We are back in John’s Gospel this week after a 4 week break… It’s good to be back. Here is what John Calvin said about John’s Gospel:
A gospel is ‘the glad and delightful message of the grace exhibited to us in Christ, in order to instruct us, by despising the world and it’s fading riches and pleasures, to desire with our whole heart, and to embrace when offered to us, this invaluable blessing.’ In the gospels, the evangelists do not just record the facts, ‘but also explain for what purpose he was born, and died, and rose again, and what benefit we derive from those events.’ John ‘dwells more largely (than the Synoptics) on the doctrine by which the office of Christ, together with the power of his death and resurrection, is unfolded’ or ‘the power and benefit of the coming of Christ’. The Synoptics ‘exhibit his body’ but John ‘exhibits his soul.’ So, this gospel ‘is a key to open the door for understanding the rest.’
I’m finding this in my preparation, I’m meeting Jesus afresh. John reveals Jesus in such rich detail. You simply could not make this stuff up!! Jesus breaks all of the expectations that we might attempt to place upon him. He is tough and tender, active yet at rest, able to speak to the somebodies and the nobodies, powerful and humble…
Here is what one writer says about Jesus and the Woman he meets at the well. The woman has had lots of men in her life, she has obviously been let down by every one of them. Jesus challenges her about this life she has been living.. she is amazed by this stranger who talks to her…
“You can almost hear her thinking: ‘He knows me yet He still loves me. He sees into my heart yet He is still talking to me.’ That is a wonderful thing. Perhaps especially so for a woman who has gone from man to man. She has been looking for love but finding only sex and emptiness. Her thirst is insatiable… [In] Jesus you have real love and real fulfilment. Jesus, He loves me without make-up on, without my bravado, without any show or facade. Could this be God? Who else loves like this?”
That’s from Simon Vibert and a book called Lives Jesus Changed… It’s all about the “Strangers” Jesus met. As I prepare to preach I want people to see what Calvin is talking about…I want people to embrace what’s offered to us… I don’t want to communicate the facts. I want people to hear what John says about Jesus so that they understand what Jesus has done for them! I hope I get better at that as I preach John this year. It’s good to be back in John’s Faithbook (He writes that we might believe!!!) We are here DV till the Christmas sermons start in December when we will take another short break!!
