“Some Things Bear Repeating” (1 John 2:7-14)

Last month Karen and I went on a road trip. It took us a little over 4400 kilometers in all, and along the way we enjoyed some wonderful scenery: the picturesque former mill town of Almonte just outside Ottawa, the quiet lakeside village of Haliburton, the thundering roar of Niagara Falls, the serene Thousand Islands, and the tree-covered slopes of New York’s Adirondacks and Vermont’s Green Mountains.

However, stunning though much of the scenery was along the way, none of that was the main intention of our trip. No, our real purpose was to spend time with relatives and friends from the past fifty or more years. And one of the highlights along the way was to worship with the church I had served more than forty years ago, back in the early 1980s. It was a delight to see faces and reminisce with worshippers we had not been with for decades. Admittedly there were those among us who had put on a little weight and others who had lost a little hair (and some of us both!). And the grey-bearded gentleman who read the Scripture had barely reached his teen years when we had last seen him. And there they were, continuing faithfully today.

Being with these people again was a living reminder that as believers and followers of Jesus Christ we are in it for the long haul. Jesus talked about the life of discipleship in terms of abiding in him, or as one rendering of the New Testament puts it, making ourselves at home with him.[1] And for his own part Jesus has promised that he will be with us to the end of the world. And that is what forms much of the background behind the First Letter of John, from which we have been reading over the past few weeks.

John is writing as a long-term pastor and he is writing looking back on his own even longer-term walk of discipleship with Jesus. We can’t be entirely sure, but the likelihood is that John was just a young teenager when with his brother James he left his fishing net behind in his father’s boat and heeded Jesus’ call to “Come, follow me.” Three years later he would be the only one of Jesus’ male disciples to be found standing by the cross. And the third morning after that he would be the first to peer inside the empty tomb and look with amazement on Jesus’ disused grave cloths lying discarded in a heap.

Now, as we read from the first of his three letters, the scene moves a thousand kilometers north, from Jerusalem to Ephesus, near the coast of what is modern-day Turkey. We learn from Irenaeus, who lived a generation later, that John ministered there until some point in the reign of the emperor Trajan.

Now Trajan ruled from 98 to 117 ad. So it is now approaching seventy years after the events in the gospel and John is nearing the end of a long and fruitful ministry. We don’t know much more about him, except for one little story that somehow managed to survive through the generations and was recounted three centuries or so later by Jerome, the translator of the Bible into Latin. It runs like this:

The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age. His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, ‘Little children, love one another.’ The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, ‘Teacher, why do you always say this?’ He replied with a line worthy of John: ‘Because it is the Lord's commandment and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.’[2]

A word to all

Accurate or not, that little anecdote is certainly consistent with that we read in 1 John chapter 2 this morning. There we find John using his authority both as one who knew Jesus personally and as their long-term pastor to gently lay down the law with his congregation.

It was not as though he was coming up with anything new, says John. Indeed the commandment he was leaving with them was as old as Scripture itself, going right back to Moses. And it is this: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)

Of course John had been present when Jesus cited it as one of the two great commandments (Matthew 22:37-40). But then John had been there again when Jesus upped the ante, when he raised the command to love to a whole new level. It was on the night before he was to give up his life for them on the cross that Jesus said to his followers, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

What Jesus was challenging his disciples to, and what John was reminding his congregation of, was that the love to which Jesus calls us, the love that is to characterize the church, is not just a warm, fuzzy feeling. It is the love of which the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13: a love that is patient and kind; a love that does not envy or boast, that is not arrogant or rude; a love that does not insist on its own way; a love that is not irritable or resentful—a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

You don’t have to think of it for long to realize that the Bible sets the bar pretty high for us! Yet all too often our love falls so far short of that. Sometimes it can be cool and formal at best. It’s great that we’ve adopted the practice of sharing the peace as a part of our worship, and that there are those who take the time and effort to make sure Sunday by Sunday that there is an opportunity for fellowship over a cup of coffee after the service. These are concrete expressions of the love that binds us together. And I know that that is just the tip of the iceberg, that both formally in our home groups and informally in other ways, again and again the love of Jesus is being demonstrated visibly and tangibly in our midst.

And that love is something we can never allow ourselves to take for granted. On the contrary, we need to treasure it and encourage it and to make every effort to ensure that it flourishes and deepens and grows. For it is fragile and it can all come tumbling down like a house of cards—sometimes over what are seemingly the tiniest of issues. And that is exactly what seems to have been happening in John’s congregation.

There is a part of me that is tempted to think that John addresses his readers as “children” because that was the way they were behaving. There were members who claimed to be living in the light of God’s love, yet within their hearts they were harbouring dark thoughts of bitterness and resentment towards their fellow believers. John does not reveal to us what the controversy was that sparked this state of affairs. Sometimes church squabbles can be triggered by the most insignificant of differences. Perhaps it was over the new colour of paint for the sanctuary. Or whether decaf should be served at coffee hour.

But then again there was a much deeper and more noble reason for John to call his congregation children. (By the way, he does it no fewer than thirteen times in the five chapters of this short letter.) His addressing them as such was not to demean or belittle them in any way. Rather, it was an expression of his deep and abiding affection for them, because spiritually they were his children. They had come to know God’s forgiveness through John’s proclamation of Christ and his blood shed on the cross. They had come into a personal relationship with him as their loving Father through John’s wise counsel. They had been born again, they had been nurtured and trained and helped to mature in their faith through John’s ministry.

A word to seniors

Yet although they had all of this in common, something was dividing them. And the fault line seems to have lain been between the older and the younger members of the congregation. So it is that John has two words of counsel for the “fathers”—for the senior members of the congregation and then another two for their juniors.

Speaking as a senior, I’m willing to admit that I can become set in my ways. It’s easy to slip into the habit of thinking that things were better the way they used to be, to long for the good old days. Yet that is a dangerous trap to fall into. Indeed, if we consider it for any length of time, we will likely come to the realization in most cases that the good old days weren’t really all that good after all, just different. And besides, it can be a dangerous thing to dwell in the past. Because in doing so, we stand a very good chance of missing the opportunities of the present.

One of the valuable lessons that I’m grateful I learned in the early days of my ministry was that there were women and men in the congregation whose perspectives and opinions I could value because they were able to take the long view of things. (Or as John puts it, they “know him who is from the beginning”.) They had lived through the high times and weathered the storms. They had seen fads that came and quickly faded away like the flowers of spring. But they also had the wisdom to recognize when God the Holy Spirit was leading us in new directions, to embark on new adventures—and perhaps to discard some of the things that had become hollow traditions, sometimes even impediments to the gospel.

I used to think of them privately as the wise old owls. And I don’t know what I, or we as a congregation, would have done without them. I continue to be humbled by their long-term commitment and service to Jesus and his church. And again and again I have found myself grateful both for their time-tested wisdom and also for their willingness to give the younger members of the congregation the rope and the freedom to try out new ideas, new approaches, and on some occasions to ward off disaster with some wise words of caution—and all without a hint of judgement or a critical spirit. How much we have to gain when we learn to listen with respect to the senior members of our congregation!

A word to the young

John’s words aren’t for the seniors only, however. He also has something to share with the younger members of the church. And by the way, John is not talking about the youth group here (although they too have important roles to play). The word John uses refers to those somewhere in the twenty-five- to forty-year-old bracket. These are people in the prime of life—people who are newly married, starting families, early in their careers.

It is all too easy for those important and significant commitments (commitments which I want to affirm are God-given) to mushroom and to consume all our time and resources, to the point where we have little energy left for anything else. (I don’t deny that embarking on a career and raising a family are hard work and take a lot of juggling!) Yet, as I have been grateful for the “wise old owls” I am also thankful to God for giving to me and to the churches where I have served those younger people who were willing to devote a significant portion of their time, their energy and their creativity to contribute and to follow through on fresh ideas and new directions given to them by the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes I find myself wondering why Jesus ever thought up the idea of the church. It can be so messy and complicated! Yet I thank God that over the years he has given me the opportunity to see that there is a riches when people from all different backgrounds and experiences, young and old, rich and poor, out of their common love for Jesus and energized by the Holy Spirit are committed to working together in the service of God’s kingdom.

My prayer is that we may be that kind of church. And indeed in many ways we are already that kind of church. We have old and young, students and retirees, young families and grandparents, single, married and widowed, ancestral Nova Scotians and newcomers from nearly a dozen different nations—all the ingredients for a powerful multi-generational, multinational witness here in Halifax. And so the question lies before us: Are we willing to lay aside our own agendas and follow God’s agenda—to use this wonderful variety he has given us, not to serve our own needs but to shine the light of Jesus into an increasingly dark and needy world?

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[1]     The Message, John 15:7

[2]     Commentary on Galatians, 6:10

“There’s More to the Story” (John 21:1-25)

For the last couple of Sundays we’ve been reading from John 20—the beloved disciple’s dramatic account of Jesus’ resurrection. We’ve stood with Mary Magdalene weeping outside the empty tomb as she mistook the risen Jesus for the gardener. And we’ve been with the disciples in the upper room as they listened to Thomas declare, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my fingers where the nails were…, I will not believe.”

Of course these are not the only incidents that the gospels recount of the miraculous events of that first Easter. My personal favourite has to be the one that Luke tells us, of the two disciples making their way to Emmaus, when they were joined by a shadowy stranger along the road. It was only as he broke bread with them in their home that they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

No doubt there were numerous other encounters between the risen Christ and his followers that have been lost to us. And John says as much in the final verses of chapter 20:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

It would almost seem at this point as though John had reached his conclusion. He puts down his pen. But then he pauses. “Wait a minute!” he says to himself. “There’s one more story that I must tell. And here is how it happened…”

The comfort of the familiar

The scene this time is by the Sea of Galilee. It is early in the morning and the mist is slowly rising from the tranquil surface of the lake. Seven of them had decided to go fishing. And so they had pushed out the night before and let down their nets.

I remember years ago when Karen and I were cottaging with our children in St Margaret’s Bay. I thought I should give them an experience of fishing. I had memories of going out in a rowboat to fish with my dad and brothers and rarely catching anything. And so, if nothing else, I thought to myself, it might teach our kids some patience.

Well, we were barely minutes out on the bay when the water around us was teeming with fish. I’m talking hundreds of them. And it seemed as though they were begging to be caught, practically jumping into our boat. What we didn’t realize was that we had rowed right into the middle of a school of mackerel—and it didn’t take us long to haul in enough to feed our family of five. So much for a lesson on patience!

Sadly, that was not the experience of Peter and his companions. They had fished all night and hadn’t anything to show for it. But I’m not altogether sure that it mattered. My suspicion is that they had not gone back to Galilee and to their fishing boats to earn some cash. No, they had gone back because it was familiar. It was somewhere that they could be quiet, somewhere that perhaps they might at least begin to process the whirlwind of events that they had become embroiled in over the previous few weeks.

Try to imagine for a moment what their lives had been like. They had marched into Jerusalem to the cheers of triumphant crowds shouting “Hosanna!” and waving their fronds of palm. Days later they had looked on powerlessly as the one they had come to revere as the Messiah was arrested, savagely beaten and nailed up to breathe out his last on a cross. Then only days after that they were confronted with the news that he was alive—and soon they were seeing him for themselves in front of their very own eyes.

To say that they had been on an emotional roller coaster would be an understatement. So should it be any wonder that they would want to go back to the lake, back to where things were quiet, back to where life was predictable? And besides, hadn’t Jesus himself instructed the women to tell them that they would see him in Galilee? (Matthew 28:10)

Peter, Thomas and the others just needed a break. So it was only human that they should retreat to the comfort of the familiar. And the wonderful thing was that Jesus met them there. “Buddies, you don’t have any fish, do you?” came a voice through the mist from a figure on the shore. “No,” they replied. “Then try casting your net on the right-hand side of your boat.”

I can imagine them thinking to themselves, “What does this guy know? Oh well, I suppose it can’t do any harm.” So with aching backs and arms from working all night, they let down their net. It seemed that no sooner had it sunk under the water than it was loaded with fish. And then it began to sink in—the strange familiarity about what was happening. It had been three years before, at one of their first encounters with Jesus that an almost identical scenario had unfolded (Luke 5:1-11).

Now there was no question in their minds as to who the figure was that was calling out to them. And hardly a split second was lost before Peter was splashing through the water on his way to meet him.

Some years ago a friend of mine wrote a book which she entitled, God Meets Us Where We Are. And it seems to me that that is the point of this incident. Jesus comes to us at our points of loneliness and sorrow, our times of fatigue and doubt. He doesn’t wait for us to come to him. He is the good shepherd, who seeks out his lost sheep until he finds them and brings them home. He is the one who graciously invites you and me, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Right now we’re heading into what for many is the busiest time of the year. Three weeks ago I was already hearing “Jingle Bells” in one of the stores—and it wasn’t even Hallowe’en yet! If you can do it, may I suggest that somehow, amid all the rush and bother of this season, you try to find the time to go to your own personal Sea of Galilee and let Jesus meet you there and nourish you as he did those first disciples. Even if it isn’t for any more than a few minutes, I have no doubt that Jesus will not disappoint you.

The call to serve

Of course the story does not end there. After the last of the fish and the bread have been eaten, Jesus turns to Peter and asks him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” Peter replies, “you know that I love you.” To which Jesus replies, “Feed my lambs.” Then a second time Jesus says to Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Again Peter answers, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And Jesus says, “Tend my sheep.” Hardly have the words left Peter’s mouth before Jesus asks a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

John tells us that Peter was grieved when Jesus asked him the same question the third time around. In fact, I don’t think it would be going too far to say that those words pierced into the depths of into Peter’s soul. Why do you think that was so? Because not that many days before, at Jesus’ moment of greatest need, Peter had denied even knowing him three times.

Peter could not have missed Jesus’ intent. And I can only imagine that it was with lips quivering and tears welling up in his eyes that Peter managed to blubber out the words for the third time: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” To which Jesus tells him once again, “Feed my sheep.”

What encouragement I find in that dialogue! I am embarrassed and ashamed when I think of the number of times I have failed Jesus since I first began to follow him. And perhaps you might say the same of yourself.

Indeed, when it comes down to it, none of us is equal to the task of serving God. Yet that is a pattern that we see from beginning to end in Scripture. Think of it: Jacob was a deceiver, Moses was a stutterer, Ruth was a penniless widow, David was an adulterer, Jonah was a coward, and on and on the list goes… Yet God empowered and equipped each of them to serve him in remarkable ways. And in his grace Jesus still calls and trusts the likes of you and me to serve him.

Your name may never be in the headlines, but there will be people whose lives were made better because of having known you. You may never be aware of it. You may not remember what you said or did and they may never tell you. But in the end you will hear your Master say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:23)

The cost of discipleship

Discipleship is an immeasurable privilege. But our passage this morning warns us that it often comes with a cost. And in these closing verses of John’s gospel Jesus warned that for Peter that cost would be his life.

Tradition tells us that Peter’s journey of discipleship led him to Rome. In the year 64 that city was struck by a disastrous fire. The blaze raged unchecked for nearly ten days, destroying over 70% of the city. And the ruins were still smouldering when rumours began to spread that the Emperor Nero himself was somehow behind it. Anxious for a scapegoat, Nero in turn pointed an accusing finger at the Christians, who had been a small but increasing presence in Rome for a generation.

In a savage display of cruelty, believers were sentenced to be torn apart by wild animals; they were covered in pitch and burned alive as human torches to light the imperial gardens; and some were crucified. Among this last group was the apostle Peter. And there is a further tradition (although it cannot be proven historically) that claims that, as he did not consider himself worthy of being put to death in the same manner as his Lord, Peter chose to be crucified upside down.

We can be grateful here in Canada that we live in a society where we are free to worship as we choose and to live out our beliefs on a daily basis. But did you know that one in eight Christians in the world today live in countries where they may be persecuted for their faith? That is over 300 million believers!

In the twelve months between October 2019 and September 2020, it is estimated that over 4,700 Christians were killed for their faith; nearly 4,300 were unjustly arrested, detained or imprisoned; and more than 1,700 were abducted for faith-related reasons.[1]

Those are sobering statistics. But let them be an encouragement to you and to me to follow the counsel that Peter himself has left us: to honour Christ as Lord in our hearts and always to be prepared to give a reason to anyone who asks us for the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15).

As John concludes his gospel, he looks back over his times with Jesus and the years that have passed by since. And every bit as much as on that first resurrection morning, he remains wide-eyed with amazement. You can hear it when you listen to his concluding words: “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

And isn’t it equally amazing that nearly two thousand years after the events, people are still talking about Jesus and books are still being written about him! As we close our Bibles (at least for now) may we never lose that sense of wonder and awe in the presence of Jesus, the Word become flesh, who dwelt among us—and continues to dwell among us by his Spirit today—full of grace and truth!

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[1]     Ewelina O. Ochab, “One in Eight Christians…”, Forbes Magazine, 13 January 2021

“Before Abraham was…” (John 8:48-59)

For those of you who are old enough to have watched the Seinfeld show on tv, you may recall an episode from twenty-five years ago entitled “The Comeback”. It all revolved around a conversation in the opening scene between George Costanza and a co-worker named Reilly. The two are taking a snack break at a business meeting, when Reilly observes that George is gobbling down considerably more than his fair share of a shrimp cocktail. This prompts Reilly to remark, “Hey George, the ocean called; they’re running out of shrimp.”

The result is that for much of the remaining half hour of the programme we see George making a succession of desperate attempts to come up with an equally witty comeback. But the outcome of all his efforts is a series of rejoinders that range from the pathetic to the positively offensive.

This morning’s verses from John come at the end of a series of exchanges between Jesus and some of the Pharisees. You can detect their hostility right from the very beginning. In verse 12 Jesus has just made one of his seven great amazing “I am” proclamations: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Coming from anyone else, this would seem to be an outrageously egotistical claim to make. And so, understandably, it prompts a contrary response from the Pharisees in the following verse: “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” And so the debate begins, back and forth, going on and on through the following thirty-five verses, and taking us right up to this morning’s passage.

This time it is the Pharisees’ turn to fire the opening volley. And it is a zinger: “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

To understand the depth of this insult, take a moment and if you can, think way back to chapter 4, to Jesus’ conversation with a Samaritan woman. You may recall how Jews and Samaritans regarded one another with hostility. In fact they had been engaged in an ongoing feud that had lasted for centuries. The result was that to call another person a Samaritan was to class them with the lowest of the low, someone you would not trust to let out of your sight for even a fraction of a second. Then, as though that insult were not enough, the Pharisees added another: “You have a demon.” It was as if to say that Jesus was not only a sad specimen of humanity, but that he was positively evil.

However, it is already clear that the Pharisees’ argument is weak. As Bishop J.C. Ryle observed 150 years ago, “To lose temper, and call names, is a common sign of a defeated cause.”[1] But once again Jesus was ready with an answer for them: “I do not have a demon, but I honour my Father, and you dishonour me…”

Jesus and the Father (48-51)

Now these words of Jesus may not stand out for us as being especially remarkable. As Christians we are accustomed to addressing God as “our Father”. It’s what Jesus has taught us to do. But I can only imagine that for the Pharisees Jesus’ referring to God as “my Father” would have more than raised a few eyebrows.

In the Old Testament there are fewer than half a dozen passages where God is referred to as “Father”. Yet here was Jesus speaking of the ineffable God, the God who thundered from the top of Mount Sinai, the God who was so holy that his name could never be pronounced by human lips—here was Jesus referring to the all-powerful Lord of all as “my Father”.

One of the images that the gospels give us of Jesus is of his intimate relationship with God the Father. We witness it most especially on the eve of his crucifixion. In what is commonly referred to as his high priestly prayer, John tells us “Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father…, glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you…’” (John 17:1). As he kneels in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus pleads, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me” (Luke 22:42). And hours later, as he hangs from the cross, Jesus cries out on behalf of his executioners, “Father, forgive them…” (Luke 23:34).

Everywhere in the gospels we see that Jesus enjoyed a unique intimacy with the Father. And while this may have angered the Pharisees, the whole purpose of Jesus’ coming was that you and I might share in that relationship through faith.

It would not be going too far to say that this is the whole aim that John had in mind when he took the effort to write his gospel. In the opening verses we find him writing, “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…” (John 1:12). Then, in his first epistle he rejoices, “See what glorious love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are!” (1 John 3:1).

In Mark’s gospel (14:36) we learn that the expression that Jesus used to address his Father was the intimate word “Abba”. I had a first-hand experience of what that word means when we were renting a lakeside cottage one summer. The family next to us were from Israel and I remember one day hearing their little daughter running up from the beach to her dad, excitedly shouting, “Abba! Abba!”

And this is the relationship with God into which Jesus invites you and me today as we open our lives to him in faith. However, let me make it clear that this is not a relationship of crass familiarity. Rather, it is one of childlike trust, respect and obedience to an all-wise and all-powerful Father—one we know who desires only our good.

Jesus and Abraham (52-56)

But back to the dispute between Jesus and his detractors. It was time for them to launch another volley. “Are you greater than our father Abraham?” they ask. Their challenge was an accusation that Jesus either suffered from a delusional sense of grandeur or that he was deliberately lying. And I cannot imagine that they were ready for his reply: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.”

What was Jesus talking about when he made this claim? There are at least three possible answers. And for each of them we need to go all the way back to the Book of Genesis. The first comes in chapter 12. Abraham was still living in the city of Ur at the time, in what is now modern-day Iraq. It was there that the Lord met with him and told him to go to a land that he would reveal to him. “I will make of you a great nation … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).

Now the first half of that promise had long been fulfilled. The nation of Israel had existed in one form or another for more than a thousand years. But it was in Jesus that the second half of that promise would become a reality, that not just a single nation, but all the families of the earth would be blessed—and you and I this morning are the fruit of that. And there are peoples we have never heard of in in every corner of the world who are still finding that blessing that God promised to Abraham and that comes to us through Jesus.

The second incident that Jesus may have been referring to comes in Genesis 17. By this time Abraham had reached the ripe old age of ninety-nine and his wife Sarai was not far behind him. They had long given up on any hope of having a child. Yet God promised once again that he would give them a son. These were his words in reference to Sarah: “I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” (Genesis 17:16). Abraham’s response was to fall facedown with laughter. And I can only imagine that tears of wonderment and joy must have streamed down into his beard, as he contemplated the God of wonders who is always faithful to his promises. And once again that promise found its fulfilment in Jesus.

The third incident comes in the chapter that follows, in the dramatic account of the near sacrifice of the son whom Sarah had borne. God comes to him once again and commands him, “Abraham! Take your son, your only son Isaac whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you”. I’m sure we’re all familiar with how the story proceeds. At the last minute, with his knife raised, Abraham hears a voice telling him to stop. As he looks up he glimpses a ram caught in a thicket and he knows that the Lord has provided a sacrifice. And Abraham called the place where it all happened, “The Lord will provide.” (Genesis 22:1-14)

More than a thousand years later another sacrifice would take place on that same mountain and it would be another Lamb of God’s providing, another substitute, who with outstretched arms would offer life, and salvation for all people. “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

Jesus the I AM (57-59)

Now you might think that this would have stopped the Pharisees. But they were determined to win the debate. “You are not yet fifty years old,” they retorted, “and have you seen Abraham?” To which Jesus replied with what has to be one of the most astounding claims in all of Scripture: “Before Abraham was, I am.”

Now I suspect that most of you are familiar with what are called the seven “I am” sayings of Jesus that are all found in John’s gospel:

•  “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

•  “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

•  “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved.” (John 10:9)

•  “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I know my own and my own know me…” (John 10:11,14)

•  “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though they die, yet shall they live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26)

•  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

•  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Each one is in itself a remarkable statement. And we have encountered a couple of them already as we have been making our way through the Gospel of John. But in this morning’s reading we come across an eighth: “Before Abraham was, I am.”

To my mind this is the most astounding of Jesus’ claims in all the gospel. Notice that Jesus does not say, “Before Abraham was, I was,” but, “Before Abraham was, I am.” To understand this fully we need to go back to the Old Testament again, this time to the story of Moses in Exodus 3. Moses was tending his father-in-law’s sheep far out in the wilderness when he spotted a bush in flames (something that should send chills down our spines in Nova Scotia right now!). But when he looked, he could see that although the bush was on fire, it was not being consumed. Then, as he got closer, he could hear a voice calling to him out of the flames: “Moses, Moses…”

We don’t have time to go through the whole story right now, but the upshot was that Moses was hearing none other than the voice of God. This was the almighty creator of heaven and earth, calling him to lead his people out of their centuries-long slavery in Egypt. When Moses asked how he was to explain this to them, he was told, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ … This is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (Exodus 3:15).

The Pharisees caught the allusion in a snap. No more clever comebacks now! The time for civilized debate was over. And they began to pick up rocks to stone Jesus to death.

But there is another reaction they could have had. It is the reaction of Thomas seeing Jesus after his resurrection and exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” And it will be the chorus of thousands upon ten thousands who will gather around his throne and cry aloud,

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honour and glory and blessing! (Revelation 5:12)

And by God’s grace you and I will be among them.

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[1]     Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, John, vol 2, 122

“They Wanted to See” (Luke 18:35 – 19:10)

During my years in active pastoral ministry a large proportion of my reading was taken up with biblical, pastoral and theological works. So, one of the goals that I set for myself in retirement was to read more fiction. I have to admit that thus far I haven’t managed to live up to that resolution in quite the way I’d hoped. But it has been a delight to be introduced to characters from a whole variety of places and periods and to share (if only for a brief period of time) in their worlds and their experiences.

One of those characters was a young French teenager named Marie-Laure Leblanc. Her story takes place in German-occupied France during the Second World War. Her world is one of darkness, not only because of the Nazi invasion and the horrors of war, but because Marie-Laure is blind. As I lived with Marie-Laure and shared in her adventures and in her world of sightlessness, I didn’t want the story to end. For me it was one of those books you wish would go on forever.[1]

In the real world, though, blindness is an affliction I hope that none of us would wish on anyone. On the other hand, I have been privileged to know a few people who were blind over the course of my ministry. And I have to say that in every case they were able to meet their circumstances with a remarkable perseverance and a determination to live life to the fullest, in spite of their loss of sight.

Sadly, such was not the case in the world that Jesus and his followers inhabited and where blindness was much more common than it is today. It could be a condition of birth, as we see in the man whom Jesus sent to wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam (John 9:1-7). It could also be the result of a variety of diseases, even something as easily treatable as pinkeye. And then there was the blindness of old age, usually due to cataracts and aggravated by repeated exposure to sand and the fierce glare of the Middle Eastern sun.

To make matters worse, no effective treatment was available to those who suffered from diseases of the eye. There were no antibiotics and no safe or effective surgical procedures. In my research for this morning’s sermon, I did come across a form of surgery for cataracts that was known in the ancient world, called couching. (If you’re at all squeamish, you may want to block your ears for a moment.) Couching involved using a sharp thorn or a needle to pierce the surface of the eye and force the lens downwards until the patient could begin to see shapes or movement. Needless to say, in the vast majority of these procedures the patient ended up totally blind.

It would not be for more than a thousand years after the time of Jesus, in 1268, that eyeglasses first came into use. Another five hundred years would elapse before the founding of the first school for the blind, in 1791. It would be nearly forty years more until Louis Braille invented his system of raised dots so that blind people could read, in 1829, followed four years later by the publication of the Gospel of Mark in raised print—the first time blind people could read the Scriptures for themselves. Another century would pass before the founding of the first seeing-eye dog school. And it was in the late 1960s—within the lifetime of many of us here this morning—that modern laser eye surgery became a possibility.

In spite of all these improvements, blindness remains a daunting affliction. But try to imagine what it must have been like in biblical times!

Bartimaeus

Which brings us to the gates of Jericho, as Jesus and his followers are making their way into the town. By now Jesus’ fame has become widespread and they are surrounded by a large crowd. The commotion is such that you might hardly notice a crouched figure sitting at the side of the road. Luke doesn’t even give us his name—and I suspect that no one in the crowd knew it either. But in Mark’s gospel we find that it is Bartimaeus.

The sound of the crowd piques Bartimaeus’ curiosity, so he tugs at someone’s robe and asks what’s going on. “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by,” comes the reply. So Bartimaeus begins to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Someone in the crowd yells at him to shut up, but that only encourages him to cry out all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Then Jesus stops. A silence descends over the crowd, as Jesus asks for the man to be brought to him. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asks. “Sir, I want to see,” comes the reply. “Receive your sight,” Jesus says to him. “Your faith has healed you.” Bartimaeus opens his eyes and there before him he sees the faces of the crowd, staring in amazement. He sees the azure blue of the sky and, flitting back and forth, the birds, whose twitters he could only hear before.

What Bartimaeus and the crowd were experiencing in that moment was a fulfilment of a prophecy spoken by Isaiah centuries before:

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
     and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
     and the mute tongue shout for joy. (Isaiah 35:5-6)

Jesus himself had spoken about it when he read from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue at the beginning of his public ministry: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind…” (Luke 4:18-19). Bartimaeus’ healing was not an isolated incident. It was a sign that the messianic age was dawning. A new era was erupting into the old.

The apostle Paul endured poor vision for much of his ministry. Perhaps he was placing his own experience failing eyesight of into that context when he reflected to his fellow believers in Corinth, “Now we see things imperfectly, as in a poor mirror, but then we shall see face to face.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

“Dear friends,” wrote the aged apostle John a generation later, “now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)

What happened to Bartimaeus outside Jericho is what will one day happen to you and to me and all of God’s people as we gather with that great crowd from every race, language and nation to stand before the throne of the Lamb and see him face to face. We will be freed of all our infirmities. We will be healed from all our diseases. We will no longer be crippled by the wounds that have been inflicted on us and that we have inflicted on ourselves. We will finally be the people that God intended us to be from the beginning of time, when he declared, “Let us make human beings in our image.” This is the future for which all creation waits with eager longing, what the Bible calls the glorious liberty of the children of God (Romans 8:21)—and it was what was breaking into the present as Bartimaeus stared around and the crowd back at him in stunned amazement.

Zacchaeus

It is an astounding promise. And we could contemplate it for hours. But as Jesus pushed on, so must we. As we do, we find ourselves entering the gates of Jericho. And here we come upon one of the most curious scenes in all of the gospels. Luke points our eyes upwards, into the branches of a sycamore-fig tree.

These trees were common in the Middle East. They were leafy evergreens, growing to a height of as much as twenty metres, with wide-spreading branches, and they produced a small, sweet-tasting fruit several times a year. If you wanted a tree to hide in, they were the perfect choice—and that was exactly what one person in Jericho was looking for.

I suspect that Zacchaeus’ horizontal challenge was the butt of humour in his own day—and it has been ever since. Perhaps there are some of you here who grew up with the old Sunday school ditty, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he…” But things were made much worse by the fact that Zacchaeus was a tax collector. And here we need to stop for some historical background.

I don’t think there are many of us today who enjoy paying taxes—particularly at this time of year as we go through the laborious process of assembling T3s and T4s and T4As and charitable receipts and medical receipts and whatever else to send off to Revenue Canada. But the Roman Empire had an entirely different system, and here is how it worked. Local contracts for tax collection in the Roman world were auctioned off to the highest bidder. But the government did not pay them for their work. Instead, the tax collectors charged the taxpayers an additional levy for their services. And in many cases the fees they exacted were extortionate—to the point where at least one wag called them “birds of prey”.[2]

To add to that, in Judea tax collectors were generally regarded as traitors, collaborators with the Roman occupation. Even more, because they had to have regular dealings with the Gentile Romans, they were viewed as unclean, so that in later years it was even forbidden to accept alms from a tax collector. And if all that weren’t enough, Zacchaeus was no ordinary tax collector. Luke tells us he was a chief tax collector.

Yet, all the same, Zacchaeus held something in common with Bartimaeus. For like Bartimaeus, he wanted to see. But in his case it was a problem not of sight but of height. So it was that Zacchaeus bundled together his robes and clambered up the tree. Its leafy branches would have allowed him both to catch a glimpse of Jesus and also to remain hidden from the crowd. And as they say, the rest is history.

Zacchaeus finds himself taking Jesus into his home—and here I have to say I’d love to have been a fly on the wall to hear the conversation that ensued between them. All Luke reveals to us is the conclusion. Yet, whatever the words they exchanged, it seems to me that what happened to Zacchaeus was that he began to see. Not in the way that Bartimaeus had begun to see, but in the way that Jesus wants us all to see.

What do I mean? The explanation comes in what to my mind has to be the most arresting parable that Jesus ever told. It is found not in Luke’s gospel but in Matthew’s. There Jesus gives a picture of the Son of Man seated on his throne with all the nations of the earth gathered before him. And he separates them as a shepherd separates sheep from goats, the sheep on his right and the goats to the left. Then he says to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.”

The sheep are puzzled and they ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison and go to visit you?” To which the King replies, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:31-40)

Did you notice what the sheep asked? “Lord, when did we see you … ?” I believe that what happened to Zacchaeus was that he began to see in that sense: to see the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked and the sick—and to see those he had cheated for years, perhaps decades—as he saw Jesus.

And therein lies the challenge for you and for me. May Jesus give us sight—eyes to see as he sees and to discover, in the words of C.S. Lewis, “There are no ordinary people.”[3]

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[1]     Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

[2]     “Publicans”, Oxford Companion to the Bible

[3]     “The Weight of Glory”