If you think about it, Christians really don’t know what to do with lavish acts of uncomfortable devotion. Of course, we all believe in worship and we all believe in acts of devotion (whether or not we ourselves are faithful in either area). But by lavish acts of uncomfortable devotion I mean those acts of worship or service or sacrifice that violate or go beyond the unspoken boundaries and assumptions of a particular Christian community.

You know what I mean. Every church has a personality and that personality includes unspoken rules. Those rules don’t usually contradict our stated principles but they do nuance or qualify our principles. The unspoken rules are the rules that whisper to the offender (for they rarely voice themselves aloud), “We don’t do that here.” If pressed, the keepers of these rules would likely admit that they are not rules concerning sin, they are rules concerning what is acceptable behavior and what is not.

For instance, I’ve grown up and spent my life and vocation in largely white middle to upper-middle class North American congregations. The type of church I was raised in and the churches I have pastored have all had unspoken rules of etiquette. They weren’t necessarily bad. They just reflected the customs of the congregation. So, for instance, a lot of these kinds of churches are ok with the occasional “Amen!” Preachers in these churches will even ask for them. But there is also a sense of moderation, of “too much of a good thing is a bad thing.” Again, nobody says this, but, honestly, if somebody “Amened” every single statement in a church like this, people would begin to whisper.

The churches I’ve grown up in and worked in have a kind of tolerance for things like hand raising. In fact, most of us appreciate the freedom of the brother or sister next to us to raise their hands in praise and adoration. Now, in Baptist churches, as far as I can tell, hand raising is acceptable if it’s kept around 10% or less: if 10% or less of the assembled congregation raises their hands, that is ok. You get around 30% or more and people will start whispering charges of “Pentecostalism”!

I do hope you see that my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek as I say this…but only a little. The fact is, most of us believe people should worship the Lord, but we would prefer it be done within the acceptable parameters of “the rules.” This is why churches love new Christians while being simultaneously very uncomfortable with new Christians. New Christians, after all, usually only know that they really love Jesus. They come into the church with fire and devotion for the Savior who saved them. They haven’t been around long enough to learn the “do’s” and the “don’ts” of so-called “respectable” Christianity. So we nervously “Amen” the fiery devotion of new Christians while seemingly hoping that in time their acts of enthusiasm will temper and conform to the all-important “way things are” or the even-more-important “way we do things here.”

Let me give you an example. In his amazing book Crazy Love, Francis Chan tells of going on a mission trip to Africa. While there he became convicted over the poverty of that land and, in contrast, over his own great wealth. After returning home from Africa, he and his wife discussed the matter and decided that they would sell their house, buy a smaller house and give the money to the poor.

Now, this is the kind of thing we like, right? Who can argue with this? But, honestly, is it not the case that we prefer this kind of thing from a distance?

Chan discovered this was so. He says in his book that when he and his wife decided to sell their house and buy a smaller one, giving the money to the poor, the greatest opposition they faced came from within the church. It was Christians, not lost people, who told him that it was an extremist thing to do, that it was fanatical, that it was potentially unhealthy. “I quickly found,” writes Chan, “that the American church is a difficult place to fit in if you want to live out New Testament Christianity.”[1]

This is a tragic indictment of the church’s inability to handle true, lavish devotion and worship. Of course, this kind of blindness and elevation of our unspoken rules did not begin with us. It goes back to the first century. In particular with see this dynamic in the life of Mary of Bethany as she displays an amazing act of radical devotion.

Let us consider this act and the reactions to it. It will be helpful to consider it from three different perspectives: Mary’s, Judas Iscariot’s and Jesus’.

In John 11 we witnessed Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. It was a moving display of divine love and power that forever changed Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ little family. Of course, it literally changed Lazarus! So how do you say, “Thank you,” to something like that? How do you respond?

¹ Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ² So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table.

They responded by having a dinner for Jesus. It was an act of kindness, to be sure, but undoubtedly this family wished that they could do more to show how thankful they really were. Certainly Mary felt this way, as she revealed in an act of worship and devotion that grabbed the attention of all in the room that evening and that has gripped the attention of all who have read the account of this act for the last two thousand years.

³ Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

Here we see a sincere display of reckless, lavish devotion and worship. It is an act that makes no sense if we define “sense” as a safe and respectable keeping of the rules. It was reckless in the sense that it was scandalously expensive and, in some reckonings, wasteful. It was lavish. It was, we might even say, extreme.

But it was more than these things. It was an act of devotion, an act of worship. Here is where this reckless, extreme act receives its authentication: it came from the sincere overflow of a heart that was touched by holy fire. It was a shocking display of gratitude in the face of an overwhelming display of grace.

When Mary poured this pound of ointment upon the feet of Jesus, she was worshiping. But there is likely more happening here. There is likely also an element of repentance. You will recall in John 11 that the strongest censure Jesus received after His delay to come to the deathbed of sick and dying Lazarus was from Mary:

³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. ³¹ When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. ³² Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

You may recall that Martha had said much the same with the exception that she offered also a positive note of faith acknowledging that Jesus could make things right even though her brother Lazarus had died in Jesus’ absence. But not Mary. Mary – silent, stoic, reflecting – had run to Jesus with no verbalization of faith, no acknowledgment that He could make things right. Instead, she had come and let the full extent of her heartbroken confusion loose in the tear-stained cry, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Of course, she soon came to see the shortsightedness of her disappointment as she witnessed the amazing miracle of the raising of her brother Lazarus from the dead.

It takes a lot for quiet people to express themselves. It likely takes even more when their expressions misfire and are shown to be unfortunately shortsighted and ultimately unnecessary.

How did Mary feel now? Had she tried to broach the subject of her own embarrassment with Jesus? Was she hoping to find some opportunity at dinner to apologize? Or was she sitting in the shadows, on the edges of the dinner party, her eyes averted from the eyes of her Lord? Did she rise, silently, and slip from the room? Did she then return, moving into the room with hushed reverence, almost ghost-like, the container of ointment balanced in her mildly-trembling hand?

Maybe this is how it played out. Either way, Mary comes and says with her actions what she struggled to say with her own words. In anointing Jesus, she was saying, in effect, “I now see, Jesus. I now see who You really are. I now understand Your power and Your love and Your amazing grace. I worship You Jesus. I worship You with all that I am in recognition of all that You are.” So Mary worships Jesus. It is lavish and reckless and extreme…and unbelievably beautiful.

This is how worship happens. It does not have to be manipulated or manufactured. It is not contrived or plastic. Worship is nothing more than the natural behavior of a heart set free from the shackles of itself by a divine grace and love and power that staggers and stupefies. Worship is the overflow of a heart that was blind but that has now come to see the truthfulness of the gospel and that now wishes to celebrate that same gospel in outward manifestations of praise and adoration.

What Mary does is shocking. What Mary does is natural. It may seem otherwise, but to a life that has seen the glory of God unveiled in the person and work of Jesus, it is the most natural thing in the world.

This is Mary’s perspective. Mary, however, is not alone in the room. She receives a reaction from one of the party members seated around the table. His name is Judas Iscariot.

Just as Mary acted in accord with the true state of her heart, so Judas did the same.

⁴ But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, ⁵ “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”

Judas represents the earthly, self-righteous perspective on reckless, lavish acts of devotion and worship. From a certain vantage point, of course, his words make a kind of sense: “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”

Now, let us be painfully honest. There is a part of us that applauds the logic and frugality of Judas’ words, no? To be sure, the statement was factually correct. The ointment could have been sold for three hundred denarii and the moneycould have been given to the poor. In many churches, Judas’ words would not only have resulted in applause, they would also have resulted in a nomination for the Finance Committee.

As I say, this makes a kind of sense from an earthly perspective. But, then, we’ve already seen that Mary is not operating from an earthly perspective, is she? She has been caught up in the heavenlies in worship and adoration and her actions reflect a different set of values. Her actions reflect the values and the economy of the Kingdom of God. She has given all she has to the King, with no thought of the cost.

Mary is thinking of the Kingdom of God. Judas is thinking like the kingdoms of the world. But, of course, there’s more happening here too, is there not? Judas is not really being frugal. He is not really offering a mini-course in stewardship. In fact, he is being a self-righteous hypocrite.

⁶ He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.

Verse 6 is extremely important for it reveals how Mary’s act of worship and devotion could be objected to so strongly by Judas. The reality was that Mary’s heart was redeemed and regenerated. Judas’ heart was lost and unregenerate.  His lostness is revealed in his thievery and dishonesty. Verse 6 is simply a commentary on Judas’ spiritual condition.

Mary was saved. Judas was lost. This is why Mary saw worship in her act and Judas saw irresponsibility. This is also why some people understand acts of lavish worship and devotion and others hate it. The unredeemed heart cannot help but have an unredeemed perspective. The redeemed heart cannot help but have a redeemed perspective.

Here we have one act and, thus far, two perspectives, both being shaped by the condition of the place of their own origin: the human heart.

How you view worship will reveal a lot about your standing with God. The closer we draw to God the more beautiful worship appears. The further we drift from God the more frivolous and unnecessary it appears. Your heart will dictate your perspective.

The most important perspective has yet to be seen. Jesus, of course, is also in the room.

We must value Jesus’ perspective for Jesus’ perspective is the divine perspective. Jesus’ perspective is God’s perspective, and Jesus’ perspective in this situation is illuminating indeed.

We begin in verse 7 with Jesus’ blunt rebuke of Judas’ earthly rejection of Mary’s reckless, lavish devotion and worship. Three words stand out: “Leave..her…alone…”

These are beautiful words. Jesus steps between the worshiping Mary and the rebuking Judas and backs Judas down: “Leave her alone…”

Let us remember these three words when we are tempted to allow the unspoken rules and assumptions of our church to squelch sincere and genuine devotion to Christ. I am not offering here a defense of any and every action. The fact that Mary’s devotion is disruptive to this dinner party does not validate disruption as a general principle. It does, however, caution us against viewing worship through earthly eyes, against judging everybody and everything that does not accord with the unspoken dictates of our own conception of decorum as faulty or necessarily wrong.

Jesus continues and reveals even more:

⁷ Jesus said, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. ⁸ For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”

Judas was undoubtedly surprised by Jesus’ rebuke. Mary was undoubtedly also surprised by Jesus’ revelation of the true nature of her lavish, reckless worship and devotion.

“Leave her alone,” He says, “so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.” This raises a fascinating question: did Mary know that she was anointing Jesus for His burial? Did Mary know the full import of her actions?

I think not. There is something beautiful in this fact too. The beauty lies in the fact that when we worship, we inevitably are doing more than realize. Furthermore, worship becomes the door through which Christ Jesus offers further revelation of Himself. Mary’s act uncovers greater divine truths than she and the others possessed before her act. Jesus springboards off of her devotion to reveal the reality of His coming passion, of His death and resurrection. The important point to realize here is that Mary would not have received this further truth had she not come to Christ in worship and praise and adoration.

Let us not misunderstand: worship does not manipulate God to do more. Rather, worship reveals that a heart has been sufficiently enlarged to receive more.

God always gives more of Himself to the open hands and open hearts of His people. Judas’ heart was small and hard and selfish and self-serving, so much so that the only thing his heart could receive was Jesus’ rebuke: “Leave her alone!”

But Mary’s heart…ah, Mary’s heart! Mary’s heart was expanding and enlarging. The events at the tomb of her brother Lazarus had broken the shackles of what she previously called reality. The presence of her recently-dead brother at this dinner party meant that anything was possible with Jesus. It also meant that God was here in this Christ, working and bringing into the limited human sphere of reality a shocking, divine counter-reality that redefined everything Mary thought she knew.

Yes, Mary’s heart was enlarging and expanding, and God graciously poured more of Himself into the new space.

Church, He will do the same with us. He will do the same if we come, like Mary, and offer lavish, reckless, sincere, faithful, holy worship to the Lord Jesus. God will give us more of Himself, more of Christ, if we will dare to bend hearts and knees and minds before His majestic person and pour the totality of our lives upon His feet.

Let us be like Mary: brave, blessedly undignified and scandalously devoted to her King Jesus and His glorious gospel.

Let us be like Mary.

Let us come like Mary and worship at the feet of Jesus.

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Roni and I enjoy reading the novels of Evelyn Waugh, the British novelist from the early/mid twentieth century. We’ve recently been reading the fascinating biography of his family by Evelyn’s grandson, Alexander Waugh. One of the troubling things the biography reveals is the odd relationship between Evelyn’s father, Arthur Waugh, and Evelyn’s older brother, Alec.

Evelyn was given a girl’s name because his mother was sorely disappointed that she had another boy when what she wanted was a girl. He was dressed in girl’s clothes early on and his brother referred to him as “It.” He was the younger of the two boys. While Evelyn would go on to establish the most famous name and literary legacy, he was not the most famous son in his home. He was second to Alec in every way, including parental affection.

Alec Waugh was the favorite, particularly of his father Arthur. In fact, it would be safe to say that Arthur developed an unhealthy and, truthfully, a weird fascination with his oldest son. He felt that they had developed a supernatural connection and could communicate telepathically. He maintained a smothering and obsessive relationship with his son Alec while the boy was off at school and on throughout his life. “Dear Boy,” he wrote, “I am sure there is some spiritual relation between you and me which transcends the merely material world,” he wrote Alec. “There must be something super-natural in such a tie,” he wrote to his son on another occasion.

This was a bit awkward, but then Arthur’s affections for his son Alec began borrowing from traditional Christian language and moved, I believe, into the realm of blasphemy. When Alec got in trouble at school, his father attempted to empathize with him. “The nails that pierce the hands of the Son are still driven through the hands of the Father also,” he wrote.

Arthur began to think of himself as being like God the Father and his son, Alec, as being like God the Son. He wrote:

“There is a rare sort of crucifix found in one or two Gothic cathedrals in France, in which behind the figure of the Son, as he hangs upon the cross, is vaguely to be discerned the figure of God the Father also. The nails that pierce the Sons hands pierce the Fathers also: the thorn-crowned head of the Dying Saviour is seen to be lying upon the Fathers bosom. And it is always so with you and me. Every wound that touches you pierces my own soul also: every thorn in your crown of life tears my tired head as well. Be sure of that, as you are also sure (for you must be that) that when your hour of redemption comes, the first to share it will be the father who has never doubted or given way. God bless you Billy.”[1]

This is all very strange and uncomfortable, not least of all because it assumes a relationship between earthly fathers and sons that goes beyond the boundaries of realism and appropriateness. To be sure, we she be close to our parents and to our children. To be sure, there is a kind of family bond that goes beyond mere blood. We do, for instance, emphasize deeply and profoundly and spiritually with our parents and our children. But at the end of the day, we are still aware that we are not our father or mother or son or daughter. They are other than us, though we are connected blood and by love.

To put it another way: we cannot say “I and my Father are one” in the same way that Jesus can say this of His Father. In the latter half of John 10, this is precisely what Jesus says: “I and the Father are one.” What He meant by that astounded His first hearers, just as it astounds us.

Let us consider this morning the ways in which God the Father and God the Son are one.

We begin by seeing that the Son’s oneness with the Father is a functional oneness. They are, in other words, one in what they do. Our text begins:

²²At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter,

It is interesting that the gospel notes the time of year: “It was winter.” This is interesting because the gospels don’t often reveal these kinds of interesting atmospheric details that we modern people like. This has led some people to read into this statement a spiritual meaning. Some see this as a commentary on the coldness of the Jews’ response to Jesus or to the general hardness of their hearts. Maybe, but, then again, it could just mean that it was winter!

Regardless, Jesus once again finds Himself the center of attention and controversy:

²³ and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. ²⁴ So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

Here it is again, the reoccurring question. They have asked it before and Jesus has demonstrated the answer time and again. What He has not done, though, and what He refuses to do is allow them to reduce Him and pigeon-hole Him into manageable categories that would reinforce their assumptions about what they think they understand about God. He is not being obstinate. He simply will not answer them on their terms because their terms are frankly part of their problem. They must begin to see God as He is, not as they wish to manage Him.

Jesus answers their question by appealing to His oneness with the Father in what He does.

²⁵ Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me,

And later:

³⁰ I and the Father are one.” ³¹ The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. ³² Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” ³³ The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

We will be returning to verse 30 each step along the way this morning: “I and the Father are one.” It is a foundational verse, the hub around which all the other truths of our text this morning rotate. Andreas Kostenberger has rightly called John 10:30 “the first major climax in John’s Gospel” (with John 19:30, “It is finished!” being the second).[2]

Jesus’ oneness with the Father is a functional oneness. The Son does what the Father does. The Son can only do what the Father does (John 5:19-20).

This means, then, that Jesus is not some mere representation of some limited aspect of the Father. On the contrary, Jesus explains the Father in and through what He does (John 1:18). If, in other words, you would like to know what the Father is like, look at what the Son does.

When the Jews seek to stone Jesus, He asks them for what works of His they are stoning Him. They respond that they are not stoning Him for His works, but for blasphemy.

There is irony here. We might appropriately get at what is happening here if we summarize this conversation like this:

“Who are you, Jesus?”

“I healed a blind man. Who do my works say that I am?”

“Stop playing around. Who are you?”

“I am not playing around. I am the one that does the work of the Father.  I and the Father are one.”

“We’re going to kill you!”

“For what, the works that reveal my oneness with the Father?”

“No, not for the works, but for your words claiming to be one with the Father.”

“But My words are proven by My works. My works reveal who I am.”

“We don’t care about what you’re doing. We care about who you claim to be.”

It is a sad irony, tragic really. Once again, they demand an answer they refuse to accept! Jesus is one with the Father in what He does.

Not only that, He is one with the Father in who He loves. You will remember that Jesus fleshed out this wonderful image of the shepherd and the sheep in the first half of John 10. Now He returns again to the theme:

²⁶ but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.

To begin, Jesus reveals to these protesting Jews that the reason they cannot get it is because they do not belong to the people of God. They “are not part of my flock.”

Sometimes you have to be a part of something to understand it. Every region of the United States, for instance, has its own particular customs. I had never, for instance, eaten a tamale until I moved to Arkansas. Earlier this year, Bruce Martin took me downtown to Doe’s and put a tamale in front of me. Now, I get it. Tamales are awesome! But until that moment, I didn’t get it. It wasn’t part of my experience or my identity. It wasn’t part of who I was. So until that moment I would have listened to a conversation on the glories of good tamales with a kind of confused bewilderment. I was not equipped to have the conversation until I had had the experience.

Of course, the Kingdom of God is eternally more significant than something like tamales. But the principle stands. These who sought to kill Jesus could not understand because they refused to experience Christ for themselves. They refused to embrace Him as their own. “You do not believe,” He told them, “because you are not part of my flock.”

Those in the flock get it perfectly well!

²⁷ My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸ I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹ My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. ³⁰ I and the Father are one.”

The Son and the Father are one in the object of their affections. They love the sheep and the sheep cannot be harmed in their fold. “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”

This is a beautiful display of the Savior’s sovereign hold upon His sheep, as well as of the sheep’s sweet security in the Savior. “No one will snatch them out of my hand.”

The hand of Jesus is nail-pierced, but it is stronger than any other force. Once you are in its grasp, you are forever secure. Jesus holds His people in His hand.

Notice, though, that Jesus speaks of “my hand” in verse 28 then of the Father’s hand in verse 29. In verse 29, He says, “and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” Once again, we see that Jesus and the Father are one. They are one in who they love and they are one in the security they grant to the people of God.

If you are a child of God, you are in the hands of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14). You are triply-gripped by divine love. The padlock of grace has one lock, but it is reinforced three times over.

The Father and Son are one in their love. This also raises a particular challenge for the church and for you and me as individual Christians. If the Son and Father are united in their love, should we not also be united in loving those they love? If, in other words, some person is loved by the Lord Jesus, should they not also be loved by us? And who do the Father and Son love: the whole world. “For God so love the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”

So, too, we must love the world. We must love all who live just as Jesus does the very same. He and the Father are united in who they love. Let us be united with them.

Ultimately, however, these shared attributes arise from a shared essence. There is an ontological oneness between the Father and Son. The Son is not the Father or the Spirit. The Father is not the Son or the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father or the Son. The members of the Trinity are not one another. They are three, but they are three-in-one. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God.

This is the beautiful mystery of the Trinity. When Jesus says, “I and the Father are one,” He is not only speaking of a unity of function and focus. He is also speaking of a unity of essence and attribute.

This is where, to go back to the very beginning of this sermon, we find something wholly unique and distinct about the relationship of the Father and the Son. It is something that is reflected, of course, in human relationships. We are, after all, created in the imago Dei, the image of God. But while human beings can reflect the love that the Father and Son and Spirit have for one another, it still remains that human beings are separate beings. While they share in the common experience of “being human,” they do not do so in the same way that the members of the Trinity share in “being God.”

The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost share in deity in ways that we cannot imagine. This thought enraged Jesus’ audience and they chafed under the idea. Jesus used the Psalms to refute the charge of blasphemy:

³⁴ Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? ³⁵ If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— ³⁶ do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6 in which the people of God are referred to as “gods.” This is an interesting verse. It likely means that the Judges of Israel, or the leaders, or the people of God to whom the Word of God came were called “gods” here in the sense that they had received and were therefore carriers of God’s Word. In that sense, then, they are referred to as “gods.” The Bible, of course, does not mean that the Jews were literally gods. It was an honorific term denoting their unique relationship before God and the privilege of their receiving the Law.

Jesus’ point is simple and interesting: if the Law of God refers to the people of God or some group within the people of God as “gods” by virtue of their being recipients of the Word of God, then how exactly was He, Jesus, blaspheming when He, the Word of God, called Himself the Son of God?

He then reveals something wonderful and mysterious and beautiful about His relationship with the Father:

³⁷ If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; ³⁸ but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

If they believe, then they will understand that “the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Their relationship, with that of the Holy Spirit, is one of mutual love and unified will.

At this point, I believe an idea that some of the Greek Christians have passed down can be helpful to us. They have spoken of the Trinity in terms of “perichoresis,” and they have pointed to John 10:38 in doing so.

Perichoresis is the idea that the members of the Trinity – the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost – do not stand in a static, unmoving relationship with one another. Rather, there is what some of the church fathers have referred to as a mutual interpenetration of the members of the divine Godhead. There is, in other words, a kind of mutual, harmonious, dance. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are moving together in a wonderful, graceful, motion of shared will, shared love, shared intent, and shared power.

There is a motion to Jesus’ words here: “The Father is in me and I am in the Father.” There is a divine reciprocity here. There is a harmony here, a kind of rhythm here.

What an amazing picture! The works of the Son and the love of the Trinity and creation itself all spring out of this divine dance and harmony. Again, it is an amazing picture! But here is something even more amazing: you and I, by God’s grace, through repentance faith, can enter into the contours and motions of this divine dance. This is not to say that we become divine. This is simply to say that we are invited into this kind of love. We are invited to live our lives in step with the steps of the three-in-one Godhead.

As we learn the movements of this dance, we are then privileged to be able to invite others to share in it as well. Evangelism is simply an invitation for others to join with us in the rhythms of God’s great name and God’s great power and God’s great love.

Do you see? Do you see the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? Do you see how they love one another? Do you see how they love you?

Ah, do you see the energy and motion and power of the divine Godhead? Do you understand that we only make Christianity boring by a sheer effort of will? Christianity becomes boring only when you and I are boring. In and of itself, this gospel and this truth is the most fascinating, gripping, appealing, amazing truth in the world!

This morning, we invite you to come to the Father, through the Son, in the name of the Holy Spirit.

We invite you to come and experience the amazing love of our amazing God.

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When we say that a person is polarizing, we do not often mean it as a compliment. On the face of it, being a polarizing person simply means that those around you are divided into differing, conflicting camps concerning what to make of you or of some position you are advocating.  Many great men and women are polarizing people. Of course, many bad men and women are polarizing. People may be polarizing for any number of reasons, sometimes good and sometimes bad.

The Lord Jesus was and is polarizing. He was perfect and right, good and without sin, but His person and presence and teaching and works set men and women at odds with one another and, oftentimes, at odds with Him. Of course, Jesus acknowledge this fact. In Matthew 10, Jesus said:

³⁴ “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. ³⁶ And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. ³⁷ Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹ Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

It almost seems like the most polarizing moments in the life of the Lord Jesus were those moments following some great display of His own power and glory. This can be seen in the aftermath of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead at the end of John 11.

The reactions to Jesus in the wake of this healing were fascinating. They reveal much about the minds, hearts, and socio-political atmosphere of first century Judaism. They are also fascinating for how they mirror the reactions Jesus receives today.

It is a sad but realistic fact that the gospels record more instances of people rejecting Jesus than of people accepting Jesus. Most of the gospel of John is tragically tied up with Jesus’ conflict with those who rejected Him. This is sad, but also necessary, for, in point of fact, most people rejected Jesus then as most people reject Him now. So while we wish the gospels offered us long passages chronicling wave after wave of converts, we know that this neither was nor is the case.

That being said, those brief unadorned passages in which we see people coming to Jesus in acceptance and belief are indescribably beautiful. Consider verse 45 and its record of those who were moved to belief after seeing the raising of Lazarus.

⁴⁵ Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him

Like a largely-silent revolution in the midst of clamoring doubters, we see that many do come to Jesus. “Many” is not “most,” but it is still significant. Notice that those who believe are from that group that went with Mary to meet Jesus and saw what He did at the tomb of Lazarus. They believed because they saw His power exhibited and His glory displayed.

In John 20, we see that Thomas believed only after seeing the wounds of the cross. In reaction to this, Jesus spoke of those who believe because they have witnessed miracles and those who believe without having seen miracles:

²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” ²⁸ Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Indeed, it is even more beautiful when a person believes outside of physical evidence, but it is still no small thing when people believe because of physical evidence. These who believe here believe because of what they witnessed at the tomb of Lazarus.

Some of you have likewise believed because of what you have seen. It required more than the instruction of your parents to believe. It required more than words from the pulpit. Some of you have seen some great work of God and have been brought to faith through a great display of God’s power.

Some of you have not seen physical evidences, but you were overwhelmed at some point by the power of the gospel itself. You believed because you heard and the truth of what you heard pierced your heart. The gospel was the miracle, and that miracle was enough.

Some of you have not believed, either because you demand enough evidence to remove all question or because you have heard the gospel and you hate it. If this is you, you will see that there are those in our text who were the same way. But scripture pictures unbelief in a tragic light, not in a noble light.

Belief is the minority position in scripture, but it is the path to salvation.

Others seem to be unable to decide. Caught in the throws of their indecision, they revert to the comfort of religious authority. In other words, they run to the religious powers-that-be.

⁴⁶ but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

There is a kind of comfort in religious authority, is there not? Many people feel the pull of the gospel, the appeal and power of Jesus. Many feel drawn to Him but will not come because of how the teachings and person of Jesus conflict with their religious customs.

So many do what these indecisive people do: they run to their priest, their rabbi, their preacher, their imam, their whatever. Standing on the edge of belief, they collapse back into the safe sanctuary of religious authority.

To be sure, these who went to the Pharisees may have had more deliberately pernicious goals. Perhaps some of them simply wanted to “rat Jesus out” so that He would be caught and punished. But there can be no doubt that many ran to the Pharisees because of the comfort that their authoritative-sounding pronouncements offered those who were threatened by this new and strange teaching.

Have you ever experienced the conflict between religious tradition and the pull of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Have you experienced His attractive appeal only to be unable to break free from the religious authorities and their pronouncements?

Once again we see the conflict between religious custom and the living, breathing, Word of God. Once again we see the power of religious authorities over the God-Man, Jesus the Christ.  Beware the religious customs that keep you from Jesus.

Many of the chief priests and Pharisees rejected Jesus on different grounds. John’s gospel allows us to overhear their concerns:

⁴⁷ So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the Council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. ⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

Their concerns seem to be two-fold:

·        Jesus is threatening to take their followers away from them.

·        Jesus, by drawing the attention of the Roman, threatens the safety and security of the nation.

The concerns are quite different in many ways, but what they have in common is a fear of the cost of Jesus for themselves and their national identity. They fear, in other words, that Jesus might overthrow their own personal kingdoms as the religious elites as well as their national identity.

Say what you will about the priests’ and Pharisees’ rejection of Jesus, but you must admit that they rightly understood the cost of accepting Jesus. They rightly understood that Jesus is a threat to the status quo, to the normal conditions to which they had become accustomed.

There is a cost to accepting Jesus. Jesus said this Himself many times, perhaps most notably in Luke 14:

²⁵ Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸ For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³² And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. ³³ So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Yes, there is, indeed, a cost to accepting Jesus. William Faulkner said this well in his novel, If I Forget Thee Jerusalem.

“If Jesus returned today we would have to crucify him quick in our own defense, to justify and preserve the civilization we have worked and suffered and died shrieking and cursing in rage and impotence and terror for two thousand years to create in man’s own image…”[1]

The cost of following Jesus is the loss of our own kingdom, our own vision of reality itself. For this reason, many of the religious authorities rejected Jesus. The truth of the matter is that, in rejecting Jesus on the grounds that the cost of accepting Him was too great, many of the chief priests and Pharisees were being more honest than we are when we attempt to accept Him with no regard to the cost at all.

Let me ask you: what has it cost you to accept Jesus? What have you had to give up? What threat did or does Jesus pose to your own comfort?

It is not for me or you to make definitive pronouncements on the spiritual condition of a man or woman who claims to have accepted Christ. Only God knows the true state of a person’s standing before Him. But is it not fair and right to say that if a person claims to have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and if that person has never had to give anything up for Christ, and if that person has never felt the great threat that Jesus and His gospel poses to the status quo, to the way things were before that person came to Christ, that that person has likely never come to Christ at all?

Many are those who turn from Christ because they are unwilling to pay the price of following Him. They rightly see that Jesus comes to threaten our personal kingdoms and our personal prestige and our personal comfort.

Many, still, are those who have seen the cost, ignored it, and claimed to be in Christ anyway.  But this, too, is actually a rejection.  Both of these are profound mistakes.

As the priests and Pharisees expressed their concern about the threat that Jesus was posing to their lives and to the general order of their society, the high priest Caiaphas, who would figure so prominently in the events of Jesus’ passion, stepped forward with some most unusual words.

⁴⁹ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. ⁵⁰ Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” ⁵¹ He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, ⁵² and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

What is happening here? What does Caiaphas mean? On the surface of it, this sounds almost Christian, almost as if Caiaphas understands the significance of Jesus’ death for the world. But this is not the case at all.

In point of fact, in mentioning that one man could die for the nation, Caiaphas was appealing to a Jewish belief that, in some sense, one person might die for the nation’s good. It was a tradition, a general belief, prevalent in first century Judaism, that this could happen.

Please note that when Caiaphas speaks of the benefit of Jesus dying for the people, he does not have in mind the Christian gospel. He is not thinking of Jesus taking on the sins of the people, paying the price for those sins, defeating sin, death, and hell, and then being raised again. He is not thinking of Jesus’ saving substitution on the cross, of Jesus dying as a propitiation for our sins.

In point of fact, Caiaphas is viewing the death of Jesus as an act of political expediency and advantage. He has rejected Christ and His claims of deity. He wants to see Jesus die. Yes, he believes that, in some strange way, the death of Jesus might benefit the Jews. But this is not faith. This is not trust. This is not acceptance. This is a rejection born on the wings of promised advantage.

Caiaphas is being an opportunist here, a politician. He is being self-serving. Any faith he is showing here is mainly faith in the supposed benefits and general idea of one man dying for the many. It is faith in an assumption, not in a Savior. It is faith in a hope, not in Jesus. He hopes that the death of Jesus might benefit them all, might spare Roman tyranny any further advance.

His argument seems plausible, and it carries the day.

⁵³ So from that day on they made plans to put him to death. ⁵⁴ Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples. ⁵⁵ Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. ⁵⁶ They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?” ⁵⁷ Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him.

The stage is set. The motives behind the rejection of Jesus varied with the people. Most rejected and some believed. Those that rejected did so to remove a threat, to punish an assumed blasphemy, or to benefit the nation politically. Many and varied are the reasons why people reject Jesus. But those who truly come do so for one reason: because they see Jesus as Lord and Savior and King and God and Master of all. Those who reject Jesus walked many paths to reject Him. Those who come to Jesus, however, come only and always on bended knees of praise and joy.

How about you? Where do you stand in this tapestry of reaction to Jesus? Have you accepted Him, trusted in Him, embraced Him as Savior? Or have you been spurned by what it will cost to follow Him? Have you been encouraged to reject Him by some thought of personal advance and security in the world?

Oh, there is a cost to following Jesus, but it is a blessed, sweet cost. There is freedom in giving all to come to Christ. There is freedom in His yoke. There is freedom in slavery to Christ.

Do not follow the many who reject.

Come to Him in faith and receive the gift of eternal life, now and hereafter.

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¹ Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.² It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. ³ So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” ⁴ But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” ⁵ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶ So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. ⁷ Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” ⁸ The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” ⁹ Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. ¹⁰ But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” ¹¹ After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” ¹² The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” ¹³ Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. ¹⁴ Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, ¹⁵ and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” ¹⁶ So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” ¹⁷ Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ¹⁸ Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, ¹⁹ and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. ²⁰ So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” ²³Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” ²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, ²⁶ and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” ²⁸When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” ²⁹ And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. ³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. ³¹ When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. ³² Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. ³⁴ And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵ Jesus wept. ³⁶ So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” ³⁸Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. ³⁹ Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” ⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” ⁴⁴ The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” ⁴⁵ Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, ⁴⁶ but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷ So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the Council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. ⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” ⁴⁹ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. ⁵⁰ Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” ⁵¹ He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, ⁵² and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. ⁵³ So from that day on they made plans to put him to death. ⁵⁴ Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples. ⁵⁵ Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. ⁵⁶ They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?” ⁵⁷ Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him.

I once heard somebody say that the question “Why?” is the bullet we put in our gun when we want to shoot at God. The man who said this was suggesting that there is a kind of doubt that does not want answers. What it really wants is the death of God Himself. This is true of some people. Many people do in fact take the question “Why?” and put it in their guns and shoot it at God.

But “Why?” is not always a bullet. Sometimes it is simply a cry. When offered from a sincere heart burdened under the weight of some calamity, “Why?” is a natural question that God welcomes from the hearts of His children. The Lord has never hated the honesty of His children. The Lord has never scolded His children for their sincere struggles of heart and mind and soul.

This is what Jesus encountered when He received news that His friend, Lazarus, was sick. Lazarus’ sisters had sent word to Jesus that their brother was very ill. Jesus, amazingly (from our perspective), declined to run to them immediately. Instead, Jesus waited. Jesus waited and Lazarus died.

This led to Jesus being asked “Why?” by many who were surrounding Him. What we discover from Jesus is that there was, in fact, an answer to the “Why?” Jesus was not acting carelessly or thoughtlessly. Jesus waited because He wished to teach everybody involved with and surrounding this controversy a number of things about God and about Himself.

In other words, Jesus used the occasion of this tragedy as an opportunity for revelation. He reveals, here, a number of important truths and realities in the death and raising of Lazarus. As you consider what He reveals, I want to encourage you to let these revelations of Himself help you understand why the Lord might be allowing certain things to happen in your life as well. Let these revelations of Christ’s own person redeem your own questions of “Why?”

More than that, though, let us allow this story to draw us further into the person of Christ. Let us allow this story to draw us into more fervent worship.

Let us begin with the bare facts of the story. We will start at the beginning:

¹ Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ² It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. ³ So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”

First, we see a family. The family consists of two sisters and a brother: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Lazarus is sick. He is sick enough that the sisters send word to Jesus to come. As many commentators point out, they never said, “Come at once!” The truth of the matter is that they did not have to. It is enough to let Jesus know that His friend is ill. Friends don’t have to tell friends to come. It is assumed in the news itself. But Jesus does something unexpected when He hears the news.

⁴ But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” ⁵ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶ So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Jesus waits. He does not go at once. There is no earthly reason why He cannot go at once. But that is one of the points. Jesus is trying to reveal something above and beyond earthly reasoning.

This is hard for us to get, isn’t it? Some of you have experienced the waiting of Jesus. Some of you know what it is to call for Him now only to receive His word, “I will come when I come.” It is a painful, soul-searching kind of experience. We do not understand when God does not work on our timetable. But oftentimes He does not. When He does not, as we will see, there is always a reason.

So He waits. Then, after His waiting, He prepares to go to His friend.

⁷ Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” ⁸ The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” ⁹ Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. ¹⁰ But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”

The “Why?” begins immediately. “Why do you want to go back to Judea? They want to kill you there!” Jesus responds by speaking of time. The Jews viewed a day as having 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness. On the one hand, He is saying something important here about time and God’s orderly plan. Jesus reveals that there is an order to things, and order than cannot be manipulated or changed by human caprice or care. Jesus knew that He would die, but He also knew that He would not die now at the home of Lazarus. It was not His time.

Of course, Jesus had already revealed Himself to be the light of the world, and He is drawing on that image as well. He is the light and the world is in darkness. He is light and truth. It is better to walk with Jesus in the light, even if that light reveals danger, than to have your mind and heart and affections darkened by worldly thinking.

They ask “Why?” and Jesus says, “Trust me. Trust me and come.” Then Jesus reveals the reason for their journey.

¹¹ After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” ¹² The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” ¹³ Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. ¹⁴ Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, ¹⁵ and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” ¹⁶ So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

It is a humorous scene, almost. “Lazarus is asleep,” Jesus says. “Let us go wake him.” “If he’s asleep, he will wake up,” they demur. I imagine Jesus pausing here. “He’s dead,” Jesus reveals. Then the collective acknowledgement from the disciples: “Aaaaaaaaaah.” All of this is punctuated with Thomas’ unknowing but noble declaration: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

I imagine Jesus shaking His head in bemused, benign frustration at this. So they set off.

¹⁷ Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ¹⁸Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, ¹⁹ and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. ²⁰ So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house.

Lazarus has died. Mary sits in mourning. Martha runs to meet Jesus. If you look at the story of Mary and Martha at the end of Luke 10, you will find that this is consistent with their demeanors: Martha, ever busy, and Mary, still and reflective.

Martha runs to Jesus when she hears He has come. She runs in faith but she runs with a “Why?” on her lips.

²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”

There is faith here, but also a kind of indictment. Martha believes that the Lord can do whatever He wants to do, but she questions as well. Not only does she question, she offers a mild rebuke: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Many of us have felt this way before. Many of us have experienced the twin realities of belief and questioning. “I still believe you can do it, God,” we say. Then we continue, “But I don’t understand why You let this happen.” We are like the father in Mark 9:24 who cries out, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

Jesus responds:

²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” ²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, ²⁶ and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

In speaking to the disciples at the beginning of their journey and in speaking to Martha here, Jesus reveals the reasons for His allowance of this tragedy. There are three stated reasons why He lets this happen. They are:

·        So that the Father and the Son could receive greater glory. (v.4, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”)

·        So that the disciples could believe in Him on a deeper level. (v.14b-15a, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.”)

·        So that Martha might be brought to a point of decision about Jesus. (v.25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”)

These three reasons (the greater glory of God, the deeper belief of God’s children, and the creation of a point of decision) do not answer all of our questions. They do not provide a definitive response to the “Why?” of our limited understanding. Indeed, nowhere in scripture does God promise such a response to His children. Nowhere in scripture is it suggested that we could grasp such a response even  if it was given.

But these three reasons are indeed reasons, and important ones. The Lord allowed this tragedy to befall Lazarus and his family for the same reason He allows certain tragedies to befall us: so that God might get greater glory as He works in and through it and us, so that God’s children might come to know Him on a deeper level, and so that a point of decision can be created at which we decide whether or not we really do trust in and believe in this great God.

We see here the first of Jesus’ great revelations in this situation: the revelation of His reasons for allowing it to happen in the first place.

It is a good series of questions to ask ourselves when we are going through great trials:

·        How can God get further glory in this tragedy?

·        How can I believe more deeply in the Lord through this tragedy?

·        What point of decision is the Lord bringing me to in this tragedy?

These are the reasons Jesus reveals for His allowance of this tragedy, and these are the markers that help us through our own tragedies.

In the midst of this great drama, Jesus also reveals His heart:

²⁸ When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” ²⁹ And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. ³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. ³¹When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. ³² Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

This is a heart-breaking, pitiful scene. Mary bursts forth in emotion before her Lord. There seems to be an even sharper edge here than there was with Martha’s approach to Jesus. Martha, ever-expressive, was probably better at letting things out as they came. Mary had been sitting, ruminating on these events, reflecting on the death of her brother and the delay of Jesus. She cries out in frustration, then is overwhelmed by tears and the mourning crowd.

³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. ³⁴ And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵ Jesus wept. ³⁶ So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

This is a passage of great feeling, of great emotional depth. Jesus is touched by Mary’s great grief as well as by the mourning of the ladies in the funeral procession. Middle Eastern funerals were scenes of great, expressive anguish in this day. In many ways, they seem to be that way today as well.

William Barclay reveals that, in Jewish burial custom, “women mourners walked first, for it was held that it was woman who by her first sin brought death into the world, and therefore she ought to lead the mourners to the tomb.”[1] John tells us that Jesus was “deeply moved in his spirit” at the sight and sound of this mourning. This phrase is connected to the verb embrimasthai which is connected to the idea of a horse snorting. In other words, Jesus groaned from deep in His being at this pitiful sight.

To be sure, there is genuine mourning here on the part of Jesus. But what led Him to this great grief? Why does Jesus grieve?

He grieves, first, at the death of a friend. Jesus was fully God and fully man. He was not untouched by the death of a beloved friend. He loved Lazarus and Lazarus was dead. The fact that Jesus knew how this would play out did not undo the pain of that moment.

He grieves, also, at the pain of the surrounding family. He loves Mary and Martha. They, too, are his dear friends. Their hurt and even their frustration at Him weigh heavy on His heart. He does not weep because He made a mistake in delaying. On the contrary, He did not make a mistake. His timing was and is perfect.  He does not regret the decision.  But He wept because of the pain of the ordeal they were going through.

The Lord God is not stoic in the face of human suffering. He is not unmoved by human tears. He is immutable, unchanging, and perfect, yes. But He is the God who weeps over suffering humanity. He is compassionate and tender in His mercies. He weeps at and with the weeping of the Jews.

But there is more that is happening here, and I think we miss something important if we miss this. Let us remember that one of the reasons Jesus delayed and allowed this to happen was so that people might know Him more deeply, might believe in Him as the Christ. He wanted God to get the glory and knew that He would be glorified in this as well.

In other words, He wanted His followers, once again, to view the world and all that happens in it through the eyes of redeemed men and women who have been let in on the great and glorious marvel of the grace of God. He wanted them (as He wants us) not to cease to be human, but to be human with minds that had been touched by holy fire and that now could see things from the vantage point of the Kingdom of God.

In this sense, Jesus’ grief is not only sorrow. There is pain and frustration in it as well.

Some suggest that Jesus’ tears are misunderstood by the crowd here (and by many of us) as being part of the mourning process, but that, in fact, that is not why Jesus cries. Francis Moloney, for instance, suggests that:

“The careful use of another verb for the weeping of Jesus (dakryo is used for Jesus’ weeping, whileklaio is used for both Mary and ‘the Jews’ in vv. 31,33) indicates that Jesus’ tears cannot be associated with the surrounding mourning process. He weeps because of the danger that his unconditional gift of himself in love as the Good Shepherd…the resurrection and the life who offers life here and hereafter to all who would believe in him…will never be understood or accepted. While Mary moved towards Jesus…there was hope that one of the characters had come to faith. Once she joined ‘the Jews’ in their sorrow and tears Jesus’ promises seem to have been forgotten, and Jesus weeps in his frustration.”[2]

There is some merit in this view. After all, in Luke 19 this is precisely why Jesus weeps:

⁴¹ And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, ⁴² saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.⁴³For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side ⁴⁴ and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

Jesus knows what it is to weep over the disbelief people. He did so over Jerusalem and there can be no doubt that this is happening here as well.

I want quickly to add, however, that I do not believe this is an either/or: either Jesus wept in pure grief at the death of a friend or Jesus was weeping in heart-broken frustration at the failure of those witnessing this scene to grasp who He is. Grief does not come in neat categories. There is a lot happening here, and no doubt there is a lot happening in the heart of the Lord Jesus as well.

I want to suggest that we see both of these elements in the tears of Jesus: grief and heart-broken frustration. He grieves with their tears and He grieves at what He knows their tears mean. He grieves because a friend is dead and friends are hurt and mourning. He grieves also that those surrounding Him, including His friends, cannot seem to bridge the gap between their verbalized belief in Him and what they actually believe in their hearts.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, pain and tragedy is ground zero in the battle for belief. It reveals who we really are. The Lord does not begrudge tears. The Lord does not condemn concern. The Lord does not wish us to be unmoved and apathetic in the midst of tragic loss. We do not believe less because we cry. We do not believe less because we grieve. We do not believe less because we wonder why.

But is it not true that the arena of pain is that arena in which the truth of our hearts are revealed? We may weep in the midst of tragedy, but we dare not weep as an atheist or non-believer might weep! Yes, let us mourn, but let us never mourn as people who have no hope! Let us struggle to understand, but let us never believe that there is no answer!

What do our tears say? Do we really believe? Do we really trust? Do we really know that God is with us, that He will never leave us or forsake us?

The Lord Jesus reveals a heart of compassion here. He reveals a heart that gives us hope in the deepest pain.

Above all else, though, Jesus reveals His divine authority. I love this! Watch:

³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” ³⁸Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. ³⁹ Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.”

The conflict between Jesus’ true grasp of reality and the crowd’s earthly vantage point is seen here once again. Martha, ever-practical, is concerned about the smell since her brother has been dead four days. William Barclay offers a fascinating explanation of the significance of Lazarus being dead four days:

“It was the Jewish belief that the spirits of the departed hovered around the tombs for four days, seeking an entrance again into the body of the dead. But after four days the spirits finally left for the face of the body was so decayed that they could no longer recognize it.”[3]

Ah, so in their minds Lazarus is really, really dead! Jesus breaks forth more light:

⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

See here the reasons, again, for Jesus allowing all of this to happen: belief and glory! The drama reaches a crescendo as Jesus comes to the tomb:

⁴¹ So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”

Imagine the scandal of this! Just imagine it: yelling at a dead man in a tomb! Dead men don’t hear us when we call to them.

I grew up attending Thomas Sumter Academy, a small school in Dalzell, SC, named after the Revolutionary War General Thomas Sumter. In my hometown you can visit the tomb of General Thomas Sumter. As a boy I had somebody tell me that if you went to General Sumter’s tomb and marched around it three times saying, “General Thomas Sumter, watcha doin’ in there?” at each pass, that after the third time if you stopped and listened General Thomas Sumter would say…“Nothing.” (Ponder that for a while and you’ll get it!)

Dead men don’t respond when we call to them! Shouting at graves is the epitome of futility for us.

Yes, but Jesus is no mere man. Jesus is the Lord of Heaven and Earth and He has authority over sin, death, and hell. So Jesus shouts, “Lazarus, come out!” What happened next was jaw-dropping:

⁴⁴ The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Jesus, the Lord. Jesus, God with us. Jesus, the God-man. Jesus, He who has divine authority over death. Jesus, the King!

Oh, friends, did you hear what He said? “Unbind him, and let him go!” Jesus, the One who sets the captives free. Jesus, the One who unwraps our burial wraps and shouts, “Live!” over the previously dead.

Now we see, don’t we? Now we see that the Lord Jesus was not only wanting to reveal certain important truths. We see that Jesus was also wanting to reveal what He does for all who will come to Him. Jesus is in the business of removing the shackles of our lives. Jesus is in the business of calling the dead out of their tombs even today.

Marjorie Maddox has spoken of herself before she accepted Jesus as being like Lazarus:

A lazarus, dead and still dying,
I stink with the rotting
of sin wrapped tight about limbs
limp with what man is and isn’t.

by my fault,
my own fault,
my own most grievous fault…[4]

Yes, now the whole amazing truth begins to settle in on us: I am Lazarus. I am dead in my sins and trespasses.   “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23). I am undone in the disease of my own rebellion.   “For the wages of sin is death…” I am already decomposing, stinking in my own decay. “For the wages of sin is death…”

But then I hear a voice, “Wyman, come out of there! Come out, Wyman! Come out of there and live!” “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.”

Can it be? Can it be that the Lord Jesus is calling to me, here, in this place of death? Can it be that He, Jesus, has called to me in my sins to come? And you? Can it be that the Lord Jesus is calling to you, here, now?

It can be, and it is! He gets the glory and I get the life! I live! I live because He lives and because He offers me grace! I live because He has the authority to grant it and to heal me. He has the authority to free me from my sins because He took my sins into Himself on the cross and paid the price for them. As for the grave, Jesus has the authority to call me out of it because He Himself walked out of a grave once. Jesus can call you out of the grave because He defeated the grave when He walked out of His tomb on the third day.

Jesus is the victor over the grave, over death, over sin, over hell. He and He alone can call me out of this death. He and He alone can reach to me with nail-pierced hands and bring me home.

Dear friends, how many of you are bound in the burial cloths, buried in the tomb of death? How many of you still dwell in the tomb of your own sins? How many of you have not come to Jesus because you will not come?

Do you hear Him? Do you hear Him calling? “Come out! Come out! Come out! Come out! Come out and be free! Come out and live! Come out and kneel before the Son who sets you free!”

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As a pastor, I’ve done a lot of funerals over the years.  Funerals are sacred moments, moments of remembrance, reflection, celebration, worship, and proclamation. Every funeral is a little bit different since every person is a little bit different, and yet every funeral has certain things in common. For instance, in the vast majority of funerals I’ve done, one particular text comes up time and time again. Not always, but often enough where it has made a powerful impression on me. Here is the text:

¹ The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
² He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
³ He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

⁴ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

There it is. I bet many of you guessed it before I read it! These are the words people turn to time and again in their greatest moments of loss and tragedy: “The Lord is my shepherd…”

It is a powerful and unexpected image of God. God as a shepherd certainly evoked very definite ideas in the ancient world, but it does so no less in our world today. Even in our culture (which has a bit of a distance between ourselves and shepherds) we understand that the word speaks of leadership, protection, care, provision, guidance, and even love.

It is, as I say, a powerful idea. Its power is amplified by the fact that the Lord Jesus applied the term to Himself in John 10, giving a poignant explanation of the image in the process. Let us consider, then, Jesus the shepherd.

To begin, Jesus contrasts Himself with false shepherds that sought to do the people of God harm.

¹ “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. ² But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. ³ To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴ When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. ⁵ A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” ⁶ This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. ⁷ So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. ⁸ All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹ I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Jesus is the true shepherd against all false shepherds. Jesus stands always and ever against all counterfeit shepherds who seek to harm, mislead, and wound the flock of God. Jesus lists their many attributes:

·        False shepherds seek to steal, take from, and profit from the flock of God. (v.1)

·        False shepherds are not truly of the people of God. They are strangers. (v.5)

·        The true people of God will not go after false shepherds. (v.8)

·        False shepherds ultimately wish to destroy the people of God. (v.10)

Indeed, the church’s experience over the last two thousand years has confirmed the truth of this. Many are the false shepherds who seek to prey on the flock of God! Peter warned the early Christians of the same in 2 Peter 2:

¹ But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. ² And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. ³ And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

Jude likewise spoke of these false shepherds:

¹² These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; ¹³ wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

Not all who claim to be shepherds truly care for the flock of God. Over and against these false shepherds, Jesus sets Himself. He describes His own attributes as the Good Shepherd:

·        Jesus is given authority over the people of God. (v.3a)

·        Jesus’ voice is the voice of truth. (v.3b)

·        Jesus is the true leader of the people of God. (v.3c)

·        Jesus goes before the people of God, and we follow Him. (v.4)

·        Jesus is the way into the flock, the family of God. (v.7)

·        Jesus is the salvation of the sheep. (v.9)

·        Jesus gives life abundant to the sheep. (v.10)

You might ask, “But how can I tell when a shepherd is true or false?” Jesus answered this in Matthew 7:

¹⁵ “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

False shepherds can be amazingly persuasive and seductive in the way that they seek to mislead the people of God, but what they cannot do is be Christ to the people of God. I would ask you if you are following after a false shepherd: Can he care for you like Christ can? Can he love you as Christ loves you? Can he save you as Christ can save you?

Of course, not even a true minister or undershepherd can be Christ, but a true minister will lead you to Christ and not to himself. A true undershepherd has only one desire: to bring you into an encounter with the risen Christ. The fruit of his ministry is nothing less than your own relationship with Christ.

Not so a false shepherd, a false minister. A false shepherd seeks to bring you only to himself. He seeks his own glory. He promises more than he can deliver. He seeks to replace Christ, but he cannot. He cannot be Christ to you. Only Jesus can be Jesus to you. The false shepherd does not bear the fruit of God. Jesus bore nothing but the fruit of God.

The false shepherd comes in disguise. He is not a shepherd at all. He is, as Jesus said, a “ravenous wolf.” Beware the wolves, church! Cling tightly to the shepherd!

Verse 3 speaks this of the true shepherd: “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name…” Here is the difference between the true shepherd and all false shepherds. The true shepherd knows His sheep by name.

Just a few nights ago, as you know, I was sitting in the hospital room with my dad. He had a terrible accident last Sunday in which he suffered a serious head injury. That night I sat with him, staying awake and watching him. About four in the morning, my dad had a serious seizure. It was a terrifying ordeal. As I cried out to the nurses for help, I could do nothing but pray and beg God to help my dad.

An army of nurses and doctors rushed into the room as my dad convulsed. One of them began loudly to call out his name: “Mr. Ewards,” she cried, “Mr Edwards!” I had been sent into the hall but I watched through the door: “Mr. Edwards,” she cried again.

After this third time I could contain myself no more. I put my head in the door and interjected, “It’s Mr. Richardson!” She immediately apologized and began to call him by his right name. It is terrifying enough to have a seizure, but to be called by a different name in the midst of it must add greatly to the confusion, and I did not want my dad to fear.

Church, your shepherd never calls you by the wrong name. He knows your name, for He is the true shepherd! False shepherds do not know the names of God’s sheep, for they do not care for the flock of God.

The ultimate fruit, of course, is Jesus’ giving of Himself for the sheep.

¹¹ I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹² He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. ¹³ He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. ¹⁴ I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, ¹⁵ just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

And again in verses 17-18:

¹⁷ For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. ¹⁸No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

Five times Jesus says that He lays down His life for His sheep (v.11,15,17,18). He lays it down because it is His commission from the Father to do so. Earlier, in verse 7, Jesus announced, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.” These two ideas (Jesus laying down His life for the sheep and Jesus as the door of the sheep) are related.

R. Kent Hughes has passed on an interesting story about the late G. Campbell Morgan, a powerful preacher and Christian from some years back. On a boat crossing the Atlantic, Morgan encountered Sir George Adam Smith, a famous Old Testament scholar. While conversing, Sir George told Morgan an interesting story.

He was one day traveling with a guide, and came across a shepherd and his sheep. He fell into conversation with him. The man showed him the fold into which the sheep were led at night. It consisted of four walls, with a way in. Sir George said to him, “That is where they go at night?” “Yes,” said the shepherd, “and when they are in there, they are perfectly safe.” “But there is no door,” said Sir George. “I am the door,” said the shepherd. He was not a Christian man, he was not speaking in the language of the New Testament. He was speaking from the Arab shepherd’s standpoint. Sir George looked at him and said, “What do you mean by the door?” Said the shepherd, “When the light has gone, and all the sheep are inside, I lie in the open space, and no sheep ever goes out but across my body, and no wolf comes in unless he crosses my body; I am the door.”[1]

Ah, what an amazing image! In the Middle East, shepherds become the door for the sheep as they lay their bodies down. As they lay across the open space, they become the physical barrier of entry and exit.

Jesus, then, draws on this wonderful image in announcing Himself as the door who lays down His life for His sheep. But Jesus means so much more than the idea of becoming a mere physical barrier. He means that He lays down His body on the cross of Calvary to purchase all who will come to Him. He means that His life becomes the door into the family of God. We enter the flock and family of God only and always as we come to the Father through the crucified and resurrected Son. Jesus is the shepherd who gives His life. Jesus is the door, the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father except through this door that is Jesus.

Many shepherds have an affection for their sheep. They are concerned about their well-being. They wish them no harm. They will protect their sheep. They will even put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of their sheep. But how many shepherds will willingly take on death for their flocks? How many will take the sins of their sheep into themselves? How many will take on sin, death, and hell, dying a miserable death on a cruel cross for the sake of their sheep?

Ours is the self-giving shepherd who gives everything, His very life, for His sheep!

In laying down His life for the sheep, our shepherd calls all who will come into the fold.

¹⁶ And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

To be sure, every deviant cult group on the religious horizon has claimed to be these sheep who “are not of this fold.” But Jesus is speaking here of the Gentiles, those who the Jews would have seen as outside and beyond the flock of God. To these the voice of Jesus calls. Notice that Jesus (a) brings these sheep, (b) calls them and (c) makes them a part of the one flock of God.

Our shepherd does not show favoritism. He is not content to have merely the ninety-and-the-nine! In Luke 15 Jesus tells this parable:

⁴ “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? ⁵And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶ And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ ⁷ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Our shepherd is the shepherd who goes out into the world gathering lost sheep into the fold. He calls and opens the way for all who will come! More than that, He uses His sheep to call others into the flock.

What a grand privilege this is! It is a privilege because we have experienced and know the wondrous love of the self-giving, inviting, flock-building shepherd. It is a privilege because He has laid down His life for us, and for the whole world. It is a privilege to call those outside the flock of God into the fold, into relationship with the living God.

Our God is the shepherd God. He is the shepherd who becomes a sheep who becomes the lamb of God offered as a sacrifice for the world. Our shepherd/lamb God is the calling, wooing, winning God. He is the saving, redeeming, protecting, life-giving God. Our God knows His sheep and we know His voice. He speaks to us and tells us that He loves us. He calls us to new life in His kingdom!

Then, through us, He calls out to the world: “Come! Come under the safety of the shepherd God! Come to the shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep! Come and see! Come and live! Come and dwell under My rod and My staff! Come unto Me, dear sheep! Come unto Me weary sheep! Come unto Me, heavy-laden sheep! Come unto Me, and I will give you rest. Come one, come all…and live!”

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I hope you will forgive me if I tell you a story about my Great Grandfather. I say, “Forgive me,” because I am haunted by William Faulkner’s novel Light in August in which a minister, Rev. Hightower, drives his congregation crazy with constant stories about his Grandfather! I do not want to do that, but I would like to share something with you about my Great Grandfather, Wade Hampton Richardson. He went by “Hamp,” for short. He was my Grandaddy’s daddy. I never knew him or met him because he died when my Grandaddy was only twelve-years-old.

The story is that he grieved himself to death after the passing of his wife, my Great Grandmother Bridgette, who I likewise never knew or met. In doing some research on our family some years back, I found that the exact cause of his death was Pellagra, a vitamin deficiency disease that attacked and killed numbers of people in the American South in the early years of the twentieth century.

One of the effects of Pellagra is blindness and, in fact, Hamp lost his eyesight and went blind near the end of his life. My Grandaddy tells the story of his father calling in all the children to gather around his deathbed. He informed them that he would soon be passing away, a fact that was evident to all. He then informed the children that the Lord had restored his eyesight to him in his last days. The story is that the children looked shocked at such an idea. So Hamp said to them, “No, I’m serious. Look out that window. Just outside the window there is a bird on a tree limb.” He described the bird and the limb. All of his children looked and, behold, it was just as he had said. Shortly thereafter, he died.

It’s a comforting story to me, a nice story, no doubt, to some extent, because it involves one of my ancestors. But I like the idea of Jesus giving my Great Grandfather his eyes back just before the end, just so he could see his family one more time, just so he could see a bird on a limb one more time, or perhaps just as a symbolic reminder that the Lord is the God who gives sight to the blind.

Jesus will say, near the end of our text this morning, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind” (v.39). He says this in the context of His amazing, “I am the light of the world,” lesson. He taught that in chapter eight of John. Now he demonstrates it in chapter nine.

Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus is He who gives sight to the blind. He did this for a man born blind in John 9, and, as we have come to expect, controversy erupted in the aftermath.

This morning, let us consider the main characters in this story: the religious crowd who opposed Jesus, the Lord Jesus Himself, and the man who received this amazing miracle. In doing so, we will witness the spiritual degeneration of the opposing crowd, the spiritual grandeur of the healing Savior, and the spiritual awakening of the man who was healed.

We see in the crowd of those who opposed Jesus a spiritual collapse and degeneration. It is not merely that they were blind. It is also that they were blind while standing in the very presence of the light. How could this be? How could those who witnessed the astounding miracles of Jesus not understand that He was from the Father? The text gives us many evidences of their blindness, but also many explanations for it.

·        Theywere blinded by their religious customs. (v.13-16)

Our text significantly points out the timing of this miracle:

¹³ They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. ¹⁴ Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. ¹⁵ So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”¹⁶ Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.

In both v.14 and v.16 the Sabbath again comes to the forefront of the discussion. In healing this man on the Sabbath, Jesus violated the religious customs that had grown up around and accumulated on the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy. He did not violate or break the commandment itself, merely the customary religious explanation of what it meant to keep the Sabbath.

The Jewish opposition was blinded by their religious customs. Their secondary rules concerning keeping the Sabbath had grown so big that they could not see the Lord of the Sabbath working in their very midst!

It is a heartbreaking reality that religious people often let their religious customs blind them to the movements of God. We are, in many ways, no less guilty. When keeping the secondary rules of the religious community become so big that we cannot see God, then we have allowed those rules to become idols indeed.

·        They were blinded by their refusal to believe. (v.18-21)

Of course, this opposition party simply refused to believe that Jesus was from God and doing the work of God:

¹⁸ The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight ¹⁹ and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” ²⁰ His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. ²¹ But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.”

Forget for a moment that rather humorous and sad spectacle of these parents protecting their own skin. The real tragedy here is that, faced with evidence of a divine miracle, these Jews relapse into simply denying that the man was ever sick. This is unbelief in its most pernicious form. When the evidence contradicts their assumptions, they simply deny the man was blind in the first place.

This is the blinding power of unbelief. When a person does not want to believe something, all the proof in the world cannot convince him or her otherwise. So it was with these who refused to believe. So it is today.

·        They were blinded by their understanding of God. (v.24-25)

At the heart of their refusal to believe stood a conflict between what Jesus was doing and who they envisioned God to be.

²⁴ So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” ²⁵ He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

They fall back on their misguided creed and their own theological assumptions concerning God. “Give glory to God,” they tell this man. The assumption here is clear enough: they thought they understood God so well that anything deviating from their understanding must be deemed ungodly.

Religious convictions have often stood in the way of the gospel. Many will not come to Jesus today because of the ways in which He violates their creeds, their understanding of God. Many today oppose Jesus in the name of God. It is a position of profound irony and blasphemy, for Jesus is God among us.

·        They were blinded by their refusal to listen. (v.26-27)

In their disbelief they pester this man with questions they refuse to hear answered.

²⁶ They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” ²⁷ He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”

The man’s agitation is evident and understandable: “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”

The sarcasm is justifiable here. After all, it is an exercise in folly to keep demanding an answer you will not even grant as being possible. So it was in the first-century and so it is today.

Perhaps you have experienced this before: the person who quite simply refuses to listen, the person who does not want to hear. They are not only blind to the truth of God, they are deaf to it as well.

·        They were blinded by their religious pedigree. (v.28)

They next resort to one of their favorite tactics of evasion: the retreat to their religious pedigrees.

²⁸ And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

Ah!  Earlier they appealed to Abraham in opposing Jesus. That did not turn out so well in chapter 8. Now they lift up Moses above Jesus. Of course, this man does not yet know enough of Jesus to know that before Moses was, Jesus was. Even so, he surely knows enough to see what is happening here. They fall back on their heritage, on their status as insiders.

Let us be perfectly clear on this: no degree of religious heritage or pedigree or ancestry will save you if you turn from the truth of God. They say, “We are disciples of Moses!” We say, “I come from generations of preachers and teachers and missionaries. I was raised in the Sunday School. My first spoken words were ‘Lottie’ and ‘Moon.’ I have the t-shirt. I’m on the inside.”

Good for you, as far as that goes, but I ask you: just how far does that go? Just how far can your religious heritage take you? I daresay not very far if you are using it to hide from the truth of God in and on your life!

·        They were blinded by their arrogance. (v.29)

And, of course, they were an arrogant people, these who refused to acknowledge what Jesus was doing and Who He was from.

²⁹ We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”

You will notice a repetition of certainty here: “We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”

Their supposed knowledge had become the gold standard and basis by which they judged all things. This is arrogance, plain and simple. It is arrogant to plant your feet in your own mind and refuse to move from that position. It is arrogant to assert more than you can assert.

“We know…” Ah! But that’s the question, isn’t it? Do you really know? On what basis do you claim to know?

They were blinded by their own arrogance.

·        They were blinded by their unteachable hearts. (v.34)

Hand-in-hand with arrogance was the assumption that they could not learn more of God. They were especially incensed at the suggestion that they might learn more of God from such a supposedly-lowly creature as this man.

³⁴ They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

It is always regrettable when a man or woman reaches the point that they do not believe they have anything else to learn about God. It is further regrettable when a man or woman refuses they could learn from a simple person like this man.

God will never shed new light that contradicts His Word, but He may yet shed further light from His Word in our lives. None of us have reached the point where we need learn no more. All of us are pilgrims along the way.

Do not assume, like these who opposed Jesus, that you have nothing more to learn!

We see the spiritual degeneracy of those who opposed Jesus. We will see the spiritual growth of the man who received the miracle. But, in the midst of all, stands Jesus, the Savior, Lord and God of all. He neither falls nor rises in His understanding of God, for He was one with the Father.

Consider what the text reveals about Jesus.

·        Jesus is the initiating giver of light. (v.1)

¹ As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.

Notice that Jesus takes the initiative. He is passing by while the man is stationary. He sees the man while the man cannot see Him. Could there be a better explanation of conversion than this?

We were blind in our sins, lost, sitting in judgment. Then along comes Jesus and He casts eyes of mercy upon us. He sees us and calls to us. He touches us and heals us. He lifts us up and gives us a new song to sing.

Jesus is the initiating giver of light.

·        Jesus is the displayer of God’s glory. (v.2-3)

He gives light and He does so to display God’s glory.

² And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”³ Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Jesus pushes back against the assumption that this man’s blindness is a result of some particular sin. “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

I agree with Theodore of Mopsuestia who pointed out that Jesus is not denying that the man and his parents are sinners. He is simply saying that, in the case of this man’s blindness, sin isn’t the issue. Rather, God wanted to work a miracle so as to display His glory in and through this man.

Let us be humble when seeking to diagnose our problems. We often attribute this or that to “an attack from the devil,” when, in fact, it may simply be a work of God in our lives to the furtherance of His great glory.

Jesus sought to display God’s glory in this man. This dear man becomes, then, the stage on which God decides to move and work. This is what Jesus does in all of His works with His people and with His church. He seeks to bring glory to God by transforming our lives.

·        Jesus is the seeking Savior. (v.35a)

^35a Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said,

Like the one sheep who was lost, the Shepherd leaves the ninety-nine and seeks him out. Jesus is the seeking, searching, loving, reaching Savior. What an amazing picture! Jesus goes to the man and finds him.

·        Jesus is the revealing Savior. (v.35b-37)

Having found Him, Jesus draws this man further into a relationship with Him by revealing who He is:

^35b “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ³⁶ He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” ³⁷ Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.”

Jesus is the revealer. First, He removes the man’s blindness. Now He fixes the man’s gaze upon Himself. Here again we see the divine initiative: the Lord Jesus reveals Himself to the man.

·        Jesus is the judging Savior. (v.39-41)

Finally, the Lord announces judgment on those who reject the work of God or seek to stifle His movements in the world.

³⁹ Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” ⁴⁰ Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” ⁴¹ Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.

Jesus, the Lord of mercy, likewise judges those who refuse to see. The Pharisees were guilty because they should have known the truth of God, because they were the recipients of the Law and prophets, and because they rejected the grace the Lord had shown them. Their guilt remained because they refused to accept the mercy of God in Christ.

And finally we see the man himself. I like this man. He is a character. He seems mildly irritated by the religious controversy in which he finds himself even as he rejoices at what God has done in his life.

I believe it is best to speak of this man as the recipient of dawning light. We see in him a religious awakening, a passage from darkness to light. He has been healed, but he must journey to understand fully what has happened and, more importantly, by what hand it has happened.

The sun rises in his life. The light begins to spread. It illuminates all that he is and all he knows. Let us watch the progression:

·        He acknowledges that something has happened to him. (v.9)

⁹ Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.”

The man begins with the simple fact that something has happened to him. It is not a bad place to start, is it? When we are touched by Christ this is usually the sum total of our testimony in the very beginning. “I can’t explain it to you, but I know something has happened to me.”

·        He recounts what happened. (v.11)

¹¹ He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.”

He is able to recount the events of the miracle. He knows the raw facts: Jesus, mud, blindness, healing. He does not know the theological back story. At this point, how could he? But He knows the sequence of events.

·        He is not in relationship with Jesus. (v.12)

¹² They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

His experience with Jesus is real, but there is no abiding relationship as of yet.

“Where is he?”

“I do not know.”

He has been touched by the Lord, but He does not yet stand in the Lord’s presence. There is still a distance in His own life and mind and understanding.

·        He interprets Jesus through the lens of his spiritual upbringing. (v.17)

When the man ventures a religious explanation, he, of course, employs the religious terminology of his upbringing.

¹⁷ So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”

He does not yet see Jesus as an object of worship, but He knows there is something unique, something special about Him. “He is a prophet.” Again, this is not a bad place to start: a recognition that there is something special about this Jesus.

·        He knows Jesus has power. (v.24-25)

Furthermore, He is a prophet with power, according to this man’s understanding. Do you see the growing light? He is progressing, learning and growing in grace.

²⁴ So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” ²⁵ He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

He disclaims any special knowledge of Jesus, but this he does know: this Jesus is powerful and strong. He has touched him and healed him. He has something that others do not have.

·        He grows uncomfortable with those who oppose Jesus. (v.26-27)

While he does not yet know fully what he believes, he begins to sense that something is amiss with those who refuse to believe.

²⁶ They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” ²⁷ He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”

One need not have a profound knowledge of Jesus to know that there is something wrong with rejecting Him. This is the position of the man. He begins to at least know what He does not believe. He does not believe what these people are saying about Jesus. He does not believe Jesus is a liar, a sinner, a demon.  He does not believe Jesus is a sinner.

If you notice, they are essentially driving this man into the arms of Jesus with their absurd rejection of Jesus! He at least knows enough to know that what they are doing rings false and hollow.

·        He begins to connect Jesus to God. (v.29-33)

The next step is reasonable enough. If the crowd that opposes Jesus is wrong to say that He is not of God, then it must be that He is of God.

²⁹ We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” ³⁰ The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. ³¹ We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. ³² Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. ³³ If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

The sun continues to rise, illuminating his mind and heart. It is still somewhat vague, but it is powerful nonetheless. This unnamed man begins to draw a connection between Jesus and God. “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

His eyes have been healed, but it is almost as if he is only now beginning to see. He sees the imprint of God on this Jesus. It is as if this man begins to entertain amazing thoughts now, thoughts that he never would have considered before. Could this man Jesus be from God in a special way, a unique way?

·        He believes and worships. (v.35-38)

Then he finds himself again in the presence of the Jesus who touched Him. It is an astounding scene of soul-inspiring beauty:

³⁵ Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ³⁶ He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” ³⁷ Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” ³⁸ He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

Finally! His healing is complete! The miracle is no longer a merely physical matter. He has been healed to see the truth and beauty and glory of Jesus. He has been touched by Jesus and his life will never, ever be the same.

The same Jesus calls to us today.

The same crowd opposes this Jesus.

But to those who come, He gives light and life, forevermore.

People say lots of things about Jesus, some good, some bad, some clear, some confused. The adjectives that might be offered for Jesus are too many to be counted. In the church, we have many: glorious, humble, majestic, meek, powerful, mild, strong. The list goes on and on. But I would like, this morning, to add another adjective, one that I believe the gospel of John has earned for Jesus: shocking.

Jesus was shocking.

If you read John’s gospel, which we have been working through for some time now, you will be unable to escape that conclusion. Jesus was shocking. He did shocking things He said shocking things.

At least, that seems to be what the religious authorities who confronted Him felt. It also seems to be what people feel today about Jesus, once they see Him for who He is. For instance, Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford, England, has recently argued that Christians should avoid using Jesus’ language in John 6 when speaking of the Lord’s Supper. In that chapter Jesus speaks of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Bishop Harries writes:

“…people who are groping their way into Christianity can suddenly find themselves shocked and horrified, though they may be too polite to express such feelings, at the sacrificial, cannibalistic language of the Eucharist.”[1]

The Bishop goes on to explain that “it is very shocking imagery and needs a lot of explaining.”

To be sure, we need to make sure that people understand what Jesus said and how He said it. That is, after all, one of the purposes of preaching. But, honestly, can we hope to shield people from the shocking words of Jesus? And, more importantly, should we shield people from the shocking words of Jesus?

Shock has also been the common experience of many great believers in the past. St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest minds the church has ever seen, wrote voluminously on the nature of person of Christ. His works are still read and studied today. Yet, later in his life, Aquinas had a vision of Christ that left him dumfounded. After this vision, he wrote, “I can write no more; compared with what I have seen, all that I have written seems to me as straw.”[2]

Oftentimes, it’s what I feel concerning Jesus as well: shock. Just when I think I know Him or have Him figured out, He catches me off guard with His astounding person, His confounding love, and His amazing grace.

I am shocked by Jesus all of the time.

Jesus is the unexpected, unpredictable, shocking Jesus. In fact, the many scenes we have seen thus far in John seem to start with curiosity, or bewilderment, or opposition, but they almost all end at the same destination: shock. The scenes in John build to a kind of crescendo. The tension builds in those who come to Jesus and press Him. They seem almost unable, at first, to want to hear what Jesus is saying. When they finally do, however, they fall into absolute shock. That shock then translates into either rage and opposition or awe and acceptance.

It happens time and again in John’s gospel, and it happens here in the latter half of John 8 as well. In particular, Jesus reveals three shocking things to His hostile audience.

Jesus has been in a protracted conflict with the Jewish authorities. He has been calling them to a realization of their lostness and a realization of His true nature. They are blinded by their pride and religious blindness. This is evident in their initial claim this morning:

³⁹ They answered him, “Abraham is our father.”

They appeal to Abraham in an effort to bolster their religious credentials. “Abraham is our father.” Translation: “We are sure of our religious heritage. We are sure of the truth. We know who we are. We’re in the club. Our card has been stamped. We’ve got the history and the name and the pedigree. We know ourselves. You we do not know. Abraham is our father.”

Do you see? They are talking about origins, their origins. Abraham is their earthly father, their earthly origin. And, since Abraham was God’s man, they assume their biological pedigree assures their right standing before God. They think they know who their father is, but they do not.

Jesus responds by calling them out on their pretension assumptions:

Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did,⁴⁰ but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. ⁴¹ You are doing the works your father did.”

Ah! If Abraham was their father they would act like Abraham, and one thing Abraham definitely did was seek God’s will. If they were truly Abraham’s children, they would love what Abraham loved; they would love the things of God. They would, in other words, love Jesus, who was sent by the Father.

They respond to Jesus’ words with a none-too-subtle insult:

They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”

Many people believe that, in saying this, the Jews were making an allusion to Jesus’ scandalous birth. This should be read with the accent on the “we”: “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father – even God.” In other words, they were suggesting that Jesus’ birth was the result of His mother being immoral. Many believe they were taking a veiled shot at Jesus, to use our terminology.

This is likely. No doubt rumors of Jesus’ shocking birth went ahead of Him wherever He went. And no doubt many made subtle and not-so-subtle accusations concerning what they considered the unseemly nature of Jesus birth.

Undeterred, Jesus takes the issue of origins to the next level by revealing to them the true nature of their father and, consequently, of their thoughts concerning Him. What He does is, to put it mildly, shocking.

⁴² Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. ⁴³ Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. ⁴⁴ You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵ But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. ⁴⁶ Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? ⁴⁷ Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

I defy anyone to deny that these words are immeasurably jarring: “You are of your father the devil.”

He is speaking to the religious leaders of the land. He’s speaking to those who were considered to be the most godly, the most orthodox in their theology, the most doctrinally sound. This is what people thought of these leaders. It also happens to be what they thought of themselves.

And Jesus, the shocking Messiah King, walks right through the awe they were accustomed to eliciting and the politeness they were used to receiving and says something that was staggering in its offensiveness.

“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s will.”

Their minds must have reeled in horrified sickness at the very thought that Satan, the devil, was their father. After all, they have just reminded Him that Abraham was their father.  Their objections to Jesus arose, therefore, from His, Jesus’, supposed divergence from the Abrahamic faith of the Jews. Their objections, in their minds, arose from their careful study of the Word of God, from their awareness of the rules and what they saw as Jesus’ violation of them, from their status as the religious gatekeepers. Their objections to Jesus arose, in their minds, from God Himself. They were, they thought, God’s men and this Jesus, they thought, was from the devil.

Jesus has the audacity to say to them that their true father is the devil, that they have been blinded to the truth of God, and that their minds are ensnared by the “father of lies” to such an extent that they can no longer hear or stand or abide by the truth?! Jesus dares to say to these religious upper-crusts that what they think is the truth of God concerning Jesus is really a lie from Satan concerning Jesus?! Jesus actually says that these men who live, eat, sleep, breath, study, work, talk, sing, and pray God “are not of God”?!

This is mind-boggling. Not only have these men misunderstood the nature of the origins of their disbelief, they are, in fact, completely wrong about it. They saw the origins of their disbelief as emanating from God. Jesus told them that their disbelief came from Satan himself.

Of course, we are tempted to applaud this bare-knuckled approach of Jesus. “Get ‘em, Jesus,” we cry. “Get ‘em! Let ‘em have it! That’s right! They are of the devil. They oppose you because the devil is their father! Get ‘em!”

Before you gloat, though, consider: Jesus’ words mean that all opposition to Jesus, all failure to believe and follow Jesus, all hesitancy to walk with Jesus is from the devil Himself. This means that the truth concerning the origins opposition to Jesus applies not only to the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, but also to us when we do not wish to follow Him.

Of course, we have profoundly subtle ways of getting around opposing Jesus. None of us would say we oppose Jesus! But do we not struggle to really believe Jesus? Do we not struggle to follow? If we are honest, are there not times (more frequent than we would care to admit), when we ignore this or that part of Jesus’ teachings, when we fail to follow Him in this or that part of our lives?

If the Jews were following Satan when they refused to follow and believe, who are good Baptist people following when we fail to follow and believe?

“Ah,” we say, “it is not the same thing. No, I’m not a perfect follower, but my sins are different from the sins of these men. Their sins were diabolical, wicked, evil and Satanic. My sins, though, are just mistakes, oversights, occasional errors.”

Unfortunately, the words of Jesus will not allow these kinds of evasive tactics. He has ripped the polite veneer off the horrifying reality of all sin, all disobedience, all refusals to follow. He has revealed a stark, startling and, frankly, simple truth: at any moment, on any given day, regardless of who you are, you are either following the Lord Jesus or advancing the cause of Satan.

What an unsettling but potentially life-altering truth! What if we could see all of our actions as resting in either one of two spheres of reality: Jesus’ or the devil’s?

The Jews who opposed Jesus needed to see the reality of the origins of their opposition to Jesus, and so do we. The hard truth is this: our opposition to Jesus is not because we lack this or that gift that would enable us to follow this or that aspect of His teachings. Our opposition is not because we simply make mistakes. Our sins are not mere errors. The hard truth is that the devil himself is always vying for our affections, and we, in our foolishness, to avoid the uncomfortable aspects of Jesus, often grant Satan our affections.

Be aware of the shocking truth concerning the origins of our often-subtle opposition to Jesus.

That is not all. Jesus next reveals the shocking truth about the future of believers in Christ.

They respond to Jesus’ assertion concerning the diabolical origins of their disbelief by trying to turn that table on Jesus:

⁴⁸ The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

Once again, Jesus moves to the heart of the matter. In doing so, His words continue in their incendiary vein:

⁴⁹ Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. ⁵⁰ Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. ⁵¹ Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”

“You are the devil!” they cry.

“Not so,” Jesus answers, in essence. “I am of God, and whoever comes to me will never die.”

“Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my words, he will never see death.”

They have only just managed to pick their jaws up off the ground after Jesus’ last revelation, and now this. Not only does He deny their accusations concerning His alleged demonic origins, He tells them that Satan is their father, that God is His Father, and that whoever keeps His word will have eternal life. A cynical man might almost think Jesus was trying to incite them, but that is not the case. The fact is that the truth of Jesus is simply shocking and the carnal mind cannot receive it.

The Jews argue that their salvation is in their past. Jesus reveals that our salvation is secured in the present and set for the future.

If you will come to Jesus, you will live forever! You will never die!

Thus far, Jesus has revealed something shocking about those who oppose Him (their father is the devil) and about those who come to Him (they will never die). He saves the most shocking revelation for the end, and it concerns His own person.

The Jews begin to see the implications of Jesus’ words, and they scoff at Him.

⁵² The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ ⁵³ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?”

There it is: “Who do you make yourself out to be?” That’s the question that keeps recurring. It’s also the question that Jesus has already answered countless times in a myriad of different ways.   They are completely unprepared for His answer:

⁵⁴ Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ ⁵⁵ But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. ⁵⁶ Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” ⁵⁷ So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” ⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Jesus has offended. Jesus has startled. Now, to the ears of His audience, Jesus has blasphemed.

“Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

“You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”

“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was…I am.”

I love how Eugene Peterson puts this in The Message: “Believe me,” said Jesus, “I am who I am long before Abraham was anything.”

Their reaction is unmitigated rage:

⁵⁹ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am,” and they immediately try to kill Him.

It is the most shocking thing Jesus says in this episode.  It is one of the most shocking thing Jesus ever said.

Abraham, the patriarch of the faith, the father of the Jews, the greatest of the greats, had been dead for many years. His name was revered. His memory was sacred. To use a weak analogy, but one that might help, think of how we feel about the name “George Washington”…but then multiply that times a million. To take this further, imagine if I had come in today and started my sermon like this: “George Washington was thrilled to see the day that Wyman Richardson was born.” Well, that would sound absurd, and, in fact, that would be absurd.

Again, you must take that situation and magnify it times infinity to get close to understanding what is happening when Jesus says, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. Before Abraham was, I am.”

In saying this, Jesus was making two astounding claims. First, He was claiming to be pre-existent. “Before Abraham was, I am.” In its simplest form this meant that Jesus claimed to exist before Abraham.

Let us be clear: Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but Jesus did not begin in Bethlehem.  There has never been a time when Jesus was not. He is the pre-existent, eternal, always-there Jesus. He is “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). Jesus never began. He is the beginning. So Jesus could rightfully say, “Before Abraham was, I…”

But added to this statement of pre-existence is a radical claim of divinity: “Before Abraham was, I am.” This “I am” is the name and title of Yahweh God. In Exodus 3, Moses haggles with God over God’s commission for Moses to go to Pharaoh on behalf of the Israelites:

¹³ Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”

God told Moses that His name was “I am.”

Jesus tells the Jews, “Before Abraham was, I am.”

It is a flabbergasting couplet of claims: pre-existence (“Before Abraham was…”) and divinity (“…I am.”) The two together constitute a massive and shocking claim. It enraged these Jews and they tried to kill Him for saying it. It enrages people still today.

Even so, others hear these truths and come to Jesus. They are no less shocked by them, but they see the logical progression:

1.      Outside of Christ we are enslaved to the devil.

2.      If we come to Christ we will be set free and will live.

3.      Christ is able to do this because He is the pre-existent divine Christ who has the authority to pronounce forgiveness and give life.

Jesus is the God-man who frees us from the power of the devil, of sin, of death and of hell by defeating the devil on the cross and in the empty tomb. Jesus lays down His life for His sheep and He grants life and hope and joy and forgiveness to all who will come.

Will you come?

Come.

Come to the shocking Savior.

Come to Him and live.

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The first concentration camp to be opened in Nazi Germany was Dachau. It was, like all concentration camps, a place of unspeakable horror. Prisoners were worked to exhaustion and many were gassed to death in the camp showers.

I’d like to show you the main gate leading to the entrance of the camp. Here it is:

Inscribed on the gate are the German words “Arbeit Macht Frei.” The words mean “Work Sets You Free.” They were placed at the entrance to Dachau and a number of other concentration camps by SS General Theodore Eicke.

People debate today Eicke’s exact motives for putting these words over the concentration camps: “Work Sets You Free.” Was it a deliberate mockery of the enslaved prisoners? Did he honestly intend to communicate that those prisoners who worked the hardest and served the most faithfully would survive longer and may eventually be freed? Or was he simply calling for conformity and obedience?

Whatever Eicke’s motives were, these words – “Work Sets You Free” – were, in fact, a derisive mockery of all those unfortunate souls who passed through the gates of Dachau and Auschwitz and other camps. They were a mockery because the prisoners were forced to work but most never saw the promised freedom. In fact, they were worked to exhaustion then discarded.

In Dachau, there was a playwright named Jura Soyfer and a composer named Herbert Zipper. They worked in the camp as “horses” and hauled carloads of heavy stone through the camp. All the while, they worked under the shadow of these words: “Work Sets You Free.” They saw the terrible irony of these mocking words, “Work Sets You Free.” They knew that their work was not setting them free. In truth, it was only making their imprisonment worse. So they responded by secretly writing the “Dachau Song” in September 1938. The song spoke sarcastically of the false hope of freedom found in the words on the gate. It was soon learned by other prisoners. It went:

Barbed wire, loaded with death
is drawn around our world.
Above a sky without mercy
sends frost and sunburn.
Far from us are all joys,
far away our homeland, far away our women,
when we march to work in silence
thousands of us at the break of day.
But we have learned the solution of Dachau
and became as hard as steel:
Be a man, comrade,
stay a human being, comrade,
do a good job, get to it, comrade,
for work, work makes you free!

I think we can all sympathize with the bitterness of these words. Not by experience, of course, but in solidarity we surely understand why these men would reject this false promise of freedom. After all, a false freedom is a true slavery. We should distrust false freedoms.

Yet, we can be blinded to false freedoms as well, no? In truth, you might say that our nation in particular is prone to blindness in this area. We like to think of ourselves as free, and, in a sense, we are. We have political freedom, and we should thank God for that great gift. But political freedom is freedom of the soul, is it?  In other ways, we are the most enslaved “free” people in the world, are we not?

In 2009, Greek Orthodox theologian and philosopher, David Bentley Hart, published his astounding book, Atheist Delusions. In it, he argued that modern people have elevated freedom to the place of the ultimate good and ideal. He also argues, though, that our freedom is essentially a kind of nihilism, a belief in nothing. Whereas earlier philosophers spoke of true freedom as the freedom to become what we should become, modern people have defined freedom simply as the freedom to do what we want. But this is an empty freedom. More than that, it is a kind of slavery, for it enslaves us to our own desires. Hart explains:

“It is, at the very least, instructive to realize that our freedom might just as well be seen – from certain more antique perspectives – as a kind of slavery: to untutored impulses, to empty caprice, to triviality, to dehumanizing values. And it can do no harm occasionally to ask where a concept of freedom whose horizon is precisely and necessarily nothing – a concept that is, as I have said, nihilist in the most exact sense – ultimately leads.”[1]

This is a valid point. Like the Jews to whom Christ spoke in our text this morning, we have deluded ourselves into thinking that we are free when, in reality, many of us are slaves. There are men and women in Arkansas who are enslaved to their jobs. They would never say so, of course, but, in truth, many are. There are people all around enslaved to this or that addiction, this or that need, this or that desire. People are enslaved by money, by power, by sex, by religion, by vanity, by their own desires.

We are an enslaved people, if we look at it rightly, but there is freedom to be had, and it can be found in Christ.

The Lord Jesus begins by speaking to those who profess to believe in Him.

^31a So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him,

Now this is a fascinating and troubling verse. It is fascinating because, if you recall, verse 30 revealed to us that many believed on Jesus after He spoke of Himself as the light of the world. So our text last week ended with people believing in Jesus and our text this morning begins with Jesus speaking “to the Jews who had believed in him.”

The trouble comes in the question of whether or not those who believed in verse 30 are the same as those who believe here in verse 31. It is troubling because those to whom Jesus speaks in verse 31 will, in a short period of time, turn on Jesus and want to destroy Him.

Some suggest that the believers in verse 30 are a different group; that they were true believers but that they departed before the episode beginning in verse 31 commenced. Others suggest that this group is the same but it is a mixed bag: there are true believers among them and then others who did not really believe at all but only professed to do so.

Regardless, this much is certain from what follows: there are those who profess to be believers, who claim to have trusted in Christ, but who have never truly believed and who have no real intention of following Jesus. There are people who will say, “I believe!” but who will then turn around, when they get a real look at who Jesus is and what it means to follow Him, and will hate Jesus and want to destroy Him.

These people in verse 31 claim to believe, and Jesus immediately responds with a conditional statement:

^31b “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, ³² and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

“If…” That is crucial. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.”

To be a believer is to (a) abide in Christ and (b) become a disciple.

This is no mere shallow, surface belief. This is no mere assent of the mind to an idea. This, on the contrary, is a giving of the entire self to Christ Jesus, a laying of one’s life at the feet of Jesus, and the resignation of one’s will to the purposes of Jesus.

They believe, but not really.

They believe, but they do not abide.

I used to meet with a group of men for a time of prayer each week. We would meet, give voice to our requests, praises, and concerns, then pray together. One young man was particularly earnest in his prayers. He consistently prayed with great passion and seriousness in the name of Jesus Christ.

Sometime later I noticed that this man began to be increasingly absent from church. I emailed him to inquire as to his whereabouts. He responded by telling me that he had been spending a good bit of time studying a particular brand of Judaism with a man on the internet. He later shared with me that he no longer believed in Jesus Christ. When I asked him to clarify exactly what he meant, he shared with me that he no longer believed in the deity of Christ, Christ’s atonement on the cross, or the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. He told me that he now rejected, with no hesitation, the content of the Christian message. When I informed him that I wanted to talk face-to-face, he refused. When I told him that I intended to show up at his house to talk, he informed me that he was more than capable of handling himself and that I had best not step foot on his property.

It was a heartbreaking and bewildering thing, and one I think about often. When this became increasingly public, people would ask about how to understand what had happened. The bottom-line question seemed to be, “What does this mean? Was he a believer or not?”

Of course, the easy thing to say is that, no, he had never believed. I think, though, that that answer was problematic for those of us who had prayed with him on numerous occasions. True, it could be that he never believed. But it also could be that he had a kind of belief that never developed into genuine conviction and discipleship.

How about you? Are you abiding in Christ, walking with Him as a disciple of His daily? Are you abiding in His word, taking nourishment from His will and His glory? Or have you merely said at some point, many years ago, “Yeah, I believe in that”?

^31b “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, ³² and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

It is not until we believe in such a way that we abide that we are truly disciples. Only then, Jesus says, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

True freedom is given to those who truly follow Jesus. True freedom is found in enacted faith. “Faith alone saves,” someone has said, “but faith that saves is not alone.”

You might be here this morning and you might say, “It doesn’t work. Christianity doesn’t work. I asked Jesus into my heart. I go to church. I put money in the plate. But it doesn’t work. I don’t feel free. I still feel defeated. I still am defeated. It doesn’t work.”

But you must understand that you can do all of those things and not truly be a disciple. Are you daily walking with Jesus? Have you embraced His life as your own? On Monday morning, at work, at school, at home, are you walking with Jesus?

Jesus said that He came to make us free and that, when He does so, He will make us free indeed. Jesus gives perfect freedom, but He gives it to those who abide.

In truth, many are frustrated at their lack of freedom but they do not wish to abide. They wish, instead, to live off the inertia of some prayer they prayed as a child. Some people say, “I have trusted in Jesus but I still don’t feel free.” To some the answer should be, “I expect you don’t. You prayed a prayer when you were eight, but you haven’t prayed earnestly to the Lord in the thirty-five years since. You haven’t opened your Bible to drink from the Word of God in decades. You prayed a prayer, but you are not abiding. How do you expect freedom to come to one who will not follow?”

Jesus sets free all who come to Him in faith, but this is not a faith of mere words. It is an enacted, living, trusting, abiding faith.

The Jews respond to Jesus’ promise of freedom with an astounding audacity.

³³ They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

On the face of it, this is patently absurd! What do they mean, “We…have never been enslaved to anyone”? But of course they have! They have just finished celebrating the Festival of Booths in which they recalled God’s gracious delivery of His people in their wilderness wanderings. They wandered in the wilderness when they were delivered from Egypt…where they had been slaves.

The Jews had indeed been enslaved! They had been enslaved to the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Persians. They were currently enslaved to Rome.

Such is the pride of man that it cannot even see its own enslavement. It was that way two millennia ago. It is that way today. Pride blinds us to slavery

I grew up in South Carolina. I grew up aware of the fact that my home state was the first to secede from the Union and the last to rejoin. The Civil War began off the coast of Charleston when Citadel cadets fired on Union troops in Fort Sumter. I grew up aware of this, but I wasn’t always clear on the fact that we lost.

I grew up hearing people say, “Lee surrendered! I didn’t!” Or, “The South’s gonna rise again!”

Such is pride. It was not until later in life that I thought, “You know, we lost. We lost!”

It’s a hard thing to say, isn’t it? Pride blinds us to the truth of things.

Pride had blinded the Jews to their enslavement. They were wrong, politically. They had been enslaved. But Jesus did not even respond to their obvious mistake. He responded, instead, to the deeper issue of their deeper captivity:

³⁴ Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

“You are slaves now,” He seems to say, “for you are slaves to sin.”

Forget their historical gloss for a moment. They were living in the current enslavement of sin. They were enslaved in their sin, their self-righteousness and their flesh. They did not realize their own captivity for their pride blinded them to their chains.

Listen very closely: it is difficult to receive freedom when you refuse to see that you are a slave.

Ours is the land of the tough guy and the true man. We want Jesus to be Lord, but we also want ourselves to be Clint Eastwood. We would like to say, “Jesus saved me…but I could handle things myself either way.” We are a nation of self-starters, pioneers and cowboys.

It is hard for Americans to say, “I am a slave.”

Just try that: “I…am…a…slave.”

We shudder at the very suggestion and protest with declarations of our own strength and power. But let us be clear about this: outside of the grace and mercy and deliverance of Jesus Christ, we are slaves. You have not freed yourself. Jesus is not merely a partner in your freedom. He is freedom!

Jesus says to the Jews, “I can make you free!” They respond, “We already are.”

How do you respond? Do you honestly believe that the only chance you have for freedom is to abide in, live with, and walk with Jesus? Is He your freedom?

Jesus next speaks of the quality of the freedom He gives.

³⁵ The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. ³⁶ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Our only hope is the freedom that Jesus gives. Political freedom is temporary. The freedom we think we gain for ourselves is illusory. Economic freedom is transient and unstable.

We need a freedom greater than the freedom we think we have.

The slave has no hope in and of himself. “The slave does not remain in the house forever.”

Outside of Christ, we are slaves to sin. When sin has had its way with us, it will destroy us and cast us aside. But what if the Son of the Master were to give you freedom? What if somebody in the family were to secure your deliverance?

Jesus is the Son who sets the slaves free.

Do you remember when Jesus went home and went to the synagogue? Do you remember when he preached back home? Luke 4 records the story, and it is fascinating indeed.

¹⁶ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. ¹⁷And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

²⁰And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Amazing! Astounding! Jesus claimed to be the fulfillment of the prophetic promise of coming freedom. He claimed to fulfill in His person that which Isaiah had said was coming. Isaiah said, “Freedom is coming!” Jesus responded, “It has and you’re looking at it.”

Jesus is freedom.

But how? How is He freedom? How does He set us free?

Here is the scandal of the gospel: He sets us free by becoming a slave Himself. He sets us free by taking our slavery onto and into Himself. He sets us free by paying the price for our freedom. He pays the price for our freedom on the cross. In His crucifixion, He breaks loose the shackles that bind us. His cross is the key that fits the lock of our enslavement and sets us free.

Jesus is free and He makes us free by dying in our place. Christ was the free man, and He was never more free than we He stood in the center of the Father’s will and died in our stead.

This means, amazingly, that our freedom is found in His enslavement. Our liberty is found in His captivity. Our life is found in His death. We find freedom on a hill of curses. We find liberation on the cross where they killed our Savior. And, ultimately, we find life in an empty tomb. When Jesus burst forth on Easter morning, He brought us with Him. The veil was torn in two, but so were the jail cells, the executioners’ blocks, the prisons, the dungeons, the manacles, the handcuffs, the slave markets, the whips, and the fears that enslave us.

Christ’s freedom frees us all. Or, in the words of Pennar Davies:

“Christ is the Free Man. Look at him, my soul, at his nakedness, his blood, his sweat. The Eternal Prisoner! The soldiers beat him, cursing and laughing drunkenly. They feel that they represent a higher civilization than his, a richer culture and an infinitely better race. In each blow there is contempt and greed. Are not the Roman soldiers masters of the world?

            Even in his anguish and shame Christ takes pity on the soldiers in their captivity.

            He is the Free Man. Gaze on him, my soul. Does he have wealth, worldly power, an influential position in the organization of the country? No. He has nothing but a body now and the soldiers treat that body as they please. Flesh, blood, skin, bones, hair – he has only these things now, and the kingdom of Hell wants to take these things from him.

            Look at him my soul. He is a Free Man; the only free man in Jerusalem.

            Pilate’s empire is a prison; Caiaphas’ religion is a prison; Judas’ dream is a prison; Peter’s confusion is a prison; Herod’s ambition is a prison; having been freed from his cell Barabbas’ rebellious movement is a prison. Christ alone is free.

            My soul stands with him. There, by his side, under the lash of soldiers, freedom is to be found.”[2]

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I have mentioned before Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Kerenina.  It is one of the most famous stories outside of the Bible of a woman caught in adultery. In the story, Anna is an adulterous woman who is having an affair with a man named Vronsky. That novel’s fame is justified. In it, Tolstoy explores the realities and challenges of sin, forgiveness, justice, and faith in a fascinating way.

There’s a poignant scene in the story in which two characters, Stepan Arkadyevitch and Levin, are discussing women who have fallen into sin. Levin is hard and unyielding in his condemnation of fallen women. He says that women who fall into sin are “vermin” and are detestable to him.

When he says this, Levin reminds him of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. After all, the woman in John 8 was an adulterous woman, but Jesus forgave her and did not condemn her. In fact, Jesus famously turned to her accusers and said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” When he points this out to Stepan Arkadyevitch, Arkadyevitch responds:

“Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He had known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those words are the only ones remembered.”

He then moves on to continue his tirade against women who have fallen into sin.

It’s an interesting scene. Stepan Arkadyevitch argues that the words, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” have been abused and taken out of their context. Now, he does so because these words challenge his hatred of women who have fallen into sin. Mercy challenges Arkadyevitch’s hatred.

But is Stepan Arkadyevitch right? Has this scene in John 8 been twisted to justify any and all sin regardless of repentance? Have they been abused?

In a sense, it would seem that Arkadyevitch is correct, at least to some extent. This episode has indeed been used out of context to justify various behaviors. Most people remember the words “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” but very few remember the words, “Go and sin no more.”

I recall some years back when Madonna released her “Like a Prayer” music video. It was unbelievably blasphemous and offensive. Shortly after that, she was touring in Italy and the Vatican publicly expressed its outrage. I recall her quoting these words to the media gathered at the Italian airport: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” She claimed those words, but she didn’t pull the video.

So, yes, when these words are divorced from the subsequent call to repentance that Jesus issues, they can be, and often have been, distorted into a kind of license. This scene can be abused.

But let us be perfectly clear here: just because the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ has been abused by those who would distort it to their own agendas does not mean that we should abandon the mercy and grace of Christ! In truth, we need this story so desperately that I don’t know how to stress it in strong enough terms.

All good things are open to abuse and the greatest things are open to the greatest abuse.  But this doesn’t undo their greatness. In this scene, the Lord Jesus shows such unbelievable mercy, grace, and forgiveness that the mind boggles at seeing it. Along the way, he challenges the scribes and Pharisees in their own self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

It’s an amazing scene, and one that we should carefully consider today.

The setting of this scene is straightforward enough:

¹ but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ² Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. ³ The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst

Sometimes you don’t have to find trouble. Sometimes it finds you.

Jesus is in the temple and He is teaching the people. Unlike the previous scene of conflict surrounding His teaching, there is an air of relative calm here. It’s early in the morning and He’s sitting, teaching the people.

Into this scene barge a group of religious leaders. The scribes were something like lawyers. Sometimes they were called by that very term. They were experts in interpreting the Old Testament Law. The Pharisees were a conservative party within Judaism that wanted to insure the purity of religious practice and devotion.

The come to Jesus and put before Him a sinful woman.

⁴ they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women.

On the face of it, they are correct. In Leviticus 20, the Law says:

¹⁰“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

In Deuteronomy 20, the Law says:

²² “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

On the surface of it, then, these religious elites are correct. This woman is, in fact, guilty under the Law of adultery and the penalty for her sin is, in fact, death. Even so, there are problems here, as our text reveals next:

^5b So what do you say?” ⁶ This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.

They appear simply to desire the opinion of Jesus on a legal matter, but verse 6 reveals to us that their motives are impure and self-serving: “This they said to him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.”

It has been noted by commentators on this text that, in reality, Jesus, not the woman, is on trial here. It is Jesus they are seeking to trap and Jesus they seek to destroy. The woman is merely a pawn in their game.

The specific dilemma they are seeking to force Jesus into is two-fold. On the one hand, if Jesus does not call for the enforcement of the Law in this situation, they can bring against Him a charge of sin, disobedience to the Law. They may also seek to charge Him with blasphemy, of elevating Himself above the Law. On the other hand, if Jesus does call for the enforcement of the Law, He violates Roman law since the Romans did not allow subjected peoples to carry out capital punishment. In this sense, the Jews could report Jesus to the Romans for sedition if He sought to disobey Roman law by enforcing the Jewish Law.

The Jews are seeking to cast Jesus onto the horns of a dilemma, to trap Him, as it were, in an inescapable trap. But in so doing they themselves contaminated the Law with an impure and vicious spirit.

We may think here of King Herod who pretended to want to worship the baby Jesus when all he really wanted was to destroy Jesus. The come with false pretences to Jesus, for they seek to destroy Him. In doing so, they make themselves blasphemers of the Law that they would pretend to treasure.

So it is whenever the people of God seek to use the Word of God for selfish gain. More generally, we do this whenever we seek to enforce justice with impure motives. We even recognize this in children and seek to squash it. For instance, how many of you have ever had one child repeatedly tattle on another child? After a while, even if the tattling is true, you turn on the tattler and reprimand him or her for doing so. Why? Because their motives are tainted and impure.

A few years back I did some work in the area of church discipline. In the process of that work, I studied a number of instances of church discipline in Baptist churches and churches of other denominations throughout the years. One of the things I discovered that I found very interesting was that many Baptist churches would bring church discipline against the accuser of another brother or sister in Christ if they found that the accuser’s motives were impure or hypocritical. If, for instance, you were trying to utilize the ministry of church discipline to grind a personal axe, to advance a personal agenda, to harm another person, or with disregard for your own sinfulness, you could be excommunicated alongside or instead of the one you were accusing.

It is a dangerous thing to use the Word of God with impure motives. An impure enforcement of the Word of God is as deplorable today as it was in this scene when men with impure hearts sought to tear the Law from the heart of scripture and use it as a weapon against the Lord Jesus Himself.

Not only were this woman’s accusers’ motives impure, their application of the Law was selective. Their sinfully selective application of the Law was revealed in Jesus’ fascinating response to their questioning of Him and their demand of justice.

To begin, Jesus does something very, very odd. It is, quite frankly, one of the more puzzling passages in all of scripture. It is tantalizing for what it does not say:

Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

He bends down and writes on the ground. Again, this is tantalizing because we do not know with certainty what Jesus wrote. Of course, lack of information has never restrained Christian people from guessing, and so it is with this text. While we will never know for sure, some of the theories about what Jesus wrote are more compelling than others. For instance:

·        One of the more interesting and ancient theories involves Jeremiah 17:13. That verse reads:

“O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water.”

St. Augustine and St. Jerome both appealed to this verse as a possible explanation of Jesus writing in the sand. Jeremiah foretold a time in which “those who turn away” from the Lord “shall be written in the earth. Was this prophecy being fulfilled here? Perhaps Jesus was writing the names of these self-righteous scribes and Pharisees in the earth.

·        Or was the medium the message here? Some see significance in the fact that Jesus writes in the dirt, a temporary, shifting medium. Whatever He wrote or drew there would not last. Since the scribe and Pharisees were appealing to the Law of God, which was written in stone, was Jesus perhaps making a statement of contrast by writing or drawing in the dirt, on a temporary medium? Perhaps He wrote the word “adultery” in the sand. The Law, in other words, is eternal. It is written in stone. But our sins can be forgiven. Perhaps Jesus wrote her sins (or their sins?) in the earth to foretell that she (and they?) could be and would be forgiven.

·        Or did it relate to the Law in a different manner? Is the significant fact that He wrote in the dirt with His finger? After all, they are appealing to the Law. This woman has violated one of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments, as they well knew, were written by the finger of God Himself. So was this a symbolic prophetic statement by Jesus concerning His own deity? By writing with His finger, was Jesus pointing to the irony of the situation: that these scribes and Pharisees were trying to catch with the Law the very One who wrote the Law?

·        Others suggest that these theories make more of this episode than is really there. It has been suggested that Jesus is simply delaying, trying to let the situation cool down a bit. Perhaps this is the case, though I find it unlikely, personally.

·        The theories, as you can imagine, go on and on. Was Jesus writing out the sins of the woman’s accusers? Was He writing the name of the man with whom she had committed adultery, but who was not brought to this impromptu trial with her? Was Jesus possibly writing the names of those among the accusers who had committed adultery themselves?

·        Regardless, there is another explanation which is certainly true: we have no idea! That’s the most unsatisfying answer, of course, but also the most accurate. We will simply have to wait until we can ask the Lord…though when that time comes this detail will be the furthest thing from our minds.

Whatever He wrote or drew, the delay seemed to agitate His questioners even more.

⁷ And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸ And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.

It is a tricky thing to try to throw the Lord Jesus onto the horns of a dilemma, as these religious elites learned. Jesus once again goes to the heart of the matter: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

These words are justly hailed and widely remembered by all who have heard them. They reflect divine insight and staggering perceptiveness. They cut to the quick by putting their proverbial finger on the very issue that has lurked behind this episode all along: hypocrisy.

These leaders are being hypocritical. For one thing, in their appeal to the Law concerning the woman’s adultery they were breaking the Law, for the Law clearly called for the execution of both the man and the woman. Since they said they caught the woman “in the act,” that means they knew who the man was. But where was the man? Some have suggested that one of the woman’s accusers was the man in question. Who knows? Regardless, by appealing to the Law at the same time they were breaking the Law, they made themselves hypocrites.

But something else is going on here as well. In Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:

²⁷ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ²⁸ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Jesus said that any man who had looked upon a woman to lust after her had committed adultery in his heart. Whether one of the woman’s accusers was the adulterous man in this situation or not, Jesus is turning the searing, stinging light of their own judgment back upon them.

“This woman has sinned,” the men sneer. “And what about you,” Jesus seems to be saying.

It is an easy thing to become preoccupied with the sins of others, isn’t it? It is easy to see the adultery in another while ignore the adultery in our own lives. “But,” you might say, “I have never committed adultery.” According to Jesus adultery is more than the physical act. Adultery is a condition of the heart and mind. One may be an adulterer and never have physically committed the act.  Such was certainly the case with at least some of these men. It is possible that some of them had committed adultery with this very woman in their minds or were doing so at this very time when they were condemning her.

They are preoccupied with this woman’s sins while neglecting their own. We do this all of the time, don’t we?

After fifteen years of preaching, I never cease to marvel at the back door of the church when somebody comes by and says, “That was a good sermon, preacher. There were a few people here who really needed to hear that!”

I always think, “Really?! Are you kidding me? You are listening to sermons for others? What about you?”

And what about you? Have you ever been guilty of seeing the sin in another’s life while overlooking it in your own? Have you ever judged somebody when, if you’re honest, you know that you’re just as guilty as him or her, and maybe in the exact same area?

I think Shakespeare put this well in The Merchant of Venice when he wrote:

“Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy.”

Jesus asks them, in essence, to consider whether or not they could stand under their own standard of justice. Jesus tells them to stone the woman only if they are less guilty. His response hits the mark, for He knew their hearts. Their reaction is telling:

⁹ But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

They knew – from oldest to youngest – that Jesus had other-worldly insightfulness into their hearts and minds. They knew, when they were honest with themselves, that they were as guilty as this woman. And they knew that they had been selective in their application of the Law, applying it to the woman but not to themselves.

So they depart and leave the woman standing before Jesus.

Jesus now turns to the woman and addresses her. You will note, I hope, that Jesus is the only one in the story to acknowledge the woman’s existence as a human being. He is the only one in the story to address her directly. And what He says is astounding:

¹⁰ Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

Jesus does not condemn her. She is guilty, but Jesus shows her grace. This is shocking grace, scandalous grace, the kind of grace that self-righteous Pharisees are rarely ever able to grasp. I like how Julie Stoner captured the essence of the offensiveness of Jesus’ grace in her poem, “I Did Not Come to Call the Righteous”:

We ninety-nine obedient sheep;

we workers hired at dawn’s first peep;

we faithful sons who strive to please,

forsaking prodigalities;

we virgins who take pains to keep

our lamps lit, even in our sleep;

we law-abiding Pharisees;

we wince at gospels such as these.[1]

Indeed, our self-righteousness winces at this kind of grace, but in our minds and hearts we know we need this. This word – “Neither do I condemn you.” – is the very essence of the gospel. Paul put it like this in Romans 7:

¹ There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

When we come to Christ, we pass from condemnation to freedom, from death to life, from darkness to light. When we look closely at this text, though, I think we can conclude two important things about this freedom from condemnation.

First of all, I believe it is reasonable and right to see the woman’s repentance as implicit in Jesus’ forgiveness. “Go; and from now on, sin no more.” Jesus knows that her heart has been captured by grace. But would she have been free from the condemnation of the Law had she responded, “No. I will take your gift, but I reject You. I reject You, Jesus, and I choose my adultery instead”?

Would Jesus have reassembled her executioners to recommence the stoning?  No. I think not. But if she would have rejected Christ would she have remained under the condemnation of the Law? Yes. She would have.

“Neither do I condemn you” is not a license for further sin, a kind of “Get Out of Jail Free” card that we throw down haughtily to escape the guilt of our sin. Jesus’ point in this passage is clearly not that sin is without consequence and guilt. Rather, His point is that, in Him, sins can be forgiven.

And this leads to our second conclusion about Jesus’ lack of condemnation. Not only was this linked with the woman’s repentance and acceptance of Christ, but it was also linked with the person and work of Jesus on the cross.

Let me explain.

One of the things we must realize is that Jesus never condemns the Law itself in this passage. The Law of God, the demand for holiness, and the evil of sin are divine truths. Adultery is sin in the eyes of God. Adultery is a condemnable offense in the eyes of God. Adultery does fall under the judgment of God.

The Lord Jesus never condemned the Law itself. In Matthew 5, the Lord Jesus says:

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.²⁰ For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

I repeat: the point of this story is not that the Law is bad. The Law – that which defines what is honoring to God and what is dishonorable – is rooted in the holy character of an immutable God. Adultery is wrong now and always.

So the woman has broken the Law, and she is under condemnation. That is right and just in and of itself. There is a penalty for breaking a law, and that penalty stands until paid for. But Jesus tells the woman that He does not condemn her (which, I hope you will notice, is an amazing statement of His own divinity and authority).

So that raises a very interesting question: if the Law rightly condemns, and if the woman has broken the Law, and if the condemnation of the Law stands until payment is exacted, then how can Jesus say she is not condemned? If Jesus says she is not condemned, then what has happened to her condemnation? Has it simply evaporated? No. For the penalty to disappear the Law itself would have to disappear and the Law of God is eternal and right.

So where is the condemnation that legally goes with her violation of the Law?

Or, to put it another way: who pays the price for this sin?

Somebody has to pay for this woman’s adultery. If, as Jesus says, it is not the woman, then who?

Who is going to pay for the woman’s adultery?

Who pays the price?

I like to imagine this woman walking in her newfound forgiveness. The words of Jesus have echoed in her head: “Neither do I condemn you. Neither do I condemn you. Neither do I condemn you.”

I imagine her living her life in the glorious freedom of those words: “Neither do I condemn you.”

Then I imagine her out walking one day when she notices a large crowd and commotion in the city. She inquires of somebody standing near: “What is happening? What is going on?”

The response: “They’re crucifying some rabble rouser outside of the city. That guy named Jesus.”

I imagine her heart skipping a beat. I imagine her running outside of Jerusalem up to Calvary. I imagine her standing there in shock and disbelief. There, on the center cross, hangs the man who said the words that changed her life: “Neither do I condemn you.”

There He hangs. Jesus. Her Savior. Her Liberator. Her friend. Jesus.

I imagine her drawing near to hear what He will say. He seems to want to speak. He opens His mouth and speaks: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Then she understands. She understands where the condemnation went, where the price is paid. She understands that the condemnation for her sin has not disappeared into thin air. Instead, it has been placed on this crucified, soon-to-be resurrected Jesus. The price is paid here, on Calvary, on that cross, in the person of Jesus.

“Neither do I condemn you,” she hears Him saying again. Then she finishes the thought: “Neither do I condemn you…for I will be condemned in your place. I will be condemned for you. Your adultery will fall upon Me, and I will take the wrath in your place. I will pay the price. Go and sin no more.”

Brothers. Sisters. Friends. There is no condemnation in Christ, for He has been condemned in our place. There is no need for you to be.

Come to Him and be freed.

Come to Him and live.

---

In his essay, “What Are We To Make of Jesus Christ?” C.S. Lewis suggests that that question really is absurd on the face of it. He said that the question is not, “What am I to make of Jesus Christ,” but, “What is Jesus Christ to make of me?” He also said that that question, “What am I to make of Jesus Christ,” is like a fly looking at an elephant and saying, “What am I to make of this elephant?”

That’s a really good point, and yet, it is an important question: “What am I to make of Jesus Christ? Who is Jesus Christ to me?” After all, Jesus asked His disciples this very question in Matthew 16:15, “Who do you say that I am?”

It was also the question on everybody’s mind at the Jewish Feast of Booths when Jesus went up to Jerusalem in the beginning of chapter 7. In fact, the reactions Jesus received there ran the gamut from rejection to acceptance. Even so, the reactions Jesus received then are precisely the same reactions He receives today.

In our text this morning, we will see four reactions to Jesus. As we look at these, I hope you will look closely at your own heart and ask yourself, “How am I reacting to Jesus right now?”

The first reaction we see this morning is a rejection of Jesus based on a faulty assumption of understanding. Last week we saw Jesus go up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles. He begins to teach and His teaching elicits strong and often conflicting reactions in the crowd.

²⁵ Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? ²⁶And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?

A portion of the crowd suspects a kind of political intrigue. Why is Jesus preaching unopposed? Regardless, this portion of the crowd moves on to an expression of their main reason for rejecting Jesus:

²⁷ But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.”

In light of all that we’ve seen in John thus far, this is an astounding assertion. They reject Jesus because (a) they believe they know where He comes from and (b) they believe that the origins of the Christ, when He comes, will be unknown. Again, this is astounding, but mainly because it is so patently false. Jesus has already demonstrated time and again that the crowd has no idea from where Jesus comes. They clearly do not know his origins so at least their first assumption is mistaken. In other words, their rejection of Christ is founded on a faulty assumption of understanding. They think they know more than they know.

Jesus’ response in verse 28 contains a certain measure of restrained sarcasm:

²⁸ So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I come from?

Translation: “Oh, really?! You know me, and you know where I come from?” I should point out that sarcasm is not inherently sinful. It can be used in an appropriate way to undermine a notion that is untrue or absurd. This is what Jesus is doing. The notion that the people know Jesus is absolutely absurd. They clearly do not. Jesus continues:

But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. ²⁹ I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.” ³⁰ So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.

Not only do they not know Jesus, they do not know His Father, the God they profess to be worshiping at this very time. They claim to know more than they actually know and Jesus rightly calls their hand on it.

It is a tragedy when a person rejects Jesus. But arrogance is piled onto the tragedy when a person rejects Jesus on the mistaken notion that they know Jesus when they don’t. There are people all over Arkansas who think they have rejected Jesus when, in reality, they do not know Him or the gospel accurately enough to reject Him

I once took a group of young people to camp. On the trip was a fifteen-year-old boy who claimed to be an atheist. He was very strong in his opinions and had read widely in atheist writings. One night at camp he and I sat and talked for about three hours. He told me that he had rejected Christianity because he had studied it and found it unconvincing. I told him that I was glad he had studied Christianity so that he and I could have a common starting point. But first, I pressed him a bit on his knowledge. I began to ask him basic questions about Christian theology and the Bible. After a while it became clear that his claims of knowledge were based on a faulty assumption. Finally I told him that, honestly, in my opinion, he did not know enough about Jesus to reject Him. He was rejecting a Christianity that I had never heard of.

Have you ever experienced that feeling? Have you ever experienced the sensation, when speaking to lost people, that if God really were like the God they claimed to reject, you would reject Him too? Most of the time when I hear atheist or non-Christian reasons for rejecting Christianity I think, “Well, if what they are saying about Christianity were, in fact, true, I too would reject it.”

The people were rejecting Jesus on the assumption that they knew Him, but, in all honesty, they did not know Him at all. This happens frequently today. Let me give one example.

I believe it is oftentimes the case that people with overbearingly and suffocatingly religious parents eventually come to reject what they think is Christianity. But, on closer inspection, what these folks are really rejecting isn’t the faith, but the heavy-handed way that their mom or dad forced it upon them. So, in truth, many people who say they have rejected Jesus have really only rejected their own parents. The fact is they may never have actually known Jesus at all. All they ever really knew was the force-fed gospel of their parents. If asked, they would say, “I have rejected Jesus.” But this is only because they associate the name and person of Jesus with terrible memories of the religious abuse they received as kids. (As an aside, there is a difference between raising your children in the Lord and abusing your kids with religion.) They have a faulty assumption of knowledge which is based on their own pain and hurt.

I would suggest, when a person tells you that they have rejected Jesus, that you ask them to describe the Jesus they have rejected. You may find that you, also, have rejected that Jesus, and that the Jesus they have rejected is not the Jesus of the New Testament at all. I would suggest, when a person tells you that they do not believe the gospel, that you ask them to explain what gospel they are rejecting. You may find that they, like the people in the verses we just read, are operating on a faulty assumption of knowledge.

Another group rejects Jesus because they approach Him and His teaching with carnal, shallow, worldly thinking:

³² The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. ³³ Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. ³⁴ You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.” ³⁵ The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? ³⁶ What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”

How many times have we seen this exact scenario play out in the gospels? Jesus proclaims something on an upper-story, spiritual level, but the people attempt to receive it and interpret it on a lower-story, carnal, worldly level. So, for instance, when Jesus proclaims that He has food to eat that they know nothing about, the disciples want to know if somebody has slipped Him some bread. This kind of ships-passing-in-the-night moment happens almost repetitively in the New Testament.

Many people reject Jesus because they lack the imagination, courage, and, of course, spiritual ability to think beyond that very small sliver of reality they consider to be “the truth.” They craft their world around their own provincial assumptions and attempt to filter all that they see and hear through that grid. That’s what’s happening here.

Jesus proclaims that He will be with them for a little while, “and then I am going to him who sent me.” That is a powerful, divine, spiritual truth. It is an upper-story, spiritual truth that anticipates His salvific work on the cross, His resurrection, and His ascension. He is proclaiming to them His very reason for coming. They are privileged to have front-row seats to an astounding display of divine truth.

Yet, they reject this truth because their minds are carnal and bound to the earth. So they ask provincial and foolish questions: “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does this man mean…?” Those asking these questions felt that they knew truth and reality well enough to pass judgment on Christ. But in truth they knew very little of the truth or reality!

Again, what Jesus is saying does not fit into their self-contained and self-constructed worlds. The truth is right in front of their faces, but they will not receive it because they will not think beyond their own paltry limits. Human beings oftentimes are unable to see past themselves to something amazing that challenges their perceptions of reality.

For instance, history records for us some amazing rejections of people and ideas and inventions at whom and at which we now marvel. Perhaps you’ve received some of these lists on email or have seen them online. Here are a few examples[1]:

“Balding, skinny, can dance a little,” they said of Fred Astaire at his first audition.

Beethoven’s music teacher declared him “hopeless” at composing.

Albert Einstein’s parents feared he was sub-normal.

An invitation was extended to witness one of humanity’s most historic moments – the Wright brothers’ first flight in their heavier-than-air machine. Five people turned up.

Walt Disney was fired for “lacking ideas.”

Thirty-eight times, publishers turned down Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.

“All his discourses are redolent of bad taste, are vulgar and theatrical…” said a newspaper. Another paper described his preaching as “that of a vulgar colloquial, varied by rant … All the most solemn mysteries of our holy religion are by him rudely, roughly and impiously handled…” They were referring to C. H. Spurgeon, the man routinely hailed as the prince of preachers.

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” –Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” –Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” –The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

“But what … is it good for?” –Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” –Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” –Western Union internal memo, 1876.

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” –David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.” –A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

“Who…wants to hear actors talk?” –H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

“I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” –Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in “Gone With The Wind.”

“A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.” –Response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies.

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” –Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” –Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

“You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can’t be done. It’s just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training.” –Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the “unsolvable” problem by inventing Nautilus.

“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” –Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” –Marshall Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” –Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

“Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction”. –Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

“The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon”. –Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” –Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

Indeed, an unwillingness to think beyond our own feeble grasp of reality has oftentimes hindered humanity and rendered our own understanding foolish in the end. Nowhere is this fact seen more clearly than in the case of Jesus.

Let us be perfectly clear on the challenge of Jesus Christ. Jesus did not come to reduce Himself so that He fits nicely into your little world. No, He came to expand your world, change it, transform it, and turn it upside down so that you might receive Him. Many reject Christ because what He says and who He is just doesn’t fit into their world. But the problem isn’t His greatness, it’s our smallness.

St. Augustine once prayed that the Lord might expand his heart so that there would be room for Christ in it. That is what these people refused to do, but it is precisely what we must do.

The third reaction to Jesus is perhaps the most pernicious and distasteful. It is the religious objection to Jesus. It is occasioned by the Lord Jesus calling the people to come to Him for salvation:

³⁷ On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'” ³⁹ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

He has said this before, of course. To the woman at the well He spoke of living water. In chapter 6 He spoke of being the bread of life. Jesus consistently called people to come to Him and live. The reaction to this teaching was powerful and divided:

⁴⁰ When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” ⁴¹ Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? ⁴² Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” ⁴³ So there was a division among the people over him. ⁴⁴ Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

Throughout history, the reactions to Jesus have remained consistent. Some believe Him, others want to destroy him. In the midst of the confusion, those who had been sent by the Pharisees to capture Jesus return empty-handed:

⁴⁵ The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” ⁴⁶ The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!”

I suspect this protest (“No one ever spoke like this man!”) was voiced rather sheepishly, but it was a challenge nonetheless to the Pharisees’ hatred of Jesus. This protest elicits from the Pharisees an almost venomous religious objection to the very idea that Jesus might just be who He claimed to be:

⁴⁷ The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? ⁴⁸ Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? ⁴⁹ But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” ⁵⁰Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, ⁵¹ “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” ⁵² They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”

Both to the officers and to Nicodemus, the Pharisees pour out the full brunt of their detestation. Their rejection of Jesus is based on their sense of religious entitlement, religious superiority, and religious power. In short, they try to pull rank here. They claim that the true religious experts reject Jesus so the common people should as well. We can almost envision their framed PhD’s in religion hanging over their shoulders as they rebuke the officials and Nicodemus (who had, of course, conversed with Jesus earlier).

It is a chilling moment. Those who should know Jesus best, those who had devoted their lives to the study of the Law and the Prophets, those who should have been most in tune with the divine truth of Jesus reject Him on the basis of religious offense and outrage. In fact, the religious leaders are rarely depicted in a positive light in the New Testament.

It is a verifiable fact that religious people are oftentimes the most hostile to Jesus. I will go a step further. It is sometimes even the case that those who claim to know Jesus take religious offense at Him when they are confronted with who He really is. I honestly believe that there are people in Baptist churches who, if you were to show them the truth about who Jesus really is, and if you could get them to be really honest, would literally hate the Jesus of the New Testament. I repeat: it is possible to be a good “American Christian” and actually not love the Jesus of the New Testament at all. Many have simply created a Jesus in their own image and love that Jesus instead. But we are not called to love our image of Jesus. We are called to love Christ Himself.

Another religious danger is the threat Jesus poses to our religious observances. Some people are so enamored by their religious work and their religious duties that they miss Jesus in the process. Some people are so busy loving the church that they fail to love Christ. Henri Nouwen once said that nothing conflicts with the love of Christ like service to Christ.[2] It’s an astounding idea, but also a true one.

Do your religious observances assist or hinder your devotion to Christ? Does your religion draw you closer to Christ or further away? Let us honestly assess the very real danger of religion. It blinded the religious leaders of the time to the truth of Jesus and, if we are not careful, it can blind us as well.

But we should also notice a minority reaction to Jesus. It was a minority reaction in the first century and it is a minority reaction today. I am speaking of those who accepted Jesus as Savior and as Lord. Three verses in this lengthy text speak of those who accepted. We find the first in verse 31:

³¹ Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?”

I love this way of putting it: “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?” These were people who had seen the evidence of divine power in the life and person of Jesus and who were won over to faith by what they had seen. To these people, it was inconceivable that that Jesus was not the Christ.

Others believed because of the power of Jesus’ teachings:

⁴⁰ When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” ⁴¹ Others said, “This is the Christ.”

Within this congregation today, we undoubtedly have both of these groups represented. Some of you came to Christ because you have seen the power of Christ. Perhaps you saw the power of Christ miraculously transform the life of a person that you previously considered beyond hope. Perhaps you saw the power of Christ save your marriage. Perhaps you witnessed some miraculous display of God’s power. Regardless, there are those of you here this morning who believe because of what you have seen.

Others of you have believed because you have seen the power in the words and teachings of Christ. The message of the gospel and the teachings of the Kingdom rings true to something deep within you. When you hear the gospel you know that you are hearing words of life and truth. You are gripped by the message of Jesus just as the people in our text this morning were gripped and you have said with them, “This really is the Prophet. This is the Christ.”

Again, those who accept Christ are tragically few in number compared to those who reject. Even so, this number spans the globe. There are people all over the world who have rejected the worlds’ rejection of Christ. There are people all over the world who have dared to believe that which seems unbelievable to lost humanity. There are people all over the world who have seen and have heard and know that Jesus is indeed the Christ.

I plead with you this morning to come to Christ if you have not. Come to Him as He is and bring yourself as you are. Reject Him no more. He stands with open arms for you.

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