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Good morning to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
While the global news continues to bring us grim, daily death numbers from many countries in the world, due to Coronavirus COVID-19, the decline in those numbers, in some places, is now generating discussions and plans for ‘re-opening’ the economy and a return to some type of ‘new normal’. I wonder what that will look like in your city? The truth is, just as post 9.11 brought a ‘new normal’, so post COVID-19 will bring a ‘new normal’ lifestyle for most of our world.
I think it was much the same for those who had encountered Jesus.. Have you ever thought about what life was like weeks later for blind Bartimeaus (Mark 10), or Zacchaeus the tax collector (Luke 19), or Jairus’ daughter whom Jesus had raised from the dead, or the woman healed from 12 years of bleeding (Luke 8), or the man who’d been crippled 38 years and lay by the pool of Bethesda (John 5), or the cleansed leper (Mark 1) or the paralyzed man who’d been lowered through the roof by friends (Mark 2) or Lazarus, Mary and Martha (John 11)? For all of them, what was their ‘new normal’ life? When they heard news of Passover/Easter weekend, how did they respond?
For the disciples and women who were Jesus’ closest friends, they may have begun their journey back home to Galilee on this, the second Monday after His resurrection. By the way, have you ever noticed Luke’s description of those who often traveled with Jesus? I find it in Luke 8:2 “The Twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manger of Herod’s household; Susanna and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.” Of course Judas was now gone and we know Mary, Jesus mother, had been in Jerusalem with them, so she was likely part of this traveling caravan as they walked back home.
The Gospels give us record of two more appearances of the risen Jesus in Galilee and then one more dinner meal appearance back in Jerusalem before His ascension. Dr. Luke tells us “After His suffering, Jesus showed Himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that He was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” (Acts 1:3)
The walk from Jerusalem back to Galilee would likely have taken 3 or 4 days, depending on their route. Once away from Jerusalem, they would have felt safe to talk openly about Jesus and their memories of the past many months with Him. Can you put yourself there, on the dusty road? Let’s walk along with them and imagine the conversations as they discuss the miracles they’ve witnessed, the places they’ve been with Him, the teachings they’ve heard, and especially Passover/Easter weekend and His appearances since His resurrection.
Since John gives us such detail of that Thursday evening when they were together with Jesus in the upper room, just before His crucifixion, I conclude that John replayed that evening over and over in his mind as he walked. In these next days, will you look at John 17 with me? Only John tells us about this prayer that Jesus prayed as they finished their upper room Passover meal, before crossing the Kidron valley and into the Garden of Gethsemane where He was then arrested by the armed mob.
John writes: “Jesus looked toward heaven and He prayed: Father, the time has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You. For You granted Him authority over all people, that He might give eternal life to all those You have given Him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have brought You glory on earth by completing the work You gave me to do. Now Father, glorify Me in Your presence, with the glory I had with You, before the world began.” (John 17:1-5)
Wow, there’s a lot there! What do you hear Jesus saying? What was its significance to John and the others who heard Jesus pray, and what is the significance to us today? “The time has come” is an important, definitive God statement. I’ve used the phrase “defining moment” to describe very significant and specific moments in time when circumstances provide a God encounter for people. Every miracle Jesus did was a ‘the time has come‘ defining moment for the people involved. The Old Testament involves hundreds of ‘defining moments’ when God had decided “the time has come” and it was time for a specific intervention by God in human history. Just speaking their names will bring ‘defining moment’ stories to our minds… Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Daniel, Esther, Jonah etc.
For Jesus, Passover/Easter weekend was the culmination, the apex of WHY He had come to earth. God the Father was ultimately glorified through the obedience of Jesus the Son of God, as His death, burial and resurrection is the ONLY thing which makes eternal life with God a possibility for sinful people. Do you agree with this truth?
Do you see Jesus’ declaration about eternal life? “Now this is eternal life: That they may know YOU, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” As you travel the world today there are scores of religions and spiritual systems calling people to worship thousands of different things they call ‘gods’. But in His prayer, as in His teaching, Jesus once again clarifies there is only ONE true, living, God who created all things, including humanity, and who rules in sovereignty over all He has created. This means all other man-imagined gods are false gods and worship of them will lead you farther and farther away from the One true and living Almighty God, to an eternity separated from Him…and that God calls “perish”.
Jesus is also clarifying that eternal life depends on knowing Jesus Christ, the Son of God, sent to earth by God the Father, as the only way to the one, true, living God. Remember He had made that clear a little earlier that same evening when Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one come to God the Father except by Me.” (John 14:6)
Now you might ask, ‘what gives Jesus the right and authority to make such a claim?’ His miracles proved His power and His authority over nature, storms, illness, demons and death. Remember Jesus said: “The words I say to you are not just My own. Rather, it is the Father living in Me who is doing His work. Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me, or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles…” (John 14:10,11)
I’m deeply moved by Jesus prayer statement: “I have brought You glory on earth by completing the work You gave me to do.” (John 17:4) From my earliest years, I’ve been a ‘get it done’ kind of guy, how about you? I have always appreciated having clarity in the job set before me, then giving it my best effort, and having a great sense of accomplishment when it was completed to the best of my ability. Jesus made it clear, repeatedly. He came to earth, sent by Almighty God the Father, at a specific time in history, with a very specific assignment. Now here, a few hours before His crucifixion, Jesus is able to say to the Father, that He believes He has been accomplishing His assignment with excellence, and it is nearly complete.
So that begs the million dollar question, in fact it’s a life or death question for every person. What was ‘the work’ God gave Jesus to do, His assignment that He was completing? How did that completed work affect John and those walking with him back to Galilee? How did that completed assignment affect the Roman Empire, the Jewish Pharisees, and every living human being in the first century?
How does that completed work of Jesus affect 7.5 Billion people alive today in 2020? What happens when that completed work of Jesus is applied to a person? What happens when a person ignores or rejects as irrelevant, that completed work of Jesus? The answers to these questions are life and death, and determine where a person spends eternity! So my friends, whatever you do, don’t ignore them or rush past the questions.
The answer is the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. That He came to earth to proclaim God’s truth, live a sinless life, give His life as an atonement sacrifice for the sins of humanity, rise victoriously from the dead, defeating Satan, sin and death. Therefore any person who trusts the work Jesus accomplished as being sufficient to satisfy God’s justice requirement for their sin, is declared forgiven by God and drawn into a personal relationship with God as their heavenly Father, and assured an eternity with God in heaven! It’s very clear.
There is no room for debate or negotiation and there should never be confusion. Every living person, therefore, at this very moment, should quite easily be able to answer the question: Do I, at this moment, have a sin forgiven relationship with Holy God? if I died at this moment, will God welcome me into His heaven? Your response to Jesus Christ determines your destiny!
Finally, do you notice the remarkable significance of Jesus’ statement in John 17:5? “And now Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with You before the world began.“ What does that tell you about when Jesus came into existence? It’s very clear, isn’t it? Jesus, God the Son, is fully God and has always existed. He and God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit have been the one, true, living God for all time.
When Jesus was born in that Bethlehem stable, it was NOT His beginning. It was His incarnation. Eternal Jesus took on human flesh in that birth. He did it so He could live visibly among us, and especially so He could experience all that Passover/Easter weekend held for Him, including death and resurrection. Jesus’ return to heaven in His ascension, returns Him bodily, to the place He has had from all eternity past, in all His glory, with God the Father in heaven!
A few minutes before Jesus prayed this that Thursday evening in the upper room, He had said to His disciples “I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.” (John 16:28) John had written that as he and the disciples entered that upper room that evening “Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father…Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power and that He had come from God and was returning to God.” (John 13:1,3)
As Jerusalem disappeared behind the hills for this little caravan of Jesus followers walking home to Galilee, I can imagine a big smile on John’s face as he replays that glorious Thursday evening upper room experience with Jesus. As he focused on the words Jesus said, which we’ve discussed today, I wonder if John was thinking: “I’ve got to hurry and get back home. I need to write all this down, before I forget it. I was among only a very few privileged people to have been there. I was sitting right next to Jesus when He said all these things. For the good of humanity, and generations I will never meet, in places I will never go, I have to write the words of my Master, to preserve them for all time.’
Perhaps John even prayed as he walked: ‘Risen Lord Jesus how could I ever thank you for the privilege of these months with you. Help me remember Your words accurately. I wonder what the rest of my life will be because of my time with You, Jesus?”
Aren’t you glad John did write them and they’ve been translated into whatever your heart language is my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends all around the world? Now here’s the big question: what difference have the words Jesus spoke and John recorded, made in your life? And with whom have you shared both Jesus’ words and the story of how Jesus has changed your life, and what it means to you to know God and Jesus Christ His Son? I think it’s time to thank Jesus, right now. . .
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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