12/30/23 P.V. The founders insisted that faith must remain central to our national identity because, as G. Washington said, "religion and morality are indispensable supports" of our republic.
[John 13:31-38] – Love One Another – The question of the Greeks (“Where is He”) [12:21-23] told Jesus His time had come. Judas going out into the night [v. 31] tells Jesus that His time is rushing toward Him. Tension builds and it seems Jesus is drawing the 11 closer. Things He could not say with Judas present. Things He must say precisely as time is now short. These are the “farewell discourses.” From now to the end of [16] Jesus is explaining ‘His going away’, they can not follow Him, yet. He is showing them what it means to their future, sorrow, mission and joy. This thought ends with the great prayer in [17] These chapters are precious, filled with comfort, challenge and hope; deep and strange personal relationships that Jesus wants with each of His followers. Read in that context!
We read some great and wondrous theological insights; a sense of discovering God; what He is doing in the world -then and now – in us. In true devotion we will find rich theology. Shallow thinking and shallow loving are soul mates. In [31b] is only the 2d time Jesus has spoken of the ‘son of man’ [12:23] thus uniting [12, 13]. Jesus speaks of and links together God being glorified and the son of man being lifted up. [Dan. 7] talks of the moment of God’s glory over the dark forces of the world. The forces that have resisted Him and trampled His worshippers. [v. 31,32] Glory, Glory, Glory Jesus is overwhelmed with glory. His vocation is rushing to its conclusion, bringing God’s glory. Jesus is also overwhelmed in leaving His disciples behind. Powerful moment. They have learned so little, understood so little, grasped so little of what He was doing. How will they cope without Him? The next three chapters will provide the answers. He makes solemn promises about the Holy Spirit coming to guide them.
But He leaves them the simplest, clearest, and hardest command of all. Love one another!
Jesus describes the ‘new commandment’. Love is central in places of the OT [Lev. 19:18] Leviticus commanded the Israelites to love their neighbor as themselves. They have heard it before. It is the mode of love. Key - “as I have loved you.” The disciples have had difficulty in knowing what Jesus has been doing for them, now He wants them to copy Him. They had difficulty with the foot-washing. They stumbled over power. To wash feet was to be a slave. Exactly!! That thinking is wrong: not washing is prideful; washing is prideful, if done for the wrong reason(s). The change is love, overflowing into service; not to show how hard we work, but because it is natural. Love is to be the badge Christians wear into a watching world. [v. 35] Do we cringe in shame at the way professing Christians have treated each other. We have turned the gospel into a weapon to be used by our various cultures and tribes. We have physically struck others, burned them at the stake, and bound them to be thrown into the water. We have defined ‘the other’ so tightly that love means to love only those who reinforce our own sense of identity.
Jesus correctly identifies them as children. [v. 33] Then are some of the most beautiful and powerful words ever assembled in two sentences. They are cut and paste worthy! [v. 34, 35] Then we have the blustery banter between Peter and Jesus. [v. 36-38] These three verses are preached more often than the preceding three. Why? Think also how much we are like Peter and reflect how gentle Jesus is with him.
[John 14:1-11] – The Way, the Truth, the Life – We all have had the experience. Someone invites a large group of friends to spend the night with them. We wonder: sleeping arrangements; bathrooms, (not a certainty); getting from bed to bath in the dark of the night. We are going to His Father’s house. The Temple [2:16]. In Jewish times the Temple is where heaven and earth meet. Now Jesus hints at a new city, a new world, a new house. Heaven and earth will meet again when God renews the whole world; with room for everyone. This promise assures them/us that though He is going away, it will be for our benefit; Jesus will not forget, nor abandon them/us.
This promise reaches beyond them, embracing all of us. We cannot see the future. We need to know there is a place and that we will be able to find it. Thomas, a bit grumpy, asks, “What do you mean we know? We do not know where you are going.” Jesus gives an inviting response. “I am the way, if you want to know how to get to the Father’s house you must come with me. This statement has caused a great deal of controversy in the Western church in the past 200 years. ‘I am the way and the truth and the life!’ Imagine telling an individualistic American that Jesus is the only way. How arrogant! Do we not realize the damage we have done with this statement? Imagine giving up our own way(s) and following Jesus. Many professing Christians reject this central article of faith – Jesus’ uniqueness.
The problem is, it does not work. If you dethrone Jesus, who/what do you elevate in His place? The thought that all religions are really the same may sound nice. It sounds democratic. Yeah, let us vote! But, as soon as one begins a serious study of religions there are differing belief systems. Should one continue the ‘all the same’ argument, they are claiming as they hear distant rumbles and see distorted images of ‘reality’. Let us break it down: do we believe that reality – God – the divine, is remote and unknowable and that neither Budda, Jesus, Moses, or Krishna, gives us direct access? Really, that view, points to the foothills, never the summit.
Taking this approach, we lose John; we lose all the NT. Early Christianity insisted, the one true and living God, the creator, is the God of Israel and the God of Israel acted decisively and within history to bring Israel’s story to its stated goal and through that to address and rescue the world. The idea, a vague general truth common to all religions bearing a unique witness, is foreign to Christianity.
Truthfully, this ‘dust-up’ was caused by the arrogance some churches possessed as they presented the gospel. The entire setting of this passage notes such arrogance is a denial of the very truth it is claiming to present. The truth, the life, through which we know and find the way, is Jesus. Note: The Jesus who washed the disciple’s feet; told them to copy His example; gave His life as the shepherd of the sheep. Where was the arrogance in any of that? How was it self-serving? When the church recovers the nerve to follow Jesus, in His ministry, in His vocation it may be able to recover the nerve to fully accept this verse. [v. 6] And without that nerve it also loses the vision of the Father which is why we are given this entire passage. We must not come with a fixed idea of who God is and try to fit Jesus into that mold. Look at Jesus: see Him cry at the tomb of His friend; Jesus the foot washer; and we will see who is the true God. That was Jesus answering Philip. And it is the answer to the natural questions that arise in people’s minds today. Only when His followers are themselves continuing to do what Jesus did may they be believed when they speak the earth-shattering truth that He spoke. Amen
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