ways we prop up a false self for others to see – wanting to control how people view us and treat us.

It takes some real chutzpah to pursue the God life without worrying about where it will take you or who it will upset.

Jesus is a force to contend with. He is the Son of God, sent from above, to provide the world with real spiritual food and drink. Christ is the one who sustains life, and makes abundance possible. He is the Lord who speaks, calls out, and draws us to himself.

Jesus Christ helps us fit, even though we come from the island of misfit toys.

Even more pertinent than the question of “Who is Jesus?” is the probing question, “And what will you do with him?”

Christ cannot fit into your neat theological system, your tidy doctrinal statements, and on your nicely cleaned coffee table within the attractive Bible. Sooner or later, we all must contend with the divine force which gives life to everything. We cannot get away from him.

So, go after Jesus. Find out who he is. Determine how to deal with a mercy so powerful that it melts away guilt and shame as if it were in a 500 degree oven. After all, it’s better to have a tasty loaf of bread than to become a hard slice of burnt toast.

But let’s not worry about how hot it is in here, but how noisy it’s getting.

Gracious Lord, move us, your people, to experience your love more deeply. Fill us with the energy that comes from a desire for service. Connect us with creation to care for your world. Engage us in the scriptures and increase our knowledge of you. Raise up your power and come among us. May your bountiful grace and mercy equip us. Amen.

I Am the Bread of Life (John 6:35, 41-51)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Ethiopian Orthodox depiction of Jesus sharing with the disciples

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty…

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 

Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me, and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (New Revised Standard Version)

The lesson for today begins with the first of seven “I am” statements in John’s Gospel from Jesus:

  1. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35)
  2. “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
  3. “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.” (John 10:9)
  4.  “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11)
  5. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)
  6. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
  7. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. I am the vine.” (John 15:1-2)

Also, for the first time in the Gospel of John, the Jews are named and identified as the ones who cause conflict for Jesus. John, of course, did not mean every single Jew; he was referring chiefly to the Jewish religious establishment, the leaders. And even then, he, of course, was not making reference to every single rabbi or person in the ruling council.

It’s important to say that, because Jews throughout the centuries have had far too much persecution from Christians who think all Jews have it in for Jesus. So, please, exercise some plain common sense and basic human kindness when it comes to reading the New Testament Gospels; they are most definitely not anti-Semitic.

The religious leaders were taking issue with the claims of Jesus, his “I am” statement. They argued that Jesus was a plain ordinary Jew from a typical Jewish family. There’s no need, the authorities contended, for Jesus to think of himself any other way than a common Jew.

Instead of entertaining the complaint against him, Jesus pointed to God the Father. God initiated the action by sending Jesus; and takes action by drawing people to Jesus. And Christ does his part by raising those people up at the last day; and teaching them about God’s actions of deliverance.

When it comes to the earthly ministry of Jesus, seeing is believing, and hearing is learning. Trust what you see with Jesus; and believe it. Have faith in what you hear from Jesus; and learn from it.

I Am the Bread of Life, by Joseph Matar

I like Jesus. I like metaphors. Jesus is a metaphor guy. I like that. Jesus said that he is the bread of life. Those who come to Jesus are satisfied. Those who eat him, live forever. This isn’t cannibalism, it’s a metaphor. The bread that Jesus gives for the life of the world is his flesh.

Metaphors help us relate to the concept, and grasp the message. If you’re hungry, just looking at a loaf of bread isn’t going to help you be satisfied. Obviously, you have to eat the bread and do more than see it, smell it, and touch it.

What’s more, people do more than eat once. We eat repeatedly, every day, at least a few times a day, in order to be healthy and alive.

Come and see Jesus. But do more than that. Ingest him. Take Jesus into your life. Let the bread of life come into you and thoroughly satisfy you. And do it every day. Do it several times a day. Make sure your soul is continually full of Jesus.

Then, you will have life to the full, an abundant life, filled with good things and right relationships.

Jesus is the bread of life. He is the great “I am.” And so much more.

Yet, perhaps at first glance, Jesus is just one person amongst a panoply of historical characters and religious figures. However, if we will but taste Jesus, we will come to see something very different about him. He’s more than a human being, more than a compelling teacher, and more than a miracle worker.

Jesus may appear, to many, as nothing more than a common person. But there’s really nothing ordinary about him, at all. Taking the time to have a good look at the Gospel of John, and watching Jesus move from village to village, and person to person will help us see a rather uncommon person who was no ordinary human being.

He moved to the beat of a different drum, and danced an alternative jig. And if we observe more closely, we can see the other two dance partners with him.

And with our two ears, when he says, “I am,” we can respond with an emphatic, “He is.”

Merciful Father, you heard the prayers of your people in the wilderness and fed them bread from heaven despite their sin. Graciously hear us today and feed us, too, with the Bread of Life from heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.