Of the Spirit (part 13) 

Jesus is preparing the scene beautifully for why we need the Holy Spirit. First, he exposes his disciples’ selfishness by washing their feet when none of them had thought of doing it. And he did it soon after they’d been posturing and strutting among themselves too, “as to which of them was considered to be the greatest,” Luke 22:24. 

In verse 25 he then exposed the typical attitude of those in leadership positions in society: “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over people, and those who exercise authority call themselves ‘Benefactors.’” What they really want is power and prestige, but they cloak it in promises of prosperity and safety that make themselves sound and look good. And for us gullible, desperate, self-centred minions, that’s all we need to hear to vote them in. It’s a horrible, pointless game we all play, and it never changes. 

So Jesus faced his disciples with the ultimate challenge in verse 26, that “you are not to be like that.” My disciples don’t seek power and prestige, or to lord it over people. And they’re not into seeking office for themselves by charm and psychologically soothing claptrap either. “Instead,” Jesus continues in verse 26, “the greatest among you should be like the youngest (looking up to others, not down on them), and the one who rules like the one who serves.” 

And then he asks a very pointed question as they all sat there at the table waiting to eat. “For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table?” Just like in a restaurant being served by waiters. “But I am among you as one who serves,” verse 27. Jesus is the waiter. So imagine going to a restaurant and telling the waiter, “No, you don’t need to serve me; you sit down and I’ll serve you.”    

And then in verse 29 Jesus says something really astounding: “I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me.” This is what you’re my disciples for, you’re in training to be royalty in a kingdom that God gives you, just as the Father sets me (Jesus) up with a kingdom too. 

And to whom does he give a kingdom? To those like Jesus who live “to serve, not to be served.” So what was Peter to make of that?…(more on this tomorrow)

Of the Spirit (part 12) 

In his love for his disciples Jesus prepared them for the time he’d no longer be with them in person. And he summarized it in one simple sentence: “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you,” John 13:15. 

And he summarized his example in one simple word: love. He then illustrated his love in the most personal and effective way too, by the physical act of washing his disciples’ feet before eating their communal meal. Feet needed to be washed because people back then ate reclining at low tables, and feet were very much in evidence. It was a job much appreciated when done for you, then. 

But what must have really stunned the disciples was Jesus as their “Lord and Teacher,” and highly regarded “rabbi,” taking on himself the job of washing his students’ feet when there was no servant on hand in the room they were in. And how embarrassing it must have been too, having to watch Jesus wash their feet when none of them had volunteered to do it, and it hadn’t even crossed their minds to wash each other’s feet. So much for following Jesus’ example of coming “not to be served but to serve” (Matthew 20:28). 

It was also embarrassing because they’d just been arguing among themselves as to which of them was the greatest (Luke 22:24). Peter obviously felt extremely uncomfortable because he blurted out to Jesus, “You shall never wash my feet,” verse 8. How could Jesus even be willing to wash their feet with the attitude they were in? It would be like someone offering you the biggest piece of cake when you’d been grabbing for it yourself. Your selfishness totally exposed by the love of another. 

But it got the point across beautifully, because if Peter wanted to be part of what Jesus was preparing them for, he wanted to be just like Jesus to be ready for it. So in his typical Peter fashion he wanted Jesus to wash him all over, to totally clean him of his selfishness.  

And that was good, because it prepared them all for Jesus to say in verse 34, “A new commandment I give you: As I have loved you, so you must love one another”…(more on this tomorrow)

Of the Spirit (part 11) 

In John 13:1 “Jesus realized that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. He had loved those who were his own in this world and he loved them to the end (or to the uttermost).”

But now he knew his time with them was up. Only twelve hours later he’d be hanging on the cross. But his main concern wasn’t himself, it was his disciples. And the Father had planned it this way, so that the disciples would know how much they were loved by Jesus, because in Jesus’ love for them they’d know the Father’s love too. Everything Jesus said, did and showed in his earthly life was a perfect reflection of his Father (John 12:45). Which is why “the Father had put all things under his power,” verse 3, or “given all things into his hands.” 

It was over to Jesus, therefore, to reflect his Father’s love, so it’s no surprise that Jesus dedicated these last few hours of his life to loving his disciples, by telling and showing them the things they’d need most after he’d gone. 

It’s like a Dad wanting to get as much about the important things of life across to his children before he dies. It’s enlightening, then, what came first on Jesus’ mind, taking into account that it was eternal life he was preparing his disciples for.

It was a simple but crucial point, which Jesus illustrated by washing their feet. The point being that in the eternal world of the Father it’s all about serving others. So if they wanted a real taste of eternity and what the Father is like, then use whatever position of leadership or authority, or whatever influence and skills they’d been given, to love and serve others, because, as Jesus told then, “you’ll be blessed if you do,” verse 17. And Jesus was their living example of that. It’s what “the Father had put all things under his power” for, to show them what people in power do in his world.

And Peter got the point. He wanted every part of what Jesus was illustrating (John 13:8-9). And that opened up to him what Jesus said in John 5:24, that “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life…he has crossed over from death to life.” Peter was well on the way then, to knowing by experience what the Father and his world were like…(more on this tomorrow)  

Of the Spirit (part 10) 

By the time Jesus shouted to the crowd “Come to me” in John 7:37, he’d already said and done some extraordinary things. One chapter back in John 6:2, “a great crowd of people followed Jesus because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick.” And when he fed a crowd of five thousand on five loaves of bread and “two small fish,” and filling twelve baskets with the leftovers, it really opened people’s eyes to the possibility that Jesus truly was “the Prophet who is to come into the world,” verse 14. 

So the Father made sure in what he gave Jesus to say and do, that people would look to his Son and believe in him. Why? Because in Jesus people would see what he, the Father, was like, and in seeing what he was like in the words and actions of Jesus, people would then come to see and love the Father, which is exactly what the plan was. 

First, Jesus would do miracles, and spend his earthly life “going around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil,” Acts 10:38. What people would see in Jesus, then, was love. The purpose being John 14:7, Jesus speaking, that “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Because in Jesus’ love for people they were seeing the Father’s love too. 

So when Philip said to Jesus in verse 8, “show us the Father and that will be enough for us” – which was true, because eternal life is about knowing the Father (John 17:3) – Jesus replied: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father,” verse 9. All that power and love they were seeing in Jesus, therefore, was to show people what the Father was like. 

So that was why the Father had sent him, the goal being, Jesus speaking, that people would realize “that everything you (Father) have given me comes from you,” John 17:7. Which was exactly what Jesus wanted them to see, verse 26, “I have made you (Father) known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” 

Jesus, therefore, was sent by his Father to start the process of people coming to see the Father’s love. But after Jesus was dead and gone, how would people know about the Father’s love then?…(more on this tomorrow)

Of the Spirit (part 9) 

By the time Jesus cried out to the crowd, “Whoever believes in me, streams of living water will flow from within them” in John 7:38, the evidence was overwhelming from Israel’s erratic history that they were incapable of believing in him, or responding in love to his love for them. 

And yet, as Jesus pointed out two chapters earlier, in John 5:39, “You diligently study the Scriptures,” so they weren’t against God. And because of their diligent study they were celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day when Jesus stood up and yelled, “Come to me.” Which was ironic, because, as Jesus adds in verse 39, “These are the (same) Scriptures that testify about me, yet,” verse 40, “you refuse to come to me to have life.”  

So all through their Scriptures, Jesus was constantly calling out to Israel to come to him as their source of life. And by the word “life,” he took their meaning of it, as eternal life. They really thought that by strictly following all the rituals and commandments outlined in the Scriptures, that was all they needed to “possess eternal life” (verse 39). 

But what did they think eternal life was for? Having done (in their minds) what was necessary to get it, what was eternal life all about after that?

Well, Jesus made a rather startling statement in John 17:3 that the reason for living forever was “to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.” So that’s what eternal life is for, but stirred in this life now to the point of wanting life forever to know God. Which pinpoints the problem with those Jesus was calling out to in the Temple, because they weren’t focused on knowing God. Focused on themselves and securing their eternity, yes, but as Jesus pointed out to them in John 5:42, “you do not have the love of God in your hearts.”  

That was what they were desperately lacking, the actual essence of eternal life, a loving relationship between God and his beloved humans. Which is why Jesus cried out with such emotion, “Come to me,” because John 6:40, “my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.” He knew that only he could be the source of the love they lacked…(more on this tomorrow)   

Of the Spirit (part 8) 

The great hope of a parent is that loving their child will seed love in their child’s heart too. Which fits right in with John saying, “We love because he first loved us” in 1 John 4:19. It’s like an underlying principle of life, that love begets love. Give love and it creates love.  

And Jesus’ dealings with Israel tap into that great principle of life too, because “concerning Israel (quoting Isaiah 65:2), ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people,’” Romans 10:21. Day in and day out, century in, century out, Jesus had never stopped loving them, never stopped crying out to them, “Come to me, trust me.” And many centuries later in John 7:37 he was still saying it. 

And what was their response? “On hearing his words, some of the people said, ‘Surely this man is the Prophet.’ Others said ‘He is the Christ,’” verses 40-41. But others claimed he couldn’t be the Christ, because Scripture said he’d come from Bethlehem, not Galilee. “Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. Some wanted to seize him,” verses 43-44, and the chief priests and Pharisees wanted him arrested (45). 

So much for love begetting love, because for all Jesus’ great love for Israel it hadn’t created love in them. And parents, to their great dismay and disappointment, discover the same thing, that loving their children is no guarantee that their children will become loving too. Like the Israelites, their children can also stubbornly resist love and become obstinate in their reactions. And how many parents then flagellate and blame themselves later for not doing a good enough job of loving their children?   

Marriages can go the same route too. Loving one’s spouse and overlooking his or her faults is no guarantee of a happy, loving relationship, or that loving the other person will change them for the better. And that too can be a shock, when it becomes apparent in practice that “love doesn’t always conquer all,” and that all those syrupy songs about love everlasting don’t jibe with so many marriages breaking up either. 

Which is why Jesus stood up in the Temple and talked about “streams of living water flowing from within them,” because in that was the key to love begetting love…(more on this tomorrow)

Of the Spirit (part 7) 

John explains in John 7:39 what Jesus meant by the “streams of living water” that would be “flowing from within” people. He meant the Holy Spirit “whom those who believed in him would later receive” – because “Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” 

But why hadn’t the Spirit been given to them before Jesus was glorified? It would surely have saved a lot of agony and misery for Israel, and maybe for Jesus too, if the Israelites had been given the Spirit from day one of being rescued from Egypt. And couldn’t we say the same thing of ourselves too, that if God had given us the Holy Spirit when we were born, we wouldn’t have made such a mess of our lives – nor would we have trouble relating to God now either.   

Instead, the Father set things up so that the Spirit would only be given to those who “believed in” his Son. So belief had to come first. But how could we believe without the help of the Holy Spirit? – the Israelites being a classic example of that, because without the Holy Spirit, they could never place their full confidence in God. 

It’s the great cry of parents too, the constant struggle with their kids not trusting them. So why did God set it up that way in families too, then? Surely, if everyone, parents and children, were all given the Holy Spirit from birth, what a wonderful world we would have, of not only loving and trusting each other, but loving and trusting God too.

But Jesus was promising the Holy Spirit to these descendants of Israel after he’d gone through centuries of “Their hearts always going astray, and never understanding what he was doing and why,” Hebrews 3:10. And we know how angry that made him, at one point telling Moses he’d kill off the Israelites and start again through him (Exodus 32:10). 

But here was Jesus, roughly 1500 years later, still calling out to them and promising a marvellous blessing too, just like parents never giving up on their wayward children, and still wanting to set them up with whatever they need for their future too. Why? Because, as John writes, “We love because he first loved us,” 1 John 4:19…(more on this tomorrow) 

Of the Spirit (part 6) 

When Jesus stood up in the Temple courts before thousands of people in John 7:37, yelling out “If anyone’s thirsty, come to me and drink” – HOW, exactly, did he want them to “come to him and drink”? Did he mean come over to where he was standing, because he’d set up a table for handing out free cups of water? 

But then he said, “Whoever believes in me” in verse 38. That little word “in” hit a different note, because he meant belief in him as a person. The Greek word for “believe” in that verse meant “placing one’s total confidence in.” So that’s what he was shouting for them to do – to put their total confidence in him.  

And Jesus shouted that out with great emotion in his voice, because as a nation, up to that point, they had never totally put their confidence in him. Or when they’d said they’d obey him (as they did in Exodus 19:7-8), they’d never backed it up with trust when the chips were down (Hebrews 3:7-11). Or if they did trust him, it didn’t last. They’d soon be looking to other gods and human means to get them out of a scrape.  

And Jesus had put up with this for centuries for he was “the spiritual rock that had accompanied them” on their travels, 1 Corinthians 10:4. Despite them never placing their confidence in him, however, he never gave up on them, for from the time “When Israel was only a child, I loved him. I called out, ‘My son!’ – called him out of Egypt. But when others called to him, he ran off and left me,” Hosea 11:1-2.

But here he was at the Temple still loving them, still wanting to rescue them, and still holding out the promise, as he did constantly through the prophets in the Old Testament, that if they came to him, trusted him, believed in his love for them, he would, in the terms so often spoken in their Scriptures, be their guide through life, their strength, their comfort, their safety net, their wisdom, their peace bringer, their ready listener, their restorer of life as he intended it to be – or in a word their “Rock” (Psalm 18:2), who, just like the rock that gushed water in the desert (Exodus 17), would provide a constant flow of all those things they knew and read about, and longed for, in their Scriptures.

Which is why he cried out in John 7:38, “Whoever believes in me, streams of living water will flow from within him.” But HOW would it happen, and how would they know?…(more on this tomorrow) 

Of the Spirit (part 5) 

When Jesus cried out, “Come to me and drink,” the Greek words in that verse tell of great emotion. It was like a logjam suddenly being broken and the logs rushing freely down the river, because Jesus had gone through a great deal with these people. He had quite a history with them. But now was the time a new chapter in their history was about to open. 

And there was a clue what that new chapter would be, because Jesus took them back into their history to the actual event they’d been celebrating during the last seven days of their autumn festival. It was the time in Exodus 17:1 when “The whole Israelite community camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.” Millions of them in a desert with no water; a desperate situation.

And they voiced their desperation to Moses too, angrily demanding him to produce water, and even blaming him for deliberately “making us and our children and livestock die of thirst,” verse 3. But what on earth did they expect Moses to do? Suddenly produce water from bare rock?    

Exasperated, Moses “cried out to the Lord, ‘What am I to do with these people? They’re about ready to stone me,’” verse 4, stones being in plentiful supply too. 

He got an immediate answer from the Lord too – for him to walk ahead with some of the elders of Israel, taking the staff he’d previously struck the river Nile with, “and by the rock at Horeb, strike the rock and water will come out of it for the people to drink,” verses 5-6. Which he did.

Afterwards, Moses wanted that spot memorialized by naming it “The Testing and Quarrelling Place,” because of the Israelites’ quarrelsome, testing attitude of “Is the Lord among us or not?” verse 7.  

It was with that background, then, that Jesus stood up before the descendants of those people at the Temple and said in essence, “The Lord is among you, all right, because here I am, the same Lord too, only this time if you come to me, rivers of water will gush out to satisfy your thirst.” Same Lord, same purpose, but a new chapter, in which an amazing new power within them would emerge…(more on this tomorrow)  

Of the Spirit (part 4) 

The Father sent his Son so we’d come to see and understand the depth of love his Son has for us. So in the things he inspired his Son to say and do while he was here with us as a human being, they were all meant to demonstrate his Son’s love. 

Like the time Jesus stood up in front of hundreds and even thousands of people at the Temple on the final great day of their autumn festival celebration and he shouted out to them, “If you’re thirsty, come to me and drink” in John 7:37.  

Because imagine what it took for him to do that. His timing, for instance, had to be perfect. It wouldn’t be showing love, for example, if he disturbed a formal ritual going on at the time. He also had to choose the right spot where people could see him and hear him above the murmurings and shuffling of the crowd. And a place where the crowd wasn’t pressing in on him too. 

And then to stand up and start shouting – and the Greek for “speaking in a loud voice” in John 7:37 really does mean “shout” – well, who likes speaking in front of a crowd at any time, let alone suddenly start shouting in a crowd at the top of your voice, “Come to me,” too? 

But that’s what he did. With time and place sorted out, therefore, up he stood and yelled, “If any of you are thirsty, come to me.” It was the ultimate soap box sales pitch: “Hey, everyone, roll on up, I’ve got what you need to satisfy your deepest longings.” But he went much, much further than that, into territory where no salesman would dare go, by shouting, “It’s me, folks – I’m what you need.”

And it was love that compelled him to do that, because what he saw when looking out at the crowd was people his Father had designed to need him. His Father had given them a thirst that could only be satisfied by coming to him. Because in coming to him that’s when all those rituals and symbols and singing the predictions in Scripture of fountains of refreshing water pouring out from God that they’d all been celebrating during their festival – would become a reality. But not a physical reality in their nation. It would be a river of deeply refreshing water bubbling away inside them…(more on this tomorrow)