How to see God’s glory every day – John 2:1-11, Part 5

In the previous post, we read in John 2:11 that Jesus, by accomplishing the miraculous sign of transforming water into wine, showed his disciples his glory.

Glory?  What does that mean?  Only God has that kind of glory.  I highly doubt the glory the disciples saw was a shining light, a halo, a glow or an aura.  That kind of brightness is not the glory that John is talking about.  Glory refers to many things, but the glory Jesus showed his disciples was the ability to demonstrate power that is supernatural.  Glory is a magnificence that is superhuman, more than human.  They saw Jesus’ glory manifested in his mysterious power to turn water into wine, without saying a word, without a magic wand. 

When they saw his glory, they placed their faith in him.  Theirs was a new faith.  It was not a fully mature faith.  Instead it was faith enough for them to say, “I will be your apprentice, Jesus.  I will follow you.”  Theirs was not a faith that had them saying, “Yes! I’m going to go to heaven when I die.”  Their faith was a faith that motivated them to follow him now, to be close to him.  They saw his glory and they wanted to be near him, to learn from him how to live. 

You might think, “I wish I could see his glory. I wish I could see miracles.”  But I would suggest that we have and we do.  Probably many times.  We have the benefit of hindsight, 2000 years of hindsight, as compared to those disciples.  We have the benefit of knowing that Jesus died and rose again.  Talk about glory!  Talk about magnificence that is beyond human ability.

We have seen God work throughout the history of the church, and we have seen him work in our lives.  Sometimes even in miracles!  We have seen his glory, his incredible power, the glory of the one and only. The right response to seeing God’s glory is the response the disciples had when they placed their faith in him, no matter how big or small the faith, and they followed him.  Think about how Jesus has shown his glory in your life and make the decision to give your life to follow him, to learn from him, to be his apprentice and learn from him how to live, how to do what he did.   

So think about what you have seen.  Have there been times of provision in your life that only God could have done?  Times of emotional healing?  Times of emotional strength that you know came to you through your reliance on your relationship with God?  That is his glory!  You have seen his glory, his magnificent power.

As we study the Gospel of John, “glory” is a word that will pop up many more times.  We’ll want to pay attention to how Jesus reveals his glory.  Let me give you a hint.  Glory in the Gospel of John is not found in worship services with inspiring music and teaching.  Those are human.  They can be wonderful and helpful, but remember that when God manifests his glory, that glory is not something that humans can replicate.  We can point to it, declare it, and that kind of calling out, “There it is!” is a practice we would do well to learn. 

We can identify God’s glory in nature, in God’s provision in our lives, in healing, in the work of his Spirit.  So this week, ask God to show you his glory.  Ask him to help you, and then choose to be more aware of what is going on around you.  Look for God’s glory not in worship services, but in the outskirts, because that is so often where he manifests his mysterious mighty power.  We often think glory is found in winning, not losing. But look for glory not in the high and mighty, not in the celebrities who already get all the attention.  Instead watch for glory in the hidden details.  Ask God to give you the eyes of the servants, the eyes of the fishermen turned apprentices, eyes to see his glory.  And then walk in step with him.  Place your faith in him, saying, “Lord, I don’t know where this is headed, or what it all means, but I give my life to follow you, to learn from you how to live.”

Photo by Sage Friedman on Unsplash

Three things Jesus’ disciples saw when they observed him – John 2:1-11, Part 4

What do you see when you see Jesus? When you read the stories about his life, or maybe watch a dramatic presentation of the Gospels, what do you notice about Jesus? Perhaps the best place to get information about Jesus is from the people who were eyewitnesses of his life. His disciples walked with Jesus for 2+ years. They saw him more than anyone. What did they see? Keep reading as we’ll talk about what they saw one day while they attended a wedding with Jesus.

This week on the blog, we’ve been studying John 2:1-11, the story of Jesus’ miracle in which he changed water into wine. The Gospel writer, John, tells us that this miracle was a miraculous sign.  As we continue studying the Gospel of John in the upcoming months, we will read about many more of these signs.  Jesus’ changing the water into wine is the first one. 

John reports the miraculous signs because they have a purpose, and the key word in understanding the purpose is the word “sign”.  Each miracle is a signpost, pointing us toward something.  Remember that the writer of the Gospel of John wants us to learn who Jesus is so that we will believe in Jesus. 

In this passage what do we learn about Jesus?  We learn that he can change water into wine.  We learn that he can do miracles.  We learn that he is not only human, but also God.  The miracle is a signpost that tells us that Jesus is God.

There were some people, John tells us, who were watching this miracle, and they understand it was a sign. Who were they?  The apprentices.  Jesus’ disciples were there at the wedding, which we read in verse 2, and talked about in the first post in this series.  But after that initial mention, we don’t hear anything about the disciples’ involvement at the wedding until now.  What do we learn in John 2:11?  The disciples were there watching the whole time.  That’s what apprentices do.  They follow their master around and they watch what he does.  They want to find out, “Who is this guy?  Who is this carpenter, handyman, who has called us fishermen to follow him?”  What do they learn?  What did they see? I think they see at least three things.

First, they saw that he went to a wedding. Jesus, the Gospel writers, tell us, went to parties and celebrated.  Not just this one time, but this was the first of many parties.  The next party, it seems, was not long after this one.  We won’t learn about it the Gospel of John, though, so I’ll briefly tell you about it now.  You can read about it in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but I’ll read it in Luke 5:27-32,

“After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?’ Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’.”

Jesus did not act like the prevailing view of how a religious leader should act.  Those religious elite wouldn’t be caught dead doing much of what Jesus did.  So the disciples saw that Jesus was a different kind of Rabbi who partied with all people, including sinners. Notice, though, that he called sinners to repentance.  So his partying with them was not an affirmation of their sinful choices, but an affirmation of their worth in God’s eyes, that they were loved by God, and therefore valuable to be in real relationship with.  That real relationship also included the call to repent, asking them to stop choosing ways that are opposed to God’s heart and start choosing ways that are in line with God’s heart.  The disciples saw this.

Second, the disciples saw that he had a close relationship with his mother.  They probably also saw that his mother Mary was bold, fun, humorous, vibrant.  I don’t know if Jesus and Mary’s relationship was typical or atypical for that culture.  But the disciples couldn’t avoid noticing that this mom told her son, the same son whom John the Baptist said what the Lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world, to do something about the wine problem, and he did it.  This shows Jesus’ humility, humanity and his great relationship with his mother. 

Finally, the disciples saw that Jesus was a miracle worker, which was amazing.  The miracle was a sign that pointed to the reality that Jesus was not just human, he was also God.  He revealed his glory to them, John tells us in John 2:11.  That is a phrase that indicates his divinity.  Jesus was 100% human and 100% God.  God did not create Jesus.  Jesus is God.  When you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus, read about Jesus, and Jesus shows you what God is like. When he turned the water into wine, it was as though Jesus was opening a door into a reality that the disciples had never seen before.  When they looked, they saw his glory. 

But what did his glory look like? We’ll talk about that in the next post.

The how, when and who of Jesus’ miracle changing water into wine – John 2:1-11, Part 3

How did Jesus change the water into wine? When did he do it? Who saw it? Let’s try to find out.  Look at John 2, verses 6-10.

The details in the Gospel of John are somewhat scant, aren’t they? Jesus follows his mom’s lead, tells the servants to fill some large jars with water and they take the water-turned-wine to the master of the banquet, who declares that it is the best wine. 

Saving the best wine for last is very unusual.  The Master of the banquet doesn’t seem to know about the miracle.  And he probably didn’t care at this point.  If he knew there was a problem, it was solved.  The wedding could continue, now with the best wine!

So who saw the miracle happen? As we saw in the first post in this week’s series on John 2:1-11, The Chosen depicts Jesus as asking everyone to leave the room where they jars were located, and privately, all by himself with no one looking, he dips his hands into the water, thus changing the water into wine. The text of the Gospel of John, however, doesn’t tell us if that’s how he did it.  So, I wonder, could it be that people saw Jesus perform the miracle?  At this point, we know the servants were involved, but we don’t know how much they saw. 

The Gospel of John tells us that the servants knew what happened.  They were there when that woman told her son to get involved.  They were there when the women told them to do whatever her son said to do.  They were there when her son asked them to fill the jars, those big earthen jars with water.  They knew the issue at hand was the absence of wine, and they found it bizarre when this man tells them to fill the jars with water.  Shouldn’t he have been telling them to go out to find more wine? Why water?  The issue was wine, not water.  But they are servants, and their position in society and at this banquet is to do what they are told.  They tended to be people on the margins of society, the underlings.  The woman had that look in her eye, and they did what she said, which was to do what the man said.  So the servants fetch water from the town well, bucket after bucket after bucket. Till the jars were full. 

The Gospel of John doesn’t tell us precisely how the miracle happened.  Did the servants pour their smaller jars of water from the well into the big jars at the wedding, and when the water hit the inside of the jar, the water turned into wine?  Could the servants see the transformation happening with each pour?  Or did Jesus wait until all the jars were totally filled to do the miracle?  At what point did the servants know the miracle had happened?  Maybe when Jesus told them to draw some out.  They had to see the red color then, right?  But perhaps they didn’t yet taste it themselves, and they were surprised along with the master when he took his first sip.

The important issue is not how or when it happened, or even who saw it happen. The important issue is why Jesus changed the water into wine.  It’s quite a unique miracle, and yet it is not the only time that Jesus will do a miracle like this.  On at least one other occasion, he will take one boy’s small packed lunch of some bread and fish, meant to feed one person, and Jesus would multiply it to feed thousands.  But Jesus is not in the business of providing food and drink for the world.  His followers rightly would take on that concern for those in need, and that is why we continue to pursue ministries of feeding those in need.  Jesus could have gone around Israel, turning water into wine all over the place, putting the vineyards out of business in the process.  But no.  He had another reason for this miracle. 

We’ll find out his other reason in the next post.

Photo by Piotr Makowski on Unsplash

Jesus’ fascinating relationship with his mom – John 2:1-11, Part 2

What images do you think of when think of Jesus and his mom, Mary? The young Mary holding the newborn Jesus? That scene is probably the most famous of all the Bible stories involving Mary and Jesus. But they had 30 years together after that scene. 30 years in which they probably saw each other most every day. I wonder what their adult relationship was like. We get a glimpse at what their relationship might have been like at a wedding.

The wedding took place in Cana, a town near Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth.  Two very small towns just down the road from each other. If you grew up in one town, you pretty much knew everyone in the other town.   If you were from Nazareth, it is highly likely that you’d be invited to a wedding of a family in Cana.  We read in John 2:1-2 that Jesus’, his disciples and his mother were all there.

Weddings were festive occasions in ancient Jewish culture, often lasting a week.  The celebration would go on and on.  That brings us to verse 3, and the problem. The wine ran out. 

In that culture, this is a major problem.  Clean drinking water was not always easy to come by.  There were wells, of course, but there was nothing like the easy access to clean water like you and I are used to with our indoor plumbing and treated water. So wine was extremely common, not just at parties like a wedding, but at all meals.  When Jesus has the last supper with his disciples, and he said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, drink it in remembrances of me,” he was holding a glass of wine.  As you can imagine, it was especially important for a family to have plenty of wine for a special wedding ceremony that could last a week.  But at this wedding, the wine ran out.  

In that culture of honor and shame, running out of wine would have been a significant embarrassment for the father of the bride. So Jesus’ mom, Mary, goes to Jesus, asking what seems to be a totally innocent observation, “They have no more wine.”  But hers was no innocent remark.

Jesus could have said, “Oh wow, that’s a bummer.”  Or he could have looked at her with a snide look, “Mom…everyone knows that.”  He could have ignored her or answered her in any number of ways to show her that this situation had nothing to do with him.  But he knew his mom.  He knew exactly what she was getting at.  Maybe it was her tone of voice, maybe it was a twinkle in her eye.  Mary was communicating that she knew Jesus could do something about the wine running out.  How does he respond?  Look at verse 4.

Notice Jesus’ response, “Dear woman, why do you involve me?”  He totally knows what Mary is doing here.  He knows that she wants him to do something about the lack of wine.  She wants him to solve the problem that the father of bride is facing.  I love what we learn here about Jesus’ relationship with his mother.  It is so playful, so human.  We see clearly the humanity of Jesus.

What Jesus says next is fascinating, “My time has not yet come.”  Even after his ministry got started, we find him often saying things like “Please keep quiet about this, my time has not yet come.”  Jesus was managing the pace of his ministry so that it stayed in line with the mission of God. 

At the wedding in Cana, when Jesus says to her, “My time is not yet come,” he wants to keep his ministry on a particular pace, not too fast, not too slow, but reaching the finish line at just the right time.  He’s concerned that if he does a miracle, like changing the water into wine, it could result in something like him becoming popular too fast.  Or maybe The Chosen version is right, that Jesus here is evaluating if he is ready to start a mission from God that will end in pain.  His comment about this not being the right time could be enough for Mary to shut down the conversation.  Mary’s response is amazing. Read about it in verse 5.

Mary doesn’t seem to acknowledge Jesus’ concern that his time had not yet come.  I don’t know if she rolled her eyes at him, shrugged him off, or just turned away pretending she didn’t hear him. More than likely she just smiled at Jesus, and with a twinkle in her eye, she basically dismisses him.  This about that.   She dismissed Jesus!  The Messiah.  Mary ignores his point of view.  Is she being rude or sinful?  No, I don’t believe so.  She’s his mom.  I find it fascinating that Mary chooses to disregard Jesus’ comment.  You gotta love Mary in this story.  I wonder if she was a bit of a fireball. She was invited by God to live on earth as the mother of Jesus, with the knowledge that being the mother of Jesus would involve both amazing beauty and deep pain.  She had great strength and great character.

Glance back at verse 4, and notice that Jesus didn’t say “No, mom, I am not getting involved.”  He simply said, “Why do you involve me?  My time has not yet come.”  As he so often did, Jesus invites a discussion, asking a question.  Mary interprets Jesus’ response as him leaving the door open, that he might possibly help.  What is so amazing to me is that she doesn’t interact with him.  She doesn’t attempt to reason with him.  She doesn’t attempt to get him to say, “OK, mom, fine…I’ll do it.”  In fact, she doesn’t even answer his question to her, “Why do you involve me?” 

Instead, Mary turns to the servants and simply says, “Do what he tells you.”  How does Jesus respond?  With a “Woah…mom…I just told you, my time has not yet come.  Why are you disrespecting me?  I’m not telling these servants anything.  Geez, mom, don’t you know I have to be about my father’s business?  I’m not getting involved in some wedding party magic trick.”??? 

So how does Jesus respond? We’ll find out tomorrow.

Photo by Pro Church Media on Unsplash

Who Jesus and his followers might look like if they would have lived today – John 2:1-11, Part 1

Have you ever wondered what Jesus might look like if he would have been born into our day and age? Imagine what he might have been if Jesus were an American in 2022. Then ask yourself, what would his disciples be like? What would their jobs be? There are so many kinds of people in our society.

As we get started this week studying John 2:1-11, take a look at the wonderful depiction of the story of Jesus changing the water into wine at the wedding in Cana. This will give you an idea of what Jesus might have been like in his day. Then we’ll talk about about what he and his disciples might have looked like if they have lived in our culture.

I wonder if there was anything about that version that surprised you?  When we read the biblical account, we play the role of director and actors in our minds.  We imagine what it might have looked like. Then when we see someone else’s version, such as this version from The Chosen, we can think “Wow…I never imagined it was like that.” This week as we study this story in John chapter 2, I want us to intentionally take on that role of movie director. 

But first, let’s review.  So far in our sermon series through the Gospel of John, we have worked our way through John chapter 1.  There we learned about someone called “The Word,” and that The Word is God who became human.  The Word, we learned, is one way that the writer of the Gospel describes Jesus.  Then the story began, and we met John the Baptist who introduced us to someone called “The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”  The Lamb of God turned out to be another title for Jesus.  Finally the story described Jesus’ first interaction with five of the twelve men who would become his disciples.  All of them, Jesus and the five men, were from Israel’s northern region called Galilee, and they had all traveled south to where John the Baptist was ministering.

Between John chapters 1 and 2, we need to fill in some details.  After John baptized Jesus, the men joined Jesus walking back north to Galilee.  When they arrived, and we learn this from the account in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus went by himself into the wilderness for 40 days during which time he fasted and was tempted by the devil.  The five men were fishermen, and they went back to their jobs, as they had mouths to feed.  But eventually Jesus returned, sought them out, and called them to formally follow him.  Up until this time, for his whole life, Jesus was a handyman, a carpenter, a mason.  Now he was acting like a Rabbi, a teacher. Until this time, the men were fishermen.  Now they were Jesus’ disciples, followers, apprentices.

It really is an unusual scene.  Imagine how this group of ragtag men would be received in our culture.  Imagine a person who works with their hands, maybe someone who has a small family business fixing or building things.  Never had any biblical or theological or ministry training.  This person wears Dickies or Carhatt and clips a multi-tool inside their front pants pocket. They often wear a baseball cap and drive a pickup with tools in the back seat and a toe hitch on the rear bumper for their trailer.  You know the person.  They just have a knack for plumbing, electrical, carpentry and masonry.  Maybe welding and mechanics.  They’ve been fixing and building things their entire lives.  That’s who they are. 

Then one day, this handyman person invites others to start following them.  That’s not so odd, as in the world of working with your hands, you might not need to go to a trade school, as you can often become an apprentice.  You can learn on the job. In fact, that’s how many fathers and mothers pass on knowledge to their sons and daughters.  Last week the Amish neighbor boy two doors down, and I’m talking little boy, maybe three years old, was walking in their pasture/backyard swaying back and forth with a stick in his hand and making a motor noise with his mouth.  You know what he was doing?  Mimicking his dad using a weed trimmer to mow his back yard.  That’s what an apprentice does.  They do what the master teaches them to do, most often imitating the master.  They do it so often that eventually the master gives them opportunities to do jobs on their own.  As time goes by, the apprentice becomes a master. 

The apprentices following Jesus are fishermen.  Again, imagine who they might be in our day? I recently read the book, The Perfect Storm, about professional fisherman.  It’s super hard work, dangerous work, and maybe there’s a connection between ancient fishermen and contemporary commercial fisherman.  But I don’t think ancient fishermen had all that much in common with most fishermen or hunters in our day.  Most of our fishing and hunting is a hobby, a privilege of the wealthy.  If we want to think of what those apprentices of Jesus might be like in our day, we need to think of smelly, dirty, hard labor jobs that break bodies day in, day out. The people working those jobs are usually not getting rich. Instead they’re just making ends meet, or not making ends meet, without health insurance, without a good benefits package, working the jobs nobody else wants.  The garbage men, roofers, Flagger Force sign turners, the burger flippers, produce pickers, and warehouse workers.  These are the guys that become apprentices of the handyman with tools in his pick-up.

But their apprenticeship is different.  It’s not different that the master handyman called apprentices.  What makes their apprenticeship different is that the handyman doesn’t call the apprentices to become a handyman like him.  Instead, the handyman is now a teacher, and he invites them to apprentice themselves to him, to follow him, to learn how to reach people for God.  Think about how bizarre that is.   A man who never went to Bible college or seminary invites other men with no religious training to reach people for God.  As one who has had a lot of religious, Bible, theology and ministry training in my life, I find it highly unusual.  But our story is not about a usual man.

It is at this point, that we pick up the story of Jesus at the beginning of John 2. We’ll get started in the next post.

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Who is Jesus, really? – John 2:1-11, Preview

This past week I put the following message on our church’s outdoor sign: “Who is Jesus really?  Join us Sundays 9am to find out.”  I placed that message hoping to spark interest in the community about our sermon series through the Gospel of John.

Likewise, I hung a banner and sign in our lobby.  It is a word cloud listing the name of Jesus in numerous languages.  I thought it would be a helpful visual for a sermon series studying Jesus, and so I titled the series, “Who Is Jesus?”

We Christians know who Jesus is, right?  After all, we are Christians, which means we are “people who are followers of Christ Jesus,” so of course we know about him.  Or do we?

Remember the parable Jesus told in Matthew 7:21-23?  I encourage you to read it before continuing with this article.  In the parable Jesus envisions people who seem to have 100% confidence they are going to enter heaven.  They call Jesus “Lord, Lord” as if they are in close relationship with him.  They even do religious activities.  Jesus looks at them, however, and says, “Depart from me; I never knew you.”  Can you imagine how shocking it would be to assume that you know who Jesus is, only to hear him say, “You don’t know me.”  Well, then, who is Jesus?

What is scary is that this might be more than the plot of an ancient parable.  Let’s do a little True/False quiz to illustrate what I mean. 

  1. True or False: Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.
  2. True or False: Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.

Let’s check your answers.  Both questions are false.  Jesus was not created by God. Jesus was not just a great teacher.  Jesus is God.  If you’ve been following the blog for the last few months, you might remember how we studied this in the week on John 1:1-18.  In that wee, the first and most important thing we learned about Jesus is that Jesus is God.

Here’s where it gets scary.  In recent weeks, Christianity Today reported on a theological survey stating that 73% of evangelicals agree with the statement “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.” (71% in 2016; 78% in 2018; 66% in 2020…seems that belief has been high for many years.)  The same survey reports that 43% of evangelicals agree “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.”  (30% in both 2018 and 2020.)

These heretical views are both variations of Arianism, one of, if not the, most divisive and dangerous heresies in the ancient church.  Arianism, in its most basic form, teaches that God created Jesus, thus Jesus is not divine.  If you want to learn more, the Britannica article on Arianism is quite good.  But Arianism is not some ancient false teaching that is long gone. Even though the ancient church declared Arian belief to be a heresy, the 2022 survey I mentioned above shows us that Arianism is alive and well…in the church!  I find it somewhat mind-boggling to consider that 73 of 100 evangelicals believe in the heretical idea that God created Jesus.  Or that 43 of 100 believe Jesus was not God.

What about you, your family and friends?  Is it possible that a person could affirm Arianism and still be a Christian?  Or does belief in that heresy void true faith?  So who is Jesus?  This coming week on the blog, just like the church sign says, we’ll find out, because Jesus does something that blows people’s minds, and it reveals who he is.

Photo by Alessandro Bellone on Unsplash

How to experience greater things – John 1:43-51, Part 5

Last week my family awoke to the amazing sight of a couple dozen hot air balloons lifting off at sunrise, just across the fields near our home. As you can see in the picture above, they flew low right over our home. I took the photo from my front porch, so what you are seeing is our neighbor’s home. The sight of all those balloons was gorgeous, and it had me thinking that I’d like to ride in one of them sometime. Maybe you have goals in life, a bucket list, of experiences you’d like to have. Maybe you’d like to experience greater things, such as a job change, travel, or a relationship. In our final post on John 1:43-51, Jesus tells some of his disciples that there is a way to experience greater things.

As I mentioned in the previous post, after doubting that anything good can come out of the town of Nazareth, Nathanael meets Jesus. Jesus speaks a word of truth over Nathanael’s life, and in response Nathanael makes a confession about Jesus.  Like I said earlier, I don’t think this is a fully developed proper theological confession of Jesus.  No, it is just the true impression that Nathanael has based on the limited knowledge he has about the Messiah. 

But it is interesting that Nathanael mixes two concepts together in his confession: King of Israel and Son of God.  One is human, the other is divine, which is precisely how the writer of the Gospel of John described Jesus in his prologue in John 1, verses 1-14.  John describes Jesus as “the Word who was God,” and that Jesus is “the Word who became flesh and made his dwelling among us”?  That’s not unlike what Nathanael says.  Jesus is 100% God (“Son of God”) and 100% human (“King of Israel”).   

What Jesus says to Nathanael is awesome, “You will see greater things.”  Jesus wants Nathanael to be affirmed, but he also wants to whet Nathanael’s appetite for the soon-coming reality that will take the disciples from being fishermen to fishers of men.  It seems to me that what Jesus says in John 1, verses 50 and 51, is meant to be both encouraging and eye-opening.  It seems Jesus is saying to these men, “Hang on Nathanael.  Stay with me Andrew, Rock Johnson and Philip. Your lives are about to get wild.”

Jesus says the same to us.  “Come and See, Follow me, there will be greater things.”  Jesus also calls us to invite others just like Andrew said to Peter, “We have found the one,” and just like Philip invited Nathanael to “Come and See.” 

If you are not yet actively interacting with and trying to learn from and following Jesus, which is being his disciple, I’d love to talk with you about what that could look like in your life. 

If you are already a disciple of Jesus, who are you inviting to come and see and follow Jesus?  The mission of being a disciple-maker is the mission of every Christian. 

This is more than doing a Bible study or reading a daily devotional.  Those can be very good.  But what I am referring to when I talk about being a disciple and helping others become disciples also involves what we talked about in our recent blog series on the Fruit of the Spirit.  How are you doing with walking in step with the Spirit, so that the Spirit is growing his fruit in your life?  How are you helping others walk more in step with the Spirit, so they too can grow more of his fruit in their lives?  

Or consider the other recent blog series about relationships.  How do your various relationships demonstrate that you are a disciple of Jesus? How are you inviting the people in your life to follow Jesus?  How are you demonstrating discipleship to Jesus when life is difficult?  I encourage you to actively pursue discipleship to Jesus together.  Have you ever been discipled?  And who are you discipling right now?

That brings us back to the decline in American Christianity.  Is it possible we American Christians have done churchy things, but we have missed the core, the center, of what Jesus has called us to: be disciples who learn to follow him and make more disciples?  This must go beyond asking Jesus into your heart, praying, reading the Bible and going to church. 

What did Jesus tell us to do?  He invited people to Come and See and Follow Me.  He walked with people, investing deeply in their lives.  He employed the spiritual practice of questioning.  He taught them the way of the Kingdom.  He showed them how to reach out to people on the margins, the unlovely, the hurting, those in need.  He spent loads of time with his Father.  He gave his life for the mission of the Kingdom.

How can you be vulnerable and sacrificial with your life, including others, deeply investing in others as you follow Jesus together?

The importance of imitation to discipleship – John 1:43-51, Part 4

As we learned in the previous post, a man named Philip gives his friend Nathanael news that he, Philip, has found the Messiah, the promised deliverer of Israel, in the person of Jesus from the town of Nazareth. Nathanael rolls his eyes and says sarcastically, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip, who had only just met Jesus, makes a fascinating response to Nathanael.  Philip could have gotten into an argument with Nathanael.  He could have been offended by Nathanael. He could have ignored him.  He could have responded in many ways, especially negative ways, to counteract Nathanael’s negativity.  Instead Philip says something familiar, “Come and see.” (See John 1, verse 46.)

That is on purpose.  Jesus said “Come and see” the day before to Andrew.  Now Philip is saying “Come and see” to Nathanael.  The Gospel writer is very purposefully inviting us to make a connection about discipleship.  The disciples start to sound like their teacher.  They start to do what he does, say what he says. 

If you’ve been following the story, you might be thinking, “Wait, Jesus said ‘Come and see’ to Andrew, not to Philip.”  And you are right.  My response is that we don’t know all that Jesus said to Philip, and we don’t know if it might be possible that Andrew was there with Jesus in verse 43 when Jesus invited Philip to follow him.  Andrew could have told Philip “Yeah, Philip, Jesus told us to come and see also.  Join us. Come and see!”  And Philip repeats it to Nathanael. I’m speculating, of course. But the repetition of this phrase stands out. Why?

What we see here is an important element of the task of discipleship: Imitation.  Do what Jesus does.  Say what he says.  Paul would go on to write in 1 Corinthians 4:16, “I urge you to imitate me.”  And later in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Follow my example as I follow Christ.”  Discipleship to Jesus involves being an example.  Helping others to follow Jesus.  Helping others to follow the way of Jesus in the other 167 hours of the week that they are not in church.  And this imitation was already happening on Days 1 and 2 of Jesus’ relationship with his disciples.

Thankfully, Nathanael goes with Philip to come and see this Messiah.  What he saw blew his mind.  Look at verses 47-51. Jesus sees into Nathanael’s heart and declares a word over him, “Here is a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false.” Perhaps through the power of the Spirit, Jesus knows the character of Nathanael, and this amazes Nathanael.  Nathanael says, “How?”  And Jesus says, “I saw you over there under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 

First of all, Jesus said Philip called Nathanael.  Another small indication that Philip on Day 1 had learned an important discipleship practice.  Call people.  Invite them.  They don’t need to believe just yet.  Just invite them.   Don’t worry about what they believe yet or how they act. 

Second, Jesus saw Nathanael.  Jesus sees people.  Over and over we will observe Jesus’ paying careful attention. He is not wrapped up in himself.  He is aware of others.  He sees them. Yes, he had spiritual discernment to know Nathanael’s inner life.  We usually don’t have that advantage. But we can see people.  We can lift our eyes beyond ourselves and observe people, especially people in need, people hurting, people struggling.  Look to see beyond the outward.

When Jesus sees Nathanael and then declares truth over him, it hits Nathanael at the core.  Jesus in a simple manner has breathed new life into Nathanael.  I’m not saying Nathanael, at this point, is fully believing and understanding Jesus.  This is, after all, Day 1 of their relationship.  Nathanael, like all the disciples, has a lot yet to learn.  But Jesus’ simple, but powerful, encouraging investment in Nathanael has lifted Nathanael up.  And in verse 49, Nathanael responds by making a confession about Jesus. We’ll see what Nathanael has to say in the next post.

Photo by Jess Zoerb on Unsplash

What Jesus sees when he sees you – John 1:43-51, Part 3

If someone said, “I see potential in you,” would you believe them? Do you have a positive view of yourself? Or a negative one? Maybe you are just feeling that blase feeling so many of us have being feeling since the Covid pandemic and amid the turmoil in our world. Do you feel stuck? Read on…I think there is a solution!

In the previous post, in our study this week of John 1:43-51, we jumped over to Matthew 4 to learn more about the story of Jesus’ earliest interaction with his disciples. After the events of John 1, it seems Jesus and the five men (who are not yet disciples at this point), travel from the place they first met (near Bethany by the Jordan River where John the Baptist’s ministry took place), walking 80 miles north to their home region of Galilee. After they arrive in Galilee, the men return to their fishing jobs and Jesus, led by the Spirit, spends 40 days in the wilderness where he is tempted by the devil. When Jesus returns from his 40 days away, he seeks out the men he already met.  Walking by the Sea of Galilee, he finds them at their job, and he now formally invites them to follow him, as told in Matthew 4:

“’Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’ At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”

To these fishers of fish he is saying, “I have an opportunity that will transform you into fishers of men, if you follow me.”  So far, we have heard Jesus utter the first and second words of discipleship: “Come and see,” (read the post about this phrase here) and then “Follow me.” (Read the post about this second phrase here.) 

Following implies something more significant than simply observing.  Following is entering into the pathway and life of another.  Jewish rabbis had followers.  John the Baptist had followers.  What Jesus was asking of these men was not abnormal for Jewish society.  But what was abnormal was that he would ask men like them.  Typically a rabbi would gain followers from the elite rabbinical schools.  A rabbi would not look for followers among the working class, like fishermen.  A rabbi would not look for peasants who had little hope of a future beyond their meager existence.  Why? A rabbi wanted people who were on an impact trajectory, and those fishermen were not living a life that seemed like it could matter.

Jesus, however, was not your typical messiah or rabbi.  He sees the impact trajectory in everyone.  He says, “Come and see, follow me.  Learn from me.”  You might not think you have potential.  You might think you are stuck in a dead-end job, an empty life.  You might think you are not worthy to really serve Jesus.   Jesus says, “Come and see, follow me, let me show you how I see you.”

That invitation is for you and me.  Follow him and learn who he says you are, and then learn from him how to live in line with who he says you are.  What patterns of life does Jesus teach and model for us?  Those are the habits and practices that are not just for his era, but for life in 2022.  What are they? Not sure?  Learn from him how to live.

So often we are learning from lesser things.  We are often disciples of TV preachers or TV shows or sports figures, movie stars, artists, singers.  We are too often disciples of celebrity.  We are all disciples of something.  A disciple is one who is following and learning from another.  An apprentice.  But are we following lesser things?  Jesus breaks through all that and says to us “Come and see, follow me, I will teach you how to live, how to really live, and how to help others really live.”  Make yourself an apprentice of Jesus.

Return in your Bibles to the story we are following this week, John 1:43-51. In John 1:43, Philip responds to Jesus’ invitation, “Follow me.” Apparently Philip says, “Yes, I will.”  We know this because of what we read in John 1, verses 44-45: Philip goes to another guy from their town, Nathanael, and says the same thing Andrew said to Peter, “We have found the Messiah.” Peter is intrigued and goes to meet Jesus. (See John 1:41 and this post where I talk about this part of the story)  But Nathanael has a different reaction than Peter’s reaction.  Look at verse 46. 

Nathanael says, “Nazareth? Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  I guess Nazareth didn’t have such a great reputation.  Jesus’ hometown was small, backwards.  It was so small, modern archaeologists for centuries wondered if it was a made-up town because they couldn’t find archaeological evidence for it.  One scholar notes that “The earliest archaeological discoveries were made…in the 1880s, but despite over 80 years of subsequent excavation, the site was almost entirely unpublished until 2006.”[1]  There really was a town called Nazareth.  But Jesus’ first few years were not in Nazareth.

After Jesus was born, the family lived as refugees fleeing persecution in Egypt.  When the threat was gone, they moved back to their hometown Nazareth.  They could have relocated to a city or town much more fitting for the Messiah, like the city of Jerusalem.  But they chose to go back to small town Nazareth, perhaps to keep Jesus out of the eyes of any other power-hungry leader who might want to knock off contenders to the throne.  Nazareth was a good place to hide.

Nathanael is thinking, “Really? The Messiah? From Nazareth?  You’re out of your mind.”  We do the same thing. I grew up in Lititz, PA, one of the coolest small towns in America.  When you drive through Lititz, any other town in Lancaster seems, well, not so cool.  Or compare Lancaster City to Lebanon or York or Harrisburg.  When I was in the Clergy Leadership Program, early on we pastors in the program were getting to know each other.  A woman from Harrisburg asked me “Where are you from?” and I said, “Lancaster.”  And she shocked me saying, “Oh, Lancaster is so cosmopolitan.”  I knew Lancaster was very nice, but never thought of it using that word, but I said, “Yes, yes it is.”  I don’t think I said anything about Harrisburg, which I have only very rarely visited, so she piped up and basically said, “Harrisburg?  Nothing good comes from Harrisburg.”  In Nathanael’s mind, the Messiah certainly would not come from Nazareth. 

Then his friend Philip, who had only just met Jesus, makes a fascinating response to Nathanael. We’ll learn about that in the next post.

[1] https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/archaeology-nazareth-early-first-century

Photo by Faris Mohammed on Unsplash