Issue 413
We pray for the churches in Jacksonville who are starting FOUR ZERO this month that the forty day of feast of learning will be a blessing to them and through them to many others.
Do you know what constitutes the most difficult part of your job? If you work in an intellectual discipline, do you know the most complex lesson to learn or even teach?
What is the hardest principle to grasp in your field of expertise- if that is mastered, does the rest somehow fall into place?
In our journey through John we have been using the first words recorded in the mouth of Jesus as our echo in each chapter. We are at part 16 and we have reached the hardest principle, the most complex idea, the most difficult lesson.
At first sight it may not appear so, but if you know anything about this carpenter – teacher, you will know that first sight is almost never enough.
Allow me to start with the negatives. There are no special holy places. There are no special holy days. There are no special holy jobs. There are no special holy countries, cities or buildings.
For a devout Jew, this thought would be ridiculous – he or she knew for sure Jerusalem was a holy city, the temple was a holy building and he or she was part of a chosen nation. A Jew would know he was surrounded by sacred mountains and holy sites. Everybody knew that – and everybody was wrong. Don’t delete this file before you hear me, or more importantly, Him on the subject.
Standing in front of the team of the leaders who were the first followers, was a real man in a physical body. To be with him was everything. Every road he walked became a pilgrimage to them. Everything he wore, he touched or he handled held special meaning for them. In this sixteenth chapter he tells them to let him go – and let go of him – stop focusing on his physical presence. He had already told them to let go of their holy days, their sacred spaces and majestic mountains. They did not want to, they did not want to at all. Do you?
Do you want to make one day holier than another? Do you want to make one place holier than another? Do you want one job to be more sacred than another?
Jesus wanted to wean his followers off dependence on his physical presence. Why? Because in a physical body he could only be in one place at one time and where he was provoked his followers to revere that place or time.
If they will let go and let him go, the Spirit will arrive and empower them to consecrate every space, every day, every time, every job and every mountain. This is the hardest lesson and if you learn it then those who haven’t learnt it may hate you. They may want to ostracize you as a heretic and kill you in the name of their god.
You see, when you go to work on a Monday, that day is no less sacred than your Sunday and your workplace is no less sacred than your church place. It may be easier to be aware of the presence of God in some places, but that is the challenge.
All your days and all your ways in all your places, all of the time are filled with the Spirit who comes because the physical Jesus has left. This is the miracle of the Christian faith. You can pray six times a day if you wish, but with the Spirit your life is a prayer. You can go to a building if you wish, but with the Spirit the building goes with you.
You can take a pilgrimage if you wish, but the journey is inside you. You can take holy orders and get ordained if it expands your influence, but the Spirit has already ordained you and built his orders into your soul.
Your work is sacred, your days are holy, your life is a sacrifice and your body is a temple.
As the sixteenth chapter closes, Jesus says ‘do you now believe?’ Well, do you? What do you want – physical or spiritual?
John 16
1 “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. 2 They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. 3 They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. 4 I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, 5 but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. 7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
16 Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.” 17 At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” 18They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”
19 Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? 20Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 21 A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. 22 So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. 23 In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
25 “Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. 27 No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.” 29 Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. 30 Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”
31 “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. 33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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