John 9:4

We must work the works of the one who sent me as long as it’s still daytime. The night is coming, and nobody can work then!

In the fourth chapter of The Rule of Saint Benedict there is this instruction:

To have death present before one’s eyes every day.

It is important to consciously remember that our time here as we know it is limited.

Even Jesus says here that we need to make the most of our time while we have it, because our days are numbered, and we will one day need to give an account for what we did with the time we were given here on “old earth.”

Along these lines, another helpful motivator for me is to put sleep into the context of years. It was somewhat startling to me when one day I realized that I have slept for approximately fifteen years! Since December of 1972, I’ve only been awake for thirty years of it! Weird.

So I want to invest my time, not waste it, for we don’t have as much of it as we might think. As my friend Sam regularly reminds himself: “What’s the point of my entire life?”

It can be healthy to think daily that you will one day die, to bring it closer to home so that your thoughts can be focused toward what is most important on a more consistent basis.

For me personally, when I think of dying, for reals, I don’t immediately think, “I’m so glad I collected every Star Wars action figure made between 1977 and 1985!” As fun as that was. I think, “Have I dedicated what God has gifted me with to Him and the expansion of His kingdom? Have I been present and attentive to my wife and daughters? Have I loved other people? Have I loved God all my days with all my heart?”

How are you investing your time?

John 8:43

“Why do you not understand my speech? Because you are unable to hear my word.”

How we think things should go can literally deafen us to God’s voice, and blind us to God’s work.

It is amazing how shut off we can become due to the preconceived notions and long-held traditions that we are unwilling to release for just a few seconds, even when God Himself is asking us to drop them so that He can do a work in our midst.

We stop being open and receptive, and miss out on who knows how much!

With our haughty 20/20 hindsight we berate those stupid Pharisees, yet how many times have we done the exact same thing? We miss God and even inhibit His work because something doesn’t coincide with the way we’ve been taught, or with the method we always thought worked, or maybe because the rules aren’t our rules (our own interpretation of God’s rules).

Always be open and looking for how God may be at work around you. Look beyond your own set boundaries so as not to miss Jesus’ kingdom that may look quite different, radically different, than how you were always taught, or how you think it should look.

This is what those religious leaders in Jesus’ day did—they missed God Himself, His kingdom on earth, because it wasn’t the way they were taught or thought. They looked for God more at the level of intellect, and not spirit, so that they couldn’t even hear Jesus’ message. They couldn’t hear the Word behind the words. Humans were dictating how God should operate.

And we do it too.

What blinders or ear plugs do you wear that block your awareness of God at work?

We of course don’t mean to be open to what we know is sin, what is against God. We don’t want to give anything close to that impression.

John 7:37-38

Now on the feast’s final day–its great day–Jesus stood up and called out loudly, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and let him drink.

Whoever has faith in me, just as Scripture has said, ‘Out of his inner parts streams of living water will flow.'”

When people believe, they become servants of God, and God uses them to be the means of bringing blessing to others.

The person who is touched by Jesus in the innermost recesses of their heart will from thence send forth saving powers in abundant measure.

You simply won’t be able to stop it.

It will just flow out of you.

John 6:53-58

“Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I remain in them.”

Here’s that “hard saying” of Jesus at which many of his disciples drew back from, no longer to follow him.

What is going on here?

At minimum, this is John’s graphic way of showing us the paramount vitalness of taking Jesus, the Bread of Life, into our innermost being–of ingesting him into our lives.

The majority church over the centuries has taken this to refer to Jesus speaking of the Lord’s Supper aka Eucharist aka Communion. This is a sacred reminder through our physicality of the very Gospel Life-giving message–that Jesus Christ gave his body to be broken, his blood to be shed…for you. For me. For us all. It is a weekly (hopefully) physical practice that enters (hopefully) into our hearts, our lives, our being.

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate from the Catholic Church over the past seven years, since regularly visiting Saint Meinrad Archabbey, is the physicality of spirituality. It took me a while, but now I “go through the motions” in utmost sincerity by bowing to the altar of Christ when I enter the abbey, reminding me of who alone I bow to. I cross myself at the beginning of the prayer time, reminding myself of the reality of the Trinity and its being the center of the universe. I have instituted my own physical movements as habits of reminding myself of what is most vital, I always bow to a set of crosses upon entering our prayer room at home, again, to remind me physically, tangibly through my body, to communicate to my heart, that Jesus is my Lord.

This has been very good for me, and did not start it out of meaningless ritual, but only when I was ready to give it an attempt from sincerity and a humble heart before my King. As my friend Kristin once said: “If it doesn’t throw you into the arms of Jesus, then throw it out!” (Except for the Lord’s Supper–don’t ever throw that out)

I love that Jesus on earth was not only spiritual or ethereal, but earthy, affirming of our having bodies, and that we connect to God and one another through the good, God-approved of bodies he gave to us.

John 5:6-8 New International Version (NIV)

⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

Jesus asks, “Do you want to get well?” The question would seem so silly if asked by anyone else. Of course, the man wants to get well! Who wouldn’t? Yet Jesus asked…

At this time, my heart cries out, “YES!” I want to be well, not so much in body but in heart, mind and spirit. I want the peace that passes all understanding and joy without ceasing. “Yes, Lord, yes!”

“Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” Too often I have heard this message: Go do! Serve! Run!

But today my heart response. Get up and walk. Get up and takes Jesus’ hand and walk with Him.

I can easily get distracted with the doing and serving and running. But what my soul really needs is Jesus. For me this means I get up and walk towards Him. Often this comes through the quiet. Just me and Jesus.

Eventually I’m called to do, serve, run. But first I need to know it is well with my soul.

What do you do to get up and walk towards wellness?

At this time in my life, I am walking in stillness and quiet. I have found rest in viewing nature, singing my worship, meditating on scripture and talking and listening to my friend Jesus. This is healing my heart, mind and soul.

John 4:23-24

But the time is coming–indeed, it’s here already!–when true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and truth. Yes: that’s the kind of worshippers the father is looking for.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

“In spirit and truth” refers to the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ.

Real worship can only happen through God’s life-giving activity. It is not actually through any of the activity on our part, but rather in the realm of spirit, for that’s what God is–spirit. For worship, for connection with God, there must be God-granted energy. Our part, you might say, is believing receptivity.

You cannot truly worship God without his life-giving breath–his spirit. You need something beyond mere human activity.

You also need to worship God as God, in actuality, is. How can we know that? Through his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the great revealer of God, showing us who he is, and what he is really like.

The Father is looking for people to worship him and connect with him in this way, through accepting his life-giving spirit, and as he is in himself as revealed by Jesus.

So I guess we could say that God is NOT looking for people going through the motions, putting on a show, or operating out of their own power and reason alone. You need Life beyond yourself.

How do you worship?

How do you connect with God?

However you do, there must be an attuning to God via his spirit for it to even be possible.

For me, the main, tried and true way is sitting in silence, listening–believing receptivity. From there, I’m typically directed to a Scripture, a book, an activity, etc. But it starts with that openness to whatever the Spirit might prompt.

For you it may be worship music, a walk outside, spiritual conversation…but it must be in the realm of Spirit, and Jesus.

John 3:28-30

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”

These are the last words of John the Baptist recorded in the Gospel of John.

His God-given task was to prepare the way for the Lord. So when the Lord arrived, he faded into the background. Jealousy over fewer people in his group, and more following the actual Lord who had arrived was unthinkable.

Is it the same for us?

Religious institutions sometimes pursue financial interests or social agendas when all they are designed to do is facilitate our relationship with God and set us loose in the world to change it. ~Gary Burge

John 2:23-25

While he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, several people came to trust in his name, because they had seen the signs he did.

But Jesus didn’t entrust himself to them. He knew everything, and had no need for anyone to give him information about people. He himself knew what was inside people.

Some of these people really believed in Jesus. But he knew how people are, how fickle we are, how undependable we are, and he could not, at the end of the day, put his trust in people. He was not dependent upon human approval, or the passing enthusiasms of people. He could only ultimately place his trust  in his Father.

It’s somewhat jarring to think about the fact that in Jesus’ parable of the sower, three of the four hearers actually received the Word, yet two of them didn’t last. It seems that even real believers are not entirely dependable to Jesus.

This is harsh, I know.

“It is good for all believers to know…that even we believers need to be open to the grace of continuing believing and to learn from Jesus’ full teaching what it means to be and to remain trustworthy believers.” Says Frederick Bruner in his commentary on these verses.

Many people truly do believe due to witnessing the miraculous–circumstances and experiences that they can only (and do) attribute to God. Yet, this can fade. Scripture would not repeatedly admonish us to persevere, stay awake, and abide if it was impossible not do so.

Yes, there is eternal security for believers, but there is also temporal responsibility, as well as the freedom to walk away. This is all taught in Scripture.

This may be something to wrestle with.

Jesus looks for genuine conversion, not enthusiasm for the spectacular.

John 1:45-51

“Are you telling me that something good can come out of Nazareth?”

“Come and see.”

“Rabbi, you’re the son of God! You’re the king of Israel!”

I’ve always loved this exchange, especially the mysterious verses 47-49: Jesus sees Nathaniel coming toward him, and says, “Here he comes. Look at him! He’s a real Israelite. Genuine through and through.” Or as the older translations put it, “in whom is no guile.” (There is a wordplay here that is a clear reference to Jacob from the OT, in whom there was much guile.)

“How did you get to know me?” asked Nathaniel.

He and Jesus never met before.

“Oh,” Jesus replied, “I saw you under the fig tree, before Philip spoke to you.”

“Rabbi,” replied Nathaniel, “you’re the son of God! You’re the king of Israel!”

Why the strong reaction from Nathaniel? Just because Jesus saw him under a fig tree?

Well, much of the time in antiquity, fig trees were used as places for prayer, meditation, and study due to the glorious shade they provided. This is much more than, “Hey, the other day I was walking by and saw you sitting under that tree.” That would not have elicited the strong reaction, conversion, that it did.

What John the author is showing here is that way back, when Nathaniel was all alone in a certain spot, possibly in deep prayer, Jesus knew of it, and knew Nathaniel inside and out even then. The main point is that Nathaniel knew exactly what Jesus was referencing, and that Jesus has knowledge that is preternatural (beyond what is natural or human).

He knows Nathaniel, before Nathaniel knows him.

This is what Nathaniel experienced. Being supernaturally known.

That can convert anyone into becoming a true believer.

How awesome is Philip’s approach to Nathaniel, much like the woman at the well, to come and see Jesus!

How do you invite people to come and see Jesus?

Bonus material from The IVP Bible Background Commentary on verse 50-51:

The opening of the heavens indicated a major revelation (e.g. Ezekiel 1:1). Jesus’ words allude to Genesis 28:12: Jesus is the new way between heaven and earth (Jacob’s ladder) on whom angels ascend and descend; like Jacob of old, this “genuine Israelite” Nathaniel would receive this new revelation.

So the other day I was counting up how many chapters there are in the entire New Testament out of a certain curiosity, and was excited to find the total to be 260–a number evenly divisible by 52! It comes out to five–how perfect is that?? One chapter a day, Monday through Friday, and you’ve gone through the New testament Canon in a year.

I’ve been desiring a rhythmic reading which covers more ground yet allows enough space for meaningful reflection, and I believe this is the one for me. Therefore, I thought it’d be fun, and hopefully encouraging, to share a short reflection on each chapter of the NT, as well as have a nice schedule for guest writers to riff from.

According to my calculations, had we started this at the beginning of the year, tomorrow would be the day for John 1. Perfect again!! My favorite book in all of Holy Scripture, and just in time for the first chapter. So if you’re up for it, let’s do this.

See you tomorrow!