John Week 3

Hello World Wide Web Friends,

I am currently at a nice little coffee shop in Frisco, TX. The weather here is just plain dumb. It is cold then hot, then rainy, then sunny then cloudy with no rain the 80 degrees then 45 degrees. Really?! Oh well. That is what I get for living in Southern California for 23 years. On to much more important things. The book of John.

This week I have been looking at John 5:31-40. Up to this point John has been writing about miracle after miracle that Jesus had been performing. Around 5:16 the Jewish religious leaders call Jesus out for healing a man on the Sabbath, or the day of rest. They basically say who are you to do this on the day we are not suppose to dedicate to God. in verse 17 Jesus says he is simply doing his father's work. When Jesus calls God his father he is claiming to be equal with God, there for being God himself. When Jesus made this claim verse 18 says, "For this reason the Jews tried even harder to kill him." The religious guys are simply pissed and are out for blood.

Around verse 19 Jesus finally comes out and supports his claim that he is God. Up to this point others had testified about who he was, but Jesus finally comes out and says it. This all leads up to John 5:31-40. The part I love the most is in verse 39. Jesus is saying to the religious leaders, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you posses eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life."

This is a huge slam to the religious people of the time. The people he is speaking to are some of the smartest and best trained people around. They have the first five books of the Old Testament memorized inside and out. They know exactly what not to do to make God angry and how to fix it when they do make him angry. Jesus comes to them and calls them out. He says all of your studying and clean little laws mean nothing with out me! Everything you read points to me. Everything you tell people to do is suppose to lead them to me! But you have totally missed the mark. I am here to free you, yet you continue to trap your selves in your little religious boxes. I am here to give you life, but if you want to be dead, fine, rot away. Deny me if you want too, but I am the Messiah.

Our high school group was wrestling with this Sunday night. What is Jesus saying here? How does his apply to us? We know Jesus is God and the only way to eternal life . We know and live in the grace that is freely given to us through Jesus. We know that no matter how much or how little we read the Scriptures, it does not ultimately effect our salvation. So, what can we take from this?

One idea that came up was that Jesus was calling them out for attaining knowledge for knowledges sake. So, I decided to llok up what knowledge is.

Knowledge: the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association.

With this definition in place, knowledge for knowledge's sake doesn't really add up. Knowledge is more than understanding. It is understanding through experience with familiarity. The religious leaders were not familiar with God. They understood his Word on paper. They had a tight contract with God. But had they experienced him? I would say no. In this verse Jesus comes to them, an us, and says, "Leave your nice little neat contract on the table, come experience me, come enjoy life with me."

The best analogy I can think of is a quarter back. A QB can study his plays all week before the game. He can know them inside and out, but they don't mean anything until he is in the game and applying them in the moment. That is when he will know if he had simply memorized a bunch of patterns or if he really knows them intimately.

Have we just memorized who Jesus is? Have we just made a contract with him? Or do we know him with a sense of familiarity through experiencing him? I challenge you to wrestle with this. I am. This is the whole point of me writing these blogs. I long to truly know Jesus. I have spent to many years memorizing facts about him. My soul longs to experience him. I thank him for his word. I pray that for all of us we read his story with an expectation of encountering the living God who is Jesus. May we put our contracts and note cards down and take part in life with our savior. May we eat and drink tell we are full so we may invite other to enjoy his grace.