John - by Bex Daynes
I have so enjoyed reading John together, it is one of my favourite books of the bible. Three themes captured me as we journeyed through the book.
Firstly, the descriptions of Jesus’ intimate conversations with unlikely people whose lives are forever changed by their encounters with Him. The Samaritan woman drawing water from a well in the heat of the day to avoid the shame of meeting others there. In their conversation, Jesus doesn’t avoid the sin in her life, but responds to her seeking heart & offers her living water. Immediately, she becomes the first evangelist of the gospels, returning to the community she has previously avoided to tell them the good news. The respected Jewish teacher Nicodemus, fascinated by Jesus’ radical teaching, but so fearful of his reputation, he resorts to approaching Jesus at night. It is to Nicodemus that Jesus speaks these verses of life we know so well: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one & only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3,16). We hear later in the gospels that Nicodemus finds the courage to challenge the Jewish council as they plan to kill Jesus & aids Joseph of Arimathea in burying Jesus’ body after He dies. Jesus, breaking down in tears at the tomb of His close friend Lazarus alongside his devastated sisters, then miraculously raising His friend from the dead as a powerful precursor to His own death & resurrection.
Some of my favourite moments in John are when we get to sit in on the conversation He has with His closest friends the evening before He knows He will die. Chapters fourteen to seventeen ring with the poignancy, clarity, urgency & deep love of a final parting, as Jesus speaks intimately to His closest friends who have journeyed with Him to the cross. As His disciples now & as readers making the journey through the gospel, He speaks to each of us too. Jesus starts the evening by practically demonstrating His love for His friends by washing their dirty feet & challenges us to servant leadership by doing likewise. Jesus comforts the increasingly troubled disciples & promises not to leave us as orphans, but offers the gift of the Holy Spirit to help us when He is no longer here on earth. He reminds us that as a branch must be attached to the vine, to be fruitful we must stay close to Him. And then we read of Jesus’ intercessory prayers; for Himself, for His friends & followers & for everyone who will know Him through their testimony, two thousand years later - that is us! He shares His heart that all who follow Him would be one, to mirror the unity of trinity & as a vital way of revealing Him to the world.
And finally as David Ford argues, John’s is a gospel of abundance from beginning to end. John opens with “from the fullness of His grace, we have all received grace upon grace” (John 1,16). Jesus’ first miracle in John is not a healing or exorcism, but Jesus quietly saving the day at a wedding party that had run out of wine. Jesus asks servants to fill huge water containers which produce more wine & better wine than even the wedding planner could anticipate! In chapter six, Jesus feeds the hungry crowds who had stayed later than anticipated captivated by His teaching & feeds them with a young boy’s packed lunch. He doesn’t just satisfy their hunger, there is so much food to go round there are twelve baskets of food left over. In His teaching in chapter ten, Jesus announces “I have come that you may have life, abundant life” (John 10,10). John finishes his gospel with this abundance; “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose then even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” My prayer is that we too will encounter Jesus in John & receive the abundant life that Jesus offers.