Jesus uses a mixed metaphor here that can be slightly confusing. Perhaps in writing this John combined things which Jesus said at different times, but I think the passage can be understood as written. First, Jesus is the gate to the sheepfold through which honest shepherds will come. Anyone who presents themselves as a spiritual leader who does not direct us to Jesus is a thief and a liar. But Jesus is also The Shepherd. We should listen to His voice and follow Him. Any leader who does not speak with Jesus’ voice and direct us to Him is a false prophet, who does not have our best interests at heart.
The story of the woman caught in adultery is not in the oldest manuscripts which we have of the Gospel of John, which suggests that it was not in the original. However, it has been in the Bible since the Fourth Century, which leads me to believe that the Holy Spirit approves of the lessons we can learn from it. So, what lessons can we learn. First, only those who are free from sin may condemn others for sin. This does not mean that I cannot point out that something is a sin, but I cannot claim to be any better than the person to whom I am pointing it out. Instead of condemning them we should help them overcome the consequences of their sin. Which brings us to the second lesson. When we have helped the sinner back up our message to them is, “Go, and sin no more.” When people are in need we help them, even if their need is the result of their own actions. However, once we have helped them we should show them how they can avoid returning to the same bad place.
I love the story of Jesus healing the man born blind. My initial love for this story comes from a point my Dad made about it. When the Pharisees were questioning the man they told him that Jesus was a sinner. The man born blind responded (paraphrasing), “I don’t know about your complex theology. But I do know that I was blind and now I see.” When faced with questions regarding complex issues our faith should boil down to that one statement. At some point you will face (or have already faced) a point where you have to choose whether or not you believe Christ. I can tell you from experience that if you choose to believe Christ ever after you will face things which you do not understand saying, “One thing I know, I was blind, but now I see.”
I also love this story for what it tells us about suffering, a message which is important to remember in light of the messages we learn from the story of the woman caught in adultery. People do not necessarily suffer because of their own sin, or even the sins of others. Sometimes people suffer in order to give us an opportunity to demonstrate God’s love. In fact, when we see someone suffering we should not see it as an opportunity to provide someone else with an object lesson on the danger of sinning. Instead we should view it as an opportunity to bring glory to God by demonstrating His love.
After Jesus fed the five thousand, the crowd began to think He was the Messiah and about to lead a revolt against Rome. In fact, they were prepared to begin that revolt immediately. Even after Jesus had cooled their blood by withdrawing from them and crossing the lake, the people sought what Jesus could do for them rather than what they could do for God. In a similar manner to which Jesus had told His disciples that doing God’s will was nourishment for Him, He told people that they should eat His flesh and drink His blood. That is, He told them that they needed to internalize His teachings and allow them to transform their lives.
After this, Jesus stayed out of Judea, because He knew that His preaching there at this time would have set off a rebellion against Rome. When it was time for the Festival of Shelters, Jesus delayed going up to Jerusalem. As best I can tell from what is written here this was to avoid leading a large group into Jerusalem. Jesus then went up to Jerusalem secretly, only beginning to teach openly in the Temple after He arrived. As He taught, there was much debate among the people. Some thought He was the Messiah, while others were convinced that He could not be. When the Jewish leaders began to sense that the crowd thought He was the Messiah, they sought to arrest Him, but refrained from doing so because they feared that doing so would set off riots.
I wrote all of the above hoping it would come together to express the meaning I feel from this passage. It did not, largely because I was not quite sure how to express that meaning. Ultimately, Jesus refuses to meet our expectations. Rather, He insists that we strive to meet His.
After Jesus told the crippled man to take up his mat and walk, the Jewish religious leaders began to harass Him for not following their interpretation of properly keeping the Sabbath. Jesus’ responded that He was only doing what He saw the Father doing. The implication being that we should do as we see Jesus doing. Jesus went on to say that He needed neither human testimony, nor His own words to show people who He was. No, the Jesus’ works and how He taught people to live testified to the fact that He was the Messiah.
Which brings me around to the story of the Samaritan woman. At the end of that story, her fellow Samaritans testified that they initially believed in Jesus because of the testimony of the woman at the well. However, they said that, in the end, they believed Jesus because they heard what He said (and saw what He did). This should be a model for how we bring people to the Lord. They should become believers because they see the testimony of what we say and do, but should come to know Jesus for themselves and believe because of that knowledge.
I prefer the NIV and KJV translation of John 1:1. It is much more poetic. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…The Word was made flesh and made His dwelling among us.” I added that latter bit from verse 14 because it makes clear the next point. The Word was Jesus and Jesus was the Word. By this means, John also tells us that Jesus was God. The Greek word which translates as “The Word” is Logos. Logos is the root from which we get the word logic. So, John tells us that Jesus is God’s logic. Further, John tells us that the Word is light shining in the darkness. God’s logic illuminates the world, revealing things which many would prefer remain hidden. Verse 5 reads:
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.[b]”
Note that footnote reference to the translators’ notes. The footnote tells us that the Greek literally means “the darkness has not understood it.” In other words, the darkness cannot understand the logic of God.
Reading today’s passage I was struck by how the crowd demanded Jesus’ death from Pilate, even though they could provide no evidence of any crime deserving of death. Pilate tried to either find something he could charge (and convict) Jesus with which would justify crucifying Him, or to convince the crowd to accept His release. When Pilate failed at both, he ordered Jesus’ crucifixion because he was unwilling to go against the crowd. We learn from this passage that being part of the crowd, or doing what the crowd demands, will often lead us to do evil.
The men who appeared to the women at Jesus’ tomb ask a question which sums up the theme of the rest of this chapter and one which we today should ponder. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” The two men on the road to Emmaus were doing the same thing. They could not believe that Jesus had risen, certainly not on the testimony of mere women; rising from the dead was impossible. The men who appeared at the tomb told the women that Jesus had told them this would happen, including His resurrection. Jesus showed the men on the road to Emmaus that the prophets foretold that He would be crucified and rise from the dead. And I just realized that if we believe that He is indeed alive we will never again be either part of that crowd which gathered before Pilate, nor afraid of that crowd.
I did not comment on Jesus’ comments about the poor widow who gave her last two coins (OK, the passage does not actually say that, but Jesus does say that she gave all that she had) when I read it in the Gospel of Mark this year. I felt bad about that because I have long thought it contains important lessons about wealth, but it is such a short part of the passage and I did not think it connected with the other themes in that day’s passage.
However, I did a quick search on it today to make sure that I remembered where it occurs in the Gospels and came across a commentary about it I had never heard. The commentary pointed out that Jesus’ comment about the widow’s offering came just a short time before He prophesied the destruction of the Temple. I am amazed that I have never heard anyone make that connection. The collection box referred to in the verses about the widow’s offering would have been for expenses related to the upkeep of the Temple. If the Temple was going to be destroyed in less than 40 years (and we know that it was indeed destroyed in just under 40 years after this) then these offerings were being wasted. In this light, instead of commending the widow for her offering, Jesus was condemning the wealthy for what they were doing. By ostentatiously making offerings which, for all intents and purposes, cost them nothing they were pressuring the poor to make offerings which they could not afford, offerings which accomplished nothing of value.
My title for today’s blog suggests that perhaps we should not spend money on worship facilities, but that is not what I believe. Rather, I think this passage raises questions about how much we spend on those facilities. Are we encouraging the poor to give more than they can afford so as to make our worship facility ostentatious? Does the beauty and luxuriousness of the facility make the poor among us feel unworthy to worship God? I don’t think the questions raised by this passage have one single answer. We must consider them each and every time we make changes to our facilities.
As a child, the story of Zacchaeus was one which was retold often as a children’s Bible story. I am unsure what made it such a success as a children’s story. Perhaps it was the fact that Zacchaeus needed to climb a tree to see over the crowds, something children can sympathize with. Whatever the reason, the story does have some basic lessons for us.
an eagerness to find God will be rewarded.
Zacchaeus ran ahead of the crowd and climbed a tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus. Jesus called out Zacchaeus by name.
God accepts us where we are.
Jesus went to Zacchaeus house before Zacchaeus changed his ways.
Showing people love and honor while they are still sinners can transform them.
In response to Jesus coming to his house, Zacchaeus promised to give half of his wealth to the poor and to compensate those whom he had cheated.
I usually try to come up with a way to tie all of the lessons from the passage I want to write about into a coherent whole before I start writing. Then I leave out those things which do not fit. Today I am going to just start with the things I want to cover and see where that leads me.
Jesus told His disciples (and through them us) that temptation cannot be avoided, but we should do our best not to be the source of temptation for others. If someone sins (say, by tempting you to sin), confront them with their sin. If they admit to sinning and ask for forgiveness, forgive them…even if it is the seventh time today. The disciples response to this was to ask Jesus to show them how to increase their faith. Jesus’ answer was that even a minuscule amount of faith can do great things. He further said that the way to build faith was to expect that the only reward for acting in faith was another task to which we would need to apply our faith.
Later in the passage, Luke recounts two parables which Jesus told His disciples. Both of them address the the themes I looked at in the previous paragraph. In the parable of the persistent widow Jesus gives us a lesson on building faith. He points out that even the wicked will grant justice to someone who is persistent enough. How much more will God grant us justice if we persistently pray for it? In the parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector, Jesus tells us not to think of ourselves as better than others. Instead, when we pray we should recognize our sins and failures and throw ourselves on God’s mercy. Our faith will only grow when we recognize our need for God to transform us.
There is more to Jesus’ teaching about honoring ourselves than is obvious. Jesus gives the example of taking the seat of honor and being forced to give it up because someone of greater significance arrives. Instead, He says that we should take the seat of least honor, then our honor will be even greater when the host moves us to the seat of honor. However, there is more to it than that. There are all sorts of social dynamics revealed here, but Jesus goes on to tell us that when we throw a party we should invite those who are unable themselves to throw a party. So, while there is greater honor in being elevated to a position of honor from the humble position we chose for ourselves, we should not seek to be honored at all. Or, perhaps a better way of putting it, we should seek the good opinion of those whose opinion society does not value.
Luke recounts five of Jesus’ parables here (well, actually six, but the first one is part of completely different theme). Three of them illustrate the importance of befriending and loving the “lost”. The parable of the lost sheep and the one of the lost coin illustrate how much joy and pleasure God takes over sinners repenting of their sin and returning to Him. They also illustrate how that repentance does not happen by chance. It is the result of great effort on God’s part, and perhaps on the part of those who serve Him. I realized today that the parable of the prodigal son is actually more about the older son. The older brother was angry that his father threw such a feast for his brat of a brother. From our human perspective we tend to sympathize with the older brother. He had done everything he was supposed to do, yet his younger brother who rebelled and ran away was given a celebration. However, the parable points out that the older brother experienced all of the good things which come from being faithful. He was not loved any less because his father was overjoyed that his rebellious brother had returned.
