Christ's Ministry Continued
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Welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything along the way. I’m Emily Maxson here with Greg Uttinger and Rachel Voytek.
We’re talking through the ministry of Christ, considering that he is the center of history and this is a history podcast. We’re in the middle of his ministry at this point. I think we’re starting with the bread of life sermon in John 6?
We’re starting out with Jesus feeding the 5,000, which will lead into the bread of life sermon.
We can turn to any of the gospels because this is the one miracle they all record, but they don’t all record the sermon that follows so we’re picking John for that and for a couple other reasons that will come out.
Also we should note that since we’re doing history, this is going to be happening around the time of the Passover and around the end of the second year of his ministry. He’s been ministering publicly in Galilee for about 18 months and this is going to end that phase in that second year, so we’re about to enter the third and last year of his ministry as we make this transition.
After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. [so we’re in March/April]
When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.
One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?
We don’t know who the little boy was. We do know that Andrew is constantly bringing people to Jesus, even when he doesn’t really know what’s going to happen next. Probably the boy heard, “Oh, they need to feed people,” and the boy said, “Here’s my lunch!” These are small loaves. Barley is generally the food of poorer people, and the fish are probably about the size of maybe big sardines, if that, so he doesn’t have much but he’s willing to give whatever he has to Jesus. So Jesus tells his disciples to have the crowds sit down and they count them.
There are 5,000 men, which means there were also women and children, so this was a very large crowd. Jesus blesses the little boy’s lunch and begins to break it into pieces. The apostles pass it out, and at the end he tells them to gather things up that nothing be lost, and they gather up 12 baskets of the fragments.
There have been all kinds of rationalistic attempts to explain this, everything from, “See, there was this cave behind Jesus, and his disciples were back there making sandwiches…”
From that to when everyone saw the little boy was willing to share his meal, they all remembered their lunches and pulled them and they shared too, so there was plenty to go around.
They were so hungry that they didn’t remember that they had lunches till that point.
This is obviously a creative miracle, something only God can do. There’s a foretaste of it in the ministry of Elisha where he feeds several hundred people on one occasion, but that’s nothing compared to what’s going on here.
As the crowd sees what’s happening, first they conclude, “This is the prophet that should come into the world,” that is the one Moses prophesied who will be like himself. They distinguish from Messiah because they still didn’t get who and what exactly Messiah was. But then they thought, “Wow, this guy would be a great king.”
I don’t know if everyone gets the connection right away, but one of the greatest problems in fielding an army is supply lines. How do you feed an army? They say an army moves on its stomach. You’ve got to get the food someplace. Normally armies rob, plunder, and steal from the countryside, but here, “Wow, we have a man who can just produce food out of nowhere. He’d be the greatest military leader ever because we could just take our army wherever, so he should be king.”
It reminds us how they’re seeing him as Moses as well, in that Moses gave them manna and now they have a new source of bread from heaven.
And they’re going to mention that here in a second. Jesus, realizing what they’re going to do, says no and sends his guys down to the ship to sail toward Capernaum because it’s getting dark. He sends the crowds away and manages to say, “No, go away. Go home. You’ve been fed, go home,” and he goes up into the mountain to pray.
One of the gospels says that at the end of his prayers he’s standing looking out over the lake and he sees the apostles out on the lake, and a storm has risen and they’re not making any kind of progress. They’re going to flounder, so he decides he’s going to walk in that general direction and he does, across the water.
As he comes – and here we’re putting together what all the gospels say – the disciples see him amongst all the flashes of lightning and such. They see a man on the water and they immediately conclude it’s a spirit, it’s a ghost. But Jesus calls out, “Do not be afraid, it is I.” And Peter calls back and says, “If it’s you, Lord, bid me come to you on the water,” and Jesus says, “Come, alright, fine, not a problem,” and Peter steps out on the water.
He does not get very far. The words are basically he begins to walk on water, he takes a step or two and then he takes his eyes off Jesus and everything goes hazy and foggy and windy and rainy and wavy, and he’s about to sink and Jesus reaches down and pulls him into the ship.
Then they willingly received him into the ship, and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.
There’s a number of miracles, and because the gospels spread them out sometimes we miss it. There’s Jesus walking on the water. There’s Peter trying to walk on the water, and could have done it had he kept his eyes on Jesus. There’s the storm that stops instantly when Jesus gets in the boat, and there’s the transplacement of the ship. Suddenly it’s not where it was, it’s elsewhere. These were kind of big deals.
The next day, the people who Jesus had been ministering to are looking around for him and they can’t find him, so they begin to take shipping along the coast figuring he’s got to be someplace. “We missed him somehow. He snuck out. Let’s go find him,” and they do eventually. Their question is, “Rabbi, how did you get here?” which is kind of puzzling, but Jesus’ response is far more interesting.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
Remember we started this with the crowds following him because of his miracles and because of his healing, and Jesus is saying, “You’re not even at that level. You’re not coming to hear me. You’re not coming to hear the word of God. You’re not coming to find your Messiah. You’re not even coming because of miracles. You’re coming because you got a free lunch. That’s dumb. Stop that.” He says –
Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?
Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
Yes, hint, hint. “They got meals for 40 years. You gave us one – not even in the same category. You want us to follow you, you’ve got to up your game here. We need some more divine McDonald’s or something.”
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
We could work our way through the sermon but I think that’s enough to show that whereas they seem willing at first, they want to be with Jesus, he’s got them in the position where they would sit down and listen to him because they know a free meal is coming. He’s serving Starbucks so why not? If you get people to come to church and sit down and listen, that’s the important thing, right?
Jesus didn’t think so. He refuses to do any more miracles like that, or to feed them or give in to their craving for instant gratification, let alone a supply line for an army. He’s just gotten as clear as he’s going to get. “You need to believe on me. This kind of faith is like eating and drinking. You’re taking who and what I am into yourself and making it a part of you so that my life is in you.”
When they don’t get it he could have backed off and said, “Alright look. Obviously, you don’t have the spirituality or maybe even the intelligence to understand what I’m doing. Let me speak to you in very simple words.” He does not do that. In fact, he gets more difficult as he goes.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
He does not make it any simpler for them. He speaks in very hard language about very deep spiritual things, and the result is “Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? We haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”
Again Jesus does not go down to their level and say, “Alright look, obviously that was over your head. I’ll bring things down and put them on the shelf where the student can get them. Let me re-explain it.” He does not do any of that. Instead he says, “Does this offend you? Does this make you stumble? What if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?” That in itself is some deep theology.
“It’s the spirit that quickens, the spirit that gives life. The flesh profits nothing. If you could eat my flesh and drink my blood that would not help you. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life, but there are some of you who believe not. Therefore I say unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father.”
There’s divine sovereignty and divine predestination. Those who God has chosen to call, to drag to Jesus, will understand, will believe, and they’ll figure the fine points as they go on, but the hard words will not stop them from coming. Those who will not come are without faith.
We’re told here in verse 66 – “From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.” So here is a shift in how the crowds treated him. We’ve got to the position where they really aren’t listening to the sermons, then this happens and now they don’t want to listen at all because he’s too harsh and there’s this sovereign thing and there’s this eating him, and we don’t get any of it and it’s not worth it, and he’s apparently not going to do any more free meals so forget it, and the crowds turn back.
Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
Peter does not say, “Oh, we got that though. That was easy. We understood that. We followed it all. We have notes. Look over here. Look at Matthew, he takes great notes.” No, it was, “The issue is not whether or not we understand. The issue is we know who you are, and there’s no place else to go. You have the words of eternal life. If we don’t get it we’ll work on it. We’re not going to abandon life eternal because right now we seem to be spiritually slow or intellectually unclear. We will follow you no matter what because of who you are.” But the crowds go away.
I’ve always found that exchange between Jesus and Peter very encouraging, especially for those who have been hurt by the church in some capacity. The answer is not to abandon the church, because there’s nowhere better to go. It’s to Jesus that we must always cling.
What we see in a small form here is a pattern that’s going to repeat a lot through church history, of people being excited to start with about some aspect of the Christian faith, but then the cares of the world or the challenges of the doctrine and the truth of scripture is not fun anymore and they fall away.
But also those that continue to grapple even when it’s really hard, and we’ll even be grappling with each other over things and disagreeing with each other, but they’re still clinging to the same scripture at the heart. So you’ll see these different authorities that people are going to cling to and that’s what Christ is getting at, because the things of the scriptures we always have to keep working at understanding.
Now we enter about a 6-month period where he turns from a broader public focus to a more individualized focus on the 12 that he has previously chosen. It’s here where we start to get some of his predictions and discussions of the fact that he’s going to die. He set it up here, “You need my body and blood,” and then he’s going to begin attempting to find private times to teach his disciples. Of course, he keeps going to private places and people keep finding them.
One of the things that’s interesting is it’s between Passover and Tabernacles, so about that 6-month period that this is going to be happening. It’s going to end with the Feast of Tabernacles where he’s going to say, “I am the living water.” That’s going to end this period.
Quite a bit of this time he’s actually going to spend among Gentiles. He’s going to take a couple journeys, potentially as a way of having more private time with the disciples/apostles. This is where we’re going to see him go to Tyre and Sidon and also the feeding of the 4,000, so we can talk through those as we would like.
When he does the feeding of the 4,000 he’s in the Decapolis, which is also a Gentile area, so as he’s teaching his disciples about the need for him to die, he’s also sort of initiating them into Gentile societies, in a way saying, “A lot of the Jews are going to reject me. You need to start looking outside of just this area and thinking about these other people that I’ve been saying all along I’m going to bring them in,” so now he starts to go out to some of those areas more purposefully.
That’s where my Bible is open at the moment. A note about the feeding of the 4,000. This is another one that liberals like to pick on because they think they find the non-historical character of the gospels. “Oh, it’s the same story. It’s just that the writers got confused as to the numbers, and they turned one story into two.”
No. As you’ve already pointed out there’s a theological difference, and it shows up even in the count – the count of the baskets that are taken up, the count of the number of people involved. With the feeding of the 5,000 there are 12 baskets. Five is a covenantal number. Twelve is the number of Israel, the patriarchs. But with the Gentiles it’s 4,000, and 4 is the number for the points of the compass, 4 corners of the earth, 4 winds and all that. And the number of baskets is 7, back to creation.
Also there’s a difference in the size apparently in the word for basket. It’s a much bigger basket. It’s like ‘fit a human in it’ kind of basket for the feeding of the 4,000, so while it’s a different number of baskets, the amount in each is much bigger.
Yes, very good. But somewhere in here – I’m in Matthew 15 – Jesus is in the areas round about the coast of Tyre and Sidon, and a woman of Canaan came.
We need to go back and remember that Tyre and Sidon were on the execution list in Joshua’s day. Israel never got that far and never dealt with them, and they were sometimes a real problem – think Jezebel. She was the daughter of the king of the two cities. But they were sometimes a blessing. Hiram of Tyre provided materials for the building of the temple and was ever a lover of David, so they were an on-again off-again kind of relationship.
If Joshua had done what he was supposed to have done, or rather if Israel had, they wouldn’t be there but they are and Jesus goes there. This is a new Joshua coming to these cities, and he doesn’t call down fire from heaven. He doesn’t say, “You’re Canaanites, you should have been destroyed. Let’s finish the job,” but what he does do is interesting.
There’s a woman who calls after him and says, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David,” which is strange because the son of David wouldn’t seem to have any immediate relationship to where she is. She might seek him on other grounds as a great prophet or healer or something, but she goes for the kingly title. Her daughter is grievously vexed with a demon, but he doesn’t answer her.
At first thought the disciples might think, “Well, of course not. She’s one of them. She’s one of those that should have been exterminated. We don’t need her,” but eventually she’s persistent and they ask the Lord, “Send her away. She’s annoying,” but Jesus turns and looks at her and says, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” We need to remember that Jesus does not make things up and he doesn’t play fast and loose with the truth, so what he says is true, but sometimes he does not say all of the truth at the same time.
So he lays this before her – “I’m sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” – and when he had commissioned the apostles he had said the same thing. “Go not to any of the places of the Gentiles but go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” so this is consistent to this point.
She comes and worships him and says, “Lord, help me,” and he’s says, ”It’s not fit or appropriate to take the children’s bread and cast it to dogs. You’re unclean. You’re a Gentile. You’re outside the pale of the covenant. I’m sent to Israel. I can’t help you,” so it would seem, and he makes her reach for it, and she does in faith.
Jesus is invoking the Hebrew style of life. Dogs were unclean. They ran in the streets. It would be like saying coyotes today, at least where we live, so the dogs were not pets. We don’t call the coyotes in and take our babies’ food and give it to them, but dogs in pagan cultures sometimes had different rules, and she thinks of that.
“True, Lord, but the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.”
If the dog is in submission to the master of the house, he’s allowed to go beneath the children’s high chairs and get a few licks and no one complains. In other words, “You are my master. You are my Lord. I will take whatever crumbs you want to give me. I know I have no claim, but if you are at least as gracious as the common householder who has dogs, I cannot see why you would not want to share something with me.”
He takes that as, “Oh, right on target there. Woman, great is thy faith. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt,” and her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
I have a note on her story that I learned when David preached through this recently. The word that they use for dogs there is a small little dog, so it actually could be translated as puppies. I think he made the title of his sermon something like “The gospel for puppies” or something like that, but it’s a more endearing term because among the Gentiles dogs were not something you cast out, but rather it was a small little creature that you would take care of. I thought that was sweet.
And that leads into the feeding of the 4,000, again in Gentile territory, and works of healing and ministry and everything we just talked about. Now Rachel, where do we go? What happens next?
Now they are going to cross back into Jewish territory and this will be when the Jews demand a sign from Jesus, one of the multiple times that they do this like later in Matthew 15 and 16. This is where he says he’s going to give them things like the sign of Jonah, which again is starting to speak more particularly about the need for him to die and rise again, as signs to them but it’s not the signs that they want.
Right. They’re looking for something spectacular. He says, “Only a wicked and adulterous generation seeks for signs like that” – those who are obsessed with the sensual, the outward, the physical, the aesthetic. They want those kinds of signs. Those who walk by faith want the word of God, so he gives them the promise, which they really don’t completely understand.
At least in the flow of Matthew’s gospel it’s at this point that Jesus calls his disciples aside and says, “Look, who are people saying that I am?” They’ve had more contact with the crowds and going to the market and whenever. “Some say you are John the Baptist that is risen from the dead.” They kind of miss the whole thing when John and Jesus were alive at the same time for some reason, and John was pointing to Jesus. People are very poor observers of news. Let’s just leave it at that. Don’t trust people on such things. “Some say Elijah come back from heaven.” Malachi had spoken of such a thing. “Others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets,” so there’s a lot of options out there.
Notice that we have not warmed up to, “Oh, more and more people are talking about you as the Messiah,” or even, “They’re not real sure about the Messiah thing, but at least they think you’re the Prophet because of the miracles and the teaching and all that, the prophet like Moses.”
They’re not going there. They’re retreating back into basically fairy tales, fantasies. “You’re some old prophet who’s come back,” which is an interesting imaginative exciting National Enquirer kind of thing but does not bring them any closer to understanding God’s ways with men or his revelation of himself in Jesus.
Jesus turns and says, “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter repeats the confession he’s already made, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” So the disciples are becoming clearer about who Jesus is. Peter is the spokesman, the first among equals, so he’s answering for the crowd and in theory everyone there is nodding, “Yeah that, what he said.” But in Matthew 16:21 we read –
From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.
Then Peter rebukes him, apparently taking this for a moment of depression. “Oh no, Lord, it’s not that bad. Yes, the crowds are confused and a lot are deserting you and you don’t have the popularity record, but it’s alright. It’s not that bad. You don’t have to go to the cross. Don’t even think that way.” But Jesus rebukes him and says, “Get behind me Satan. You don’t savor the things that belong to the kingdom of God, but things that belong to men.” Then he talks about all of his followers taking up the cross and following him.
Here is one of the first really clear mentions of “I’m going to die and I’m going to be raised again.” The funny thing is, of course, that when it happens they are so caught off-guard. There are a couple occasions where he says this, particularly the rising again. They get the dying part. “What do you think he means by rise again?” “I don’t know, that’s kind of weird.” “Could he mean…?” “I don’t know what he means.” “Should we ask him?” “No, remember what happened the last time we asked him? We’re still suffering from that one, that thing about the leaven. No, we’ll figure it out.”
I’ve had students like this. “I know I’m totally lost, but I will not raise my hand and ask. I will figure it out later because all of those smart students that were around last year, they figured it out obviously, and I’m as smart as they are so I’m…” If any of you listening recognize this as yourself…because I have a couple people in mind. But they don’t pursue. They don’t say, “Wait, what? What are you talking about?”
The people will actually ask him. “We’ve heard the Messiah abides forever. Who is the son of man that must be lifted up?” They at least asked, but the disciples just have a blind spot here. They don’t get what he’s saying and they’re afraid to ask him.
He explained the agricultural parables to them and they were like, “Oh, we should have the answer key already. It must be a parable.”
The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry.
The rising again is not a thing to be sorry about. That’s the part they didn’t get. All they got is that he’s going to die. “We’re going to Jerusalem and I’m going to die there.” Little by little it’s beginning to sink in so that when finally he says, “Time to go up there and wake Lazarus from death,” they’re afraid to go because this could be the end.
We have moved forward to where he’s working more with his disciples and he’s laying out the plan, things he had not told them before and they’re not processing. Their faith will not take them there. It’s too weak at this point. That’s not to say they don’t have faith, but they just cannot wrap their minds around what he’s saying. Their presuppositions and preconditioning from Jewish culture is just in the way and they’re stuck.
Although he is gracious to them, because the next thing we see in the timeline after that confession and rebuke of Peter is that he takes Peter and two of the others up a mountain for his transfiguration, so gives them a glimpse of the glory that’s coming. But it also does not abide yet. Instead it’s in the context of his exodus.
One of the things I was reading about for the history of it is where did some of these things happen. The scripture there says that the confession was in the region of Caesarea Philippi, and the closest mountain to that is Mount Hermon, but that has not traditionally been the mountain that people say was the mount of transfiguration. They say Mount Tabor.
However, research shows that most likely Mount Tabor had a number of settlements on it at that time, so that wouldn’t have worked well as a place for him to go and be away. So it may be that he went up Mount Hermon, which is the highest mountain in that area. It’s the one that you can see from a great distance, so it could be where it was. The scriptures don’t say, so there’s only so much we can guess, but it is right adjacent so there is a direct flow between those initial events of their confession of faith, his rebuke of Peter, and then leading into the transfiguration where we see a little glimpse here on earth.
But of course in some ways what’s most important about that is the ending of it, where the Father says, “Listen to him. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him,” because that’s really what they need. They don’t need to see all the glory. They need to listen to what he’s saying as they’re about to do into those final days, and he’s preparing and preparing and pouring into them all the things that they will need.
My memory is not matching the text and I was trying to find Mark’s account. When they come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, if memory serves me correctly, and it may not, he tells them in Mark 9:9 –
And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead. And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean.
It’s like “We see this glory. How can he possibly have death in there somewhere?”
“And what would rising from the dead mean, in this case?” He gives them encouragement to show them who he really is and that he’s in control and that God has not dropped the ball here, and they’re still confused, which we will be until the Holy Spirit grants us faith to believe the promises of God. It’s not a matter of intelligence. I think we give the disciples a hard time for being stupid, and it’s not that they’re stupid.
Once they start preaching after the Spirit comes they’re very, very intelligent people. But at this point, without faith to believe the promise of God, a lot of things that should make sense simply don’t. It’s not a matter of intelligence or rational analysis. It’s a question of can you believe what God has said? Is your heart open to take you in a direction you’d never conceived of and that your religious pre-commitments really aren’t ready for, or will you simply believe it because it’s the word of God?
At this point we’re somewhere late in Matthew and fairly late in John, and what happens next, Rachel?
We make our transition point to the final phase of Jesus’ ministry before his passion week. The last six months of his ministry he shifts from being up in Galilee and those areas, down to Judea and to the area called Perea that is beyond Jordan, so he’s going back and forth between those but he’s further south.
He makes multiple trips to Jerusalem, which is interesting since there’s this building tension of what’s going to happen in Jerusalem that he does go a couple of times for some of the feasts. He goes for Tabernacles and then he also goes back to celebrate Hannukah, which is something we can stop and talk about here.
First at Tabernacles, when they’re pouring the water on the final day of the feast he will say, “If anyone is thirsty let him come to me,” speaking of himself as that eternal water that he already talked about way back in the beginning with the Samaritan woman, that water that springs up forever.
He also calls people to himself as the light, the light of the world, so in multiple ways he’s drawing out the meaning of that festival, which is one we almost never see in the scriptures. We hear that they basically didn’t celebrate it all until I think the Restoration.
Yes. From the days of Joshua forward they did not celebrate it the way it was supposed to be celebrated, but when we get to the Restoration not only do we find it in Ezra and Nehemiah, we find it in the prophecies of Zechariah.
The mark of Christ’s kingdom will be that all nations will come and keep the Feast of Tabernacles, because Tabernacles is the feast of the final ingathering. Pentecost pointed forward to the ingathering of Israel, and of course on the Day of Pentecost in the book of Acts the church begins and it consists of Israelites. Tabernacles looks forward to the gathering of the Gentiles and ultimately to the final harvest and the resurrection. Jesus highlights this here.
The water and the light are interesting because they were not part of the original ceremony. The Jews added it and Jesus honors it, which is interesting. They lit a large candelabra or menorah in the courtyard, so Jesus points to this and says, “I am the light of the world.” They got water from the well in Gihon and poured it out as a drink offering in the temple court, and Jesus says, “I will give you living water, and the water will be springing up in you,” so these things were in place but the confrontation continues.
Here we have the incident of the woman who’s taken in adultery and then the blind man. They really don’t like that because Jesus heals on the Sabbath yet again. The others had been done out in the lesser-known cities and Jesus had gotten flack when he had done this, but now he’s in Jerusalem and he’s now beginning to push for escalation.
He didn’t have to heal right then on the Sabbath. He could have waited, but the point is that the Sabbath is a day for healing and restoration and making peace and showing mercy and giving sight even, so he does. The spiritual leaders first excommunicate the blind man because he insists that Jesus actually did the miracle, and then they oppose Christ. Christ begins to light into them for being false shepherds and not caring for the sheep, and we get the Good Sheperd sermon.
I think the only thing is his journey for Hannukah. That’s where we have a city of Samaria rejecting him, and we also have him healing a man on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. We see those two things and then him coming to actually celebrate Hannukah.
We get some more of his teaching in John 10 where he’s being more specific of things like, “I and the Father are one,” and the Jewish leaders wanting to stone him. So there’s one more attempt in Jerusalem for them to try to kill him before, but of course they are not able because it is not his time.
So he goes back across the Jordan and that is where he’ll be when Lazarus dies, so that he then has to travel back a distance to come to Lazarus.
The raising of Lazarus is the high point of miracles because Lazarus is head. His sisters Mary and Martha know that Lazarus is ill and that this could be very bad, and they send word to Jesus. “Him whom you love is sick.” Come please is the implication, but Jesus doesn’t. He deliberately puts it off, and after enough time has passed for Lazarus to die he tells his disciples, “We need to go awaken him.”
“No, he’s dead and I need to go wake him out of that. And I’m glad that I wasn’t there because you need to see what’s going on here, that you may believe.”
Thomas says something that we always forget. He says, “Let us also go that we may die with him.” This is Doubting Thomas. Well, there’s still some unbelief here. “We’re going to go and die with him.” But at least it’s a courageous unbelief. He wants to be with Jesus when Jesus goes down.
That’s a good sense of how the disciples see this. The climate in Jerusalem is extremely hostile. “They tried to kill you last time. They will try again, so if you’re going to do it I’m going with you, but none of us should expect to come back from this,” and so they go.
Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived in a little town called Bethany which is on the back side of the Mount of Olives, just half a day’s journey from Jerusalem. Jesus comes, and there are still friends visiting and crowds milling around mourning Lazarus and trying to comfort the sisters. Word gets to Martha that Jesus has come and she runs out to him and says, “Lord, if thou had been here my brother hadst not died.” It’s sort of an accusation, and Mary will say exactly the same words, so they’ve been talking about this a good deal and are in agreement that Jesus could have stopped this and they don’t know why he didn’t. It seems like he should have but he didn’t. That doesn’t mean they don’t believe, but this is hard.
She says, “But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.” And Jesus says somewhat vaguely, “Thy brother shall rise again.” Not wanting to get her hopes up she says, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” And Jesus says,
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.
He leaves her with that and then she goes back and tells Mary, “The Master is here. He wants to see you,” so she runs out. The guests think, “Oh, she’s going to mourn,” so they follow. She comes to Jesus and falls at his feet and says the same thing. “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.”
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled.
The Greek has the idea that he snorted with anger, not at her but at death and sin and what it had done to his world. This is an amazing thing, that the God who is punishing sin with his righteous judgment can nonetheless weep at the punishment and weep for the people who have been hurt by this.
He says, “Where have you laid him?” and they come and see. Of course, then we get the shortest and one of the most difficult and poignant verses in scripture, “Jesus wept.”
Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave.
He is upset. He is angry. He knows he’s going to raise Lazarus from the dead, but he sees in this the whole picture of human suffering under the weight of sin and guilt, and knows his mission is to turn this around but he’s not there yet. In the meantime, people are hurting.
He demands that the stone be moved away. Martha says, “It’s been four days.” In other words, degeneration has set in. The body is in decay. In a sense this is a greater miracle than his resurrection because his body did not decay. He came back before then, but this is beyond hope and yet he says, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” He prays to the Father and then calls Lazarus out of the tomb, and Lazarus comes forth in his grave clothes and Jesus says, “Get him out of those.”
There are a lot of people there and they take word to the chief priest and the Pharisees. Maybe some of them meant well, but probably some of them didn’t, so they’re arguing.
If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
John says this was prophecy that God granted him because he was the high priest, that Jesus should die for that nation, “and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.”
Now the conspiracy begins in earnest. They’re going to kill Jesus, and just to make it safe they’re going to kill Lazarus too because too many people are going to see Lazarus and see he’s alive and they say, “Wow, resurrection! We believe that Jesus is the Son of God.” They don’t like that. They never get around to it apparently, but they are seriously thinking about killing Lazarus. “How many times can I kill you, boy?”
So here we are. We’ve crossed the line. They start looking for opportunity, and it is shortly after this that Judas, having his feelings hurt over suggesting that certain spices be sold and the money given to the poor – that is, where he can steal them – goes to the Sanhedrin and says, “What will you give me to betray him?”
This is where Jesus goes for a short period of time to a town called Ephraim. There’s that big question – is he actually going to go back? Is he going to go to Jerusalem for Passover like he’s supposed to or…what?
I’m going to jump in and steal this one and say I recommend something really strange, reading your Bible every day – two chapters a day, a bit more when you come to the short Psalms, and you can get through the Bible in a year. I know there are all kinds of reading plans, some good, some bad, but in general pick one. How about straight through? Or you can find a chronological plan but read the text.
All of God’s people need to be in the place that when their teacher, their pastor, or their friend says, “Remember the time when Jesus said such and such?” you say, “Yeah, and then he said this,” not “Huh? He really said that?” We all need to be more familiar with the text of scripture.
Yes, and we need to go to him and we need to hear them. We need to come to the Bible not as a spiritual discipline or a burdensome exercise but as hearing the words of our Savior as he speaks in the power of the Spirit. We need to have our hearts open and we need to read to remember, not just read to get through my allotted count for today.
If you don’t want to get through in a year, the Bible does not say you have to get through in a year. You can, but pick something that you will get through and that you can do regularly and that you have time for – first thing in the morning, last thing at night, on your lunch break, whatever. Don’t try to copy somebody else. Find what works for you and then commit to it and do it faithfully.
I can throw out a couple of tips because I have really struggled with this. I used to do the classic “this is how you form a habit” strategy of checking off every day when you do it, and then you feel really bad when you don’t do it. Don’t do that. It’s not helping anybody.
I switched up how I was approaching the problem this year and have been both enjoying it a lot more and not getting as discouraged. Instead of tracking every chapter in the Bible like I used to – I made this whole chart of here’s all the chapters, and every chapter I read I get to mark off – that was not fun either.
There’s a finite number of pages in the Bible, and I took my notebook and I made a rectangle, and each little square inside the rectangle represented five pages, and five pages go pretty fast, especially in the Old Testament. Like you said, it’s like three chapters tops, maybe two chapters. So now it doesn’t matter when I read the stuff, if I fall behind and have to catch up or whatever. The pages are still getting read so I still get to mark them off.
I also get an email every day from BibleGateway.com that has the email because I realized, “You know what? It’s not that I don’t have time to read,” because I know I read my news roundup email every day. For a while I was reading Dracula Daily in my email every day, so apparently I could read every day if I had an email reminder, and that was a big help too. They have a few different ways to set up the email that they send. Mine is some from the Old Testament and some from the New Testament every day.
Those are things that have helped me. Guilting yourself into it is not a good approach. I don’t recommend that one.
I just get out of bed and pick up my Bible and read for two chapters. I learned it from my wife. Before I got married I used to do it in the evenings pretty faithfully, and then would go out for a walk and prayed. When I got married I lost the habit. I lost that predictability.
Habits change when you have to share your life with somebody all the sudden.
What else I shared was that my wife was getting up every morning and doing it. I don’t like the guilt trip thing, but nonetheless I saw “She can do this. Why can’t I?” So then I started and have been consistent ever since because it’s a habit. I don’t always eat breakfast, but I do read the Bible first thing.
Is it always the most spiritual exercise? No, but at least it’s consistent and it helps me remember books that I’ve studied, passages I’ve learned or taught through. It keeps things fresh. Are there probably better things I could do? Yeah, but at least it’s a habit. It’s discipline to godliness, so find your own way. Find your own thing. Just value it enough. When you want to then things are getting good.
My recommendation is picnics. The weather has been nice here lately. We don’t really have a yard per se. We have kind of a side yard that we share with the house next door and it’s big enough for a picnic blanket. We make our dinner – not picnic food, just regular food – and we put it on our plates and take it outside and it’s been really nice.
My recommendation is to do something that you don’t think you can do. This week my tower PC needed a new network card, and my friends who normally are IT support for me live 90 miles away, so I could either have slow or non-existent internet or I could get it out myself and put it in myself. Reaching your hand into the box that is a tower PC is very intimidating to someone who has never done it – wiggling metal pieces and thinking “I hope I don’t break everything.”
Recommendation: Do something that you don’t think you can doI did successfully replace my network card. It just took quite a while and lots of trial and error. So my recommendation is to be your own IT person when you can.
If you don’t know what to do, Google it because that’s what the IT people are going to do anyway.
Cool. Thank you both so much for this conversation. It has been a delight, as always. Thank you also to David, our producer and my lawfully-wedded husband. Thank you to our financial supporters for keeping the show rolling.
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I haven’t said in a while that it is ‘toward’ and not ‘towards’ because we’re Americans. I did not know until we started this podcast that ‘towards’ was the British-ism. I don’t even remember who pointed it out to me but I was like, “Oh, yes.” I guess it could have been ‘towards zion’ but then that would be harder to enunciate for our email address. It’s [email protected].