In John 9:1 Jesus sees a man blind from birth. In verse 2, “His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus replies in verse 3, “Neither this man or his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in his life.” So a man was born blind to be a witness to the work of God. Or as Jesus explains in verse 5, “While I (Jesus) am in the world, I am the light of the world,” so this incident is really about the blind man being a witness to Jesus. 

But how was the blind man a witness to Jesus? The blind man answers that himself, when he says in verse 25, “One thing I do know. I was blind and now I see.” This was his simple and rather blunt answer to the Pharisees who refused to accept that Jesus had healed him of his blindness. 

What clearer witness to Jesus could there be than that? One minute the man is blind, the next minute he isn’t. And the reason it happened is because Jesus stopped by, spat in the dust, placed the mud he formed over the man’s eyes and told him to wash his face in a nearby pool. So the blind man did exactly what Jesus said. He headed straight for the pool and as he washed the mud off his eyes his blindness totally disappeared. For the first time in his life he could see. 

To some of the Pharisees, however, all this spitting and making mud and healing people was a blatant breaking of their Sabbath rules, and anyone breaking the Sabbath could not be a man of God (verse 16). And when other Pharisees asked, “But how can a sinner do such miraculous signs?” – which seems like an obvious question – no answer is given.

Faced with an obvious miracle, those claiming to be religious leaders turned out to be the ones who were blind, but by choice rather than by being born blind. They even told the man to “Give glory to God” in verse 24, as though they were the ones truly witnessing to God by telling the man, “We know this man is a sinner.” Forget the obvious miracle. Forget that a man blind from birth had been healed. It was all just make believe in their minds because men who are sinners don’t perform miracles. 

The man’s reply to the Pharisees is priceless, when he says in verse 25, “Whether this fellow is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind and now I see.” In other words, “You can say what you like about the man who healed me, but there’s no denying that when he turned up and did what he did, I’m no longer blind.” 

The Pharisees come up with a lame excuse in verse 29, that “as for this fellow we don’t even know where he comes from,” but how does that answer the obvious question as to how a man can do such miracles if he isn’t a man of God?

No wonder Jesus tells the healed man later, in verse 39, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” The first great witness that Jesus is real and he came from God is blind people being able to see. People miraculously have their eyes opened to who Jesus is – that he truly is the man God sent to heal us. They can clearly see it, when at one time they couldn’t. It happened to the blind man. Not only was his eyesight restored, he also recognized who Jesus was and he believed it (verses 35-38).  

The second great witness to Jesus being real and sent by God is the amazing blindness in those who claim to know about God and what truth is but can’t see it when it’s staring them in the face. They refuse to accept the obvious facts. And nothing gets through to them, either, despite their intelligence. And the reason Jesus gives for that happening is that he has blinded them.

So blind people who simply couldn’t see, do see because of Jesus, and people who could see, don’t see because of Jesus. Both are witness to Jesus being real and the “Son of Man” that God is working through (verses 35-38). 

So which one of those two types of witness am I? Can I say, “Well, of course Jesus is real because I admit to being totally blind to who he is, but now I see?” Or do I come up with some lame excuse for not believing Jesus is a man sent by God, despite clear evidence that he is? 

Well, I admit to being totally blind, and still totally blind at times to who Jesus is and how much I can trust him to heal me. But it’s those occasions when suddenly I do see, that tell me Jesus is now doing through me too what he did for the blind man, “so that,” verse 3, “the work of God might be displayed” in my life too. Or even better put – so that I can be a witness to Jesus. 

In John 4 Jesus meets up with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. But for what purpose, exactly? God obviously orchestrated this meeting for a reason, but what? And how would it apply in any age, including ours? 

It starts with Jesus asking the woman to give him a drink. It’s noon time, it’s hot and Jesus is tired, but he hasn’t got a bucket to lower into the well to get himself a drink – or any cup to drink from either. This woman then turns up with a bucket, but she’s a Samaritan and Jesus is a Jew and in brackets it says “Jews did not share things in common with Samaritans,” which would include not drinking from a cup owned by the other. 

So Jesus doesn’t get his drink of water, but that’s no problem because this meeting wasn’t arranged by God to deal with Jesus’ thirst. Instead, it was arranged to deal with the woman’s thirst, and by extension the thirst we all have as humans in any age we live in. 

And Jesus makes that clear in what he says next. He turns the conversation around to her need, not his. If she’d known the gift God had provided in him she’d be asking him for a drink, because he would have given her “living water” that would have satisfied her thirst forever. And that gets her attention: no more traipsing out to the well every day, no more lowering buckets deep into the well, and no more lugging the heavy buckets back home either.

But Jesus goes one step further in getting her attention. He really surprises her in knowing how many husbands she’s had, and her first thought is, “Wow this chap is a prophet.” The conversation, therefore, has now swung totally away from satisfying normal, ordinary, everyday physical needs – like thirst and needing water to drink – to a much higher level, and she immediately takes the bait. If this man is truly a prophet then he can answer some of the deeper concerns she’s got. Now her real thirst begins to show. 

To meet this much deeper thirst she’s depended on religion, and what her ancestors believed, but Jesus twice says the real solution to her thirst is “worshiping the Father in spirit and truth.” She has no idea what he’s talking about, but that’s not a problem for her because one day she believes the Messiah will come with all the answers. When Jesus then reveals he is that Messiah she runs back to her village to see if they think he’s the Messiah too, based on him knowing about her five husbands. So they all traipse out to see him, and after hearing Jesus speak for two days, they are convinced he’s the Messiah too.

So from Jesus asking her for a drink it’s now led to this, a whole village believing he’s the Messiah who can satisfy their deepest needs. Which is exactly what the Father sent his Son for, and when people realize that and turn to Jesus in trust that he will provide for their deepest needs, they are now “worshiping the Father in spirit and truth.” It simply means looking to Jesus as the solution to their real thirst. They don’t need religion or religious buildings or sacred mountains, or any of the typical sources of help supplied by the world. All they need is trust in the one the Father sent. And that applies to all us humans in any age we live in.

And we’ve got this conversation between Jesus and the woman because we too start off with no idea this is what the Father sent Jesus for, but God orchestrates circumstances in our lives so we come to realize and believe it, just as he did for her. And it starts off with us, just as it started off with her, in realizing Jesus knows us well, through circumstances very personal to us, which gets our attention – enough for us to want to know him well. And what then follows is a lifetime of experiencing him meeting our deepest needs, and us trusting him more and more, which is just what the Father wanted, so in trusting Jesus we are truly now worshipping the Father in spirit and truth too. The “truth” is Jesus being the provider of all our needs and the solution to our deepest thirst, and “in spirit” means trusting him and not in anything physical or man-made, like religious buildings or religious rituals. That’s the Father’s wish for us, that we trust his Son.

I wonder what Jesus would have said to me if I’d been Nicodemus who’d gone to see Jesus at night in John 3, or I’d been the Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well in John 4, or the man who’d been crippled for thirty-eight years in John 5. 

With each person in those three chapters Jesus entered into a fairly lengthy conversation that challenged their thinking. They didn’t come out of their conversation with him quite the same people they were. Something remarkable happened to Nicodemus, for instance, because fourteen chapters later – in John 19:38-41 – the same Nicodemus is helping Joseph of Arimathea prepare Jesus’ crucified body for burial, at great risk to his reputation and position as a well-respected Jewish leader.  

Nicodemus was a changed man. He’d changed from sneaking under cover of darkness to talk to Jesus and seeing Jesus only as “a teacher who has come from God” in John 3:2, to openly and fearlessly wrapping Jesus’ body with linen (infused with seventy pounds of spices, John 19:39-40) and seeing Jesus as the one sent by God “to save the world,” just as Jesus said back in John 3:17.

The same thing happened to the Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well. To begin with she only saw Jesus as less “than our father Jacob” in John 4:12. But a dramatic change happened in her thinking, because in verse 29 she began to realize that Jesus really was who he said he was, Christ the Messiah, and she raced back to her hometown and fearlessly convinced her neighbours that Jesus was “Saviour of the world” too, in verse 42.  

And then in John 5, when Jesus told the cripple, “Pick up your mat and walk,” the man didn’t hesitate for a second in doing what Jesus said, despite carrying one’s mat being a blatant breach of the Jewish Sabbath law (verse 10). Suddenly, this pathetic invalid, incapable of doing anything but moaning about his lot in life in verse 7, is transformed into a fearless man who wasn’t intimidated one bit by the Jewish authorities who wanted to take him to task for disobeying their law. Jesus “had made him well,” and that’s all that mattered, verse 15.  

In the lives and minds of all three of these people, dramatic changes happened after conversations with Jesus. How come?

Because Jesus pierced through their guard and ignorance with a clear demonstration of his authority. Here was a man to be listened to and trusted. And when they listened to him and trusted him an entirely new way of thinking they’d never experienced before began to enter their minds. And this is what Jesus meant by being “born again,” in John 3:3, or “born from above” as some translations phrase it.

It means a total change of mind that comes from hearing and trusting what Jesus says. “So it is with everyone born of the Spirit,” Jesus said in John 3:8. A birth by the Spirit leads to a belief in Jesus’ obvious authority, as one to be looked up to, above all else.

Jesus actually illustrates this very point in John 3:14-15, when he said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” 

The “snake in the desert” refers back to the time in Numbers 21:4-9 when the Israelites “spoke against God” (verse 7) for dragging them out into the desert after they left Egypt to die from starvation, and God only providing them with miserable manna to eat (verse 5). So God hits these ungrateful, untrusting Israelites with “fiery serpents,” killing many who are bitten (verse 6). When the Israelites admit they’ve sinned (verse 7) Moses seeks God’s intervention, to which God replies in verse 8, “Make a fiery serpent and set it (or lift it up) on a standard (or pole),” and if anyone is bitten by a snake he can “look up to the bronze serpent and he shall live.” 

To “look up” means they are to fix their full attention on that snake, believing that God’s way of saving their lives will work. Jesus then uses the “lifting up” of the snake on the pole to refer to himself being lifted up (John 3:14), which in John 12:32-33 points to his crucifixion as the means by which we are saved from our sins and “we shall live” as well. 

And this is the conversation Jesus has with Nicodemus, but by extension to the rest of us humans too, because Jesus immediately continues in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  

Jesus includes us all in this conversation. So do I believe it? It’s certainly worth my belief because Nicodemus obviously believed it and look what happened to him. He experienced an entirely new way of thinking in his head that gave him the courage and confidence to obey and trust Jesus in this life, no matter what, which in turn gave him total freedom from sneaking around in the dark and worrying about his reputation. And that then enabled him to “look up” and see in Jesus’ crucifixion the doors opening up to eternal life as well. 

Just one conversation with Jesus and believing what he said, and this is what happened. And since that conversation was for all of us, I don’t have to wonder what Jesus might say to me, because he’s already said it.  

Jesus wasn’t the first man in the Bible to fast forty days. Moses fasted forty days too – twice. The first time for Moses was in Exodus 34:27-28 when he “stayed there (on Mount Sinai) with the LORD for forty days and forty nights, without eating any food or drinking any water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” Moses mentioned this again in Deuteronomy 9:9. 

The second time Moses fasted forty days was in Deuteronomy 9 again, this time in verse 18, when “once again I fell prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water” after discovering on his trip down Mount Sinai with the ten commandments that the Israelites had made a cow-like idol out of gold (verse 12).

In the first instance, when Moses fasted, he had no choice in the matter. God told him to go up the mountain in Exodus 34:2 and God had him stay there for forty days without food and water until the commandments had been written on the two tablets of stone. And Jesus had no choice in the matter either, when he fasted for forty days too. We see that in Matthew 4:1, that says “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil,” and the Spirit had him stay there for forty days without food and water until the devil turned up. 

So this was all God’s doing. He was the one who had Moses and Jesus taken to the brink of dying from starvation. He did the same thing with Elijah too: In 1 Kings 19:8-9 God had Elijah journey for forty days and nights without food and water, just to give him a message in a cave at Mount Horeb. 

But in the history of Israel, these three men were the big three – Moses, Elijah and Jesus, all three of whom appeared at the transfiguration of Jesus in Matthew 17:1-3, because it was through these three men that God’s plan of salvation through Israel would be kickstarted, preserved, and fulfilled. 

First, it was Moses, through whom God instituted the laws that would govern and bless the lives of the Israelites, to attract other nations through Israel to him. Through Elijah he then kept Israel from falling victim to the cunning and influence of evil people like Jezebel, who wanted to destroy Israel entirely. And through Jesus he did what the Israelites could never do, and that was resist and defeat the power of the devil. And by having all three men fast to the point of near death, God made it clear it was by his power and not theirs that his plan of salvation through Israel was being fulfilled. 

God emptied these three great leaders of Israel of all their human strength and power, because it was his leadership they needed to obey and trust. And Jesus made that clear to the devil in Matthew 4:4,7 and 10, when three times he parried the devil’s temptations with his total obedience to, and trust in, God and his word. 

Their fasting, therefore, had nothing to do with voluntary self-denial to get them closer to God. Even when Moses fasted for forty days the second time by his own choice, it was purely for the preservation of Israel, Deuteronomy 9:18-19. God’s plan of salvation through Israel was at the heart of their fasting. And that’s because the whole plan of God through Israel is the story of God’s faithfulness and God’s power making salvation possible.

By God having Jesus fast for forty days, therefore, emptying even his own Son of all his human power and strength, it was clear proof yet again that the story of our salvation is all God’s doing, and not our own.

In Matthew 17:2 Jesus’ “face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.”  

To Peter, James and John, the three disciples who witnessed this amazing transformation in Jesus, it was proof there was more going on in Jesus than just wise teacher and powerful healer. At the press of a switch he could blaze like the sun itself. It was made clear who had pressed that switch too, because in verse 5 “a bright cloud enveloped them and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him.’”

It was the Father who had flicked the switch on, just briefly, but enough to imprint an image of Jesus in the eyeballs and minds of these three disciples that this Son of his was the one he’d sent to fulfill everything written in the Old Testament (pictured by Elijah and Moses), so get listening to him now. 

Well, if that was the Father’s point here, then why didn’t he flick the switch and make Jesus shine like the sun for everyone else who met him, rather than to only three disciples at one time, and only briefly and out of sight? 

Jesus explained why in verse 9, when he told Peter, James and John they shouldn’t tell anyone what they’d seen “until the Son of Man had been raised from the dead.” What I get from that is this: that only after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead would people really start to grasp who he was. It didn’t matter what spectacular miracles Jesus did before that time, therefore – including him shining like the sun – because the reaction in most people would be, “So what?” – or just a blank look of disinterest. 

Jesus backed that explanation up when he was asked by his disciples in verse 10, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” It seems like an odd question right after seeing Jesus shine like the sun, but it was just the question that needed to be asked, because in Jesus’ reply we see how naturally blind to, and how hopelessly disinterested we are in, who Jesus is. 

Jesus replies in verse 11, “To be sure, Elijah has already come, and they (the teachers of the law) did not recognize him.” These same teachers of the law would then cause Jesus later on to “to suffer at their hands” too, verse 12. In other words, the teachers. of the law, the one group of people in all Israel who should have recognized who Jesus was, didn’t have a clue.  They even wanted to snuff hm out.

There was no point in the disciples broadcasting that Jesus had shone like the sun, therefore, because it wouldn’t have made any difference whatsoever in people recognizing who Jesus was. And Jesus illustrated that point in verse 12 when he said, “Elijah has already come,” because the beginning of the restoration of all things had already begun with the arrival of John the Baptist (verse 13). John the Baptist was the prophesied Elijah, heralding the promise of restoration of all things at last, but the teachers of the law had totally missed that too.

What we’ve got in this story of Jesus shining like the sun, then, is what it takes to believe who Jesus is. it takes the Father flicking a switch on. And we see that illustrated again when Jesus asked his disciples in the previous chapter, “Who do you say I am?” and Peter replies, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” because Jesus replies back that “this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven” Matthew 16:15-17.  

Jesus had already said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” John 6:44, so there it is again. It has to be revealed by the Father. And Paul understood it that way too, when he said in Galatians 1:15-16 it was God who “was pleased to reveal his Son in me.” 

It doesn’t make other people inferior if they don’t grasp who Jesus is. It simply illustrates that it takes the Father to flick the necessary switch for “the lights to come on” about Jesus in people’s minds. That’s when all those prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament suddenly “come to light,” just as they did to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:31.

So if people “don’t get it yet” about who Jesus is, it’s only because the Father hasn’t  flicked the switch in their minds yet. But Jesus did hint to his disciples back in Matthew 17:9 that it would happen after he was resurrected, so expect it to happen to people any time. And that’s very encouraging, because it could happen any time to those we’d just love to get the picture about Jesus.

Up to that time, here’s hoping we shine a light on Jesus too, so that when their turn comes they recognize Jesus easily and readily, because of the light that shone from us as well.

So much of my life has been taken up with religious ritual that there hasn’t been much room left for actually living and experiencing the reality of what Jesus taught.

I was reminded of this when reading Matthew 5:23-24, when Jesus said, “If you’re offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.“

Well, over the years I’ve “offered a lot of gifts at the altar.” I’ve prayed a lot and studied the Bible until my knees hurt and my eyes blurred. I’ve given a lot of offerings in money to my church too, sat for thousands of hours in church services and ceremonies, taken pages and pages of sermon notes, and sung multiple hymns. I’ve done my time, gone through the motions. I’ve left a lot of gifts at the altar of religious ritual.  

But one day it hit me that all my religious rituals were only a thin veneer covering a rather nasty inner self. I remember the occasion vividly. I had just preached what I thought was a scorcher of a sermon and I glowed in the aftermath of a job well done. It was in the car on the way home, however, that I blew up at one of my children. I can’t remember what it was about, but I do remember the contrast between how religious I felt after my sermon and the reality of how quickly and horribly I turned nasty and very unreligious with my child. 

It was too late to leave my gift in front of the altar and be reconciled to my child, because my sermon had already been done. But what I could have done was stop the car at the first available safe spot on the road and apologized to my child for snapping at him. In other words, don’t let too many miles go by without admitting I was wrong. I wish I’d done that. I didn’t, so the rest of the journey was awful. I stewed with guilt, and he stewed with “What on earth was that all about?” 

The obvious gap between my religious rituals and the reality of my actions really hurt our relationship. I can see why he left off attending church with us in his late teenage, because if all that ritual we’d gone through as a family couldn’t stir me to make a simple apology when needed to keep our relationship as father and child intact, then what was the point of it all?

No wonder he left church and home. It was heartbreaking, because he really struggled without the warmth of family. I see now why Jesus said what he did. A simple “drop everything” on my part until my son and I were “reconciled,” and what a difference it would have made to our relationship for the last twenty years. What we’ve both missed out on instead is so sad.  

I’ve heard it said by many teenagers who left church and home that they left because of the hypocrisy they saw in the church, and especially in their church-attending parents. Hypocrisy is a tough word to take, because Jesus used it often in describing the most religious people of his day too: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites,” he yelled in Matthew 23:27. “You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside you are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. On the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

I don’t like reading James 1:26 either, that says: “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.” There’s that gap again, between all that religious ritual we do and the reality of our actions. 

So what’s the cure? Well, fortunately, James also comes to the rescue in the cure too, because in James 3:17 he says, “Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honour.”

What a gift from God that is. But that’s the point, isn’t it? It comes from God. He’s the source of it. And it has nothing to do with religious ritual either. He’s interested in us experiencing the reality of his gifts, not us giving gifts to him. In other words, “Less ritual from us, and more reality from him.”   

If I was to ask, “Is taking bread bread and wine in memory of Jesus’ death a requirement for all Christians?” – how would you answer? And if I was to ask, “Is baptism in water a requirement for all Christians?” – how would you answer that one too? 

Those are the two “biggies” in Christian circles too, communion and baptism, the two most common “sacraments” that for many are an “absolute must,” but for some in the Christian Community they are aids, or symbols, not requirements. And those who believe they aren’t requirements have scriptures to back up their belief too, just as those who believe the sacraments are requirements have scriptures to back up their belief.

There are dozens of other differences among Christians too, also backed up with scriptures, in answer to questions like: “Can Christians go to war and kill people?”; “Is heaven our final destination or living in resurrected bodies on the earth?”; and “Will God save everyone in the end, or will some people spend eternity in hell?” 

And for the sake of Christian unity “Should we all follow a prescribed Worship Calendar based on evolving human tradition?” – to which many would say “yes,” because it focuses their hearts and minds on the greatness and love of Jesus, but others would vehemently say “No,” because it smacks too much of legalism and a noose squeezing the breath of the Holy Spirit out of them. No wonder Christianity is scarred by “worship wars,” and now endless debates about whether it’s right or wrong to allow same-sex marriage among Christians, or the ordination of women and practicing homosexuals into the clergy.  

And reading through Romans 14 and Paul’s other letters, especially his letters to the Corinthians, there were huge differences of belief and opinion among Christians back then too. So how did Paul deal with them?

Well, he got right down to the purpose of the church and how God set it up with “pastors and teachers, etc.” in Ephesians 4:11, “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” verse 12, “until,” verse 13, “we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” 

So Paul concentrates our attention on becoming mature, which he defines for us as becoming like Jesus in all his fullness. And that’s the same for all of us; it’s sharing exactly the same purpose in life of having it engrained in our heads that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you (or we) have been given fullness in Christ,” Colossians 2:9-10. In our own bodies, therefore, we can be as full of God as Jesus is. And that’s God’s great goal for us, repeated in 2 Corinthians 3:18, that we are “being transformed into Jesus’ likeness with an ever-increasing glory.” 

So that’s what we concentrate on if we hope to become mature Christians. But what does that involve us doing? Paul’s answer in Ephesians 4:15 is “speaking the truth in love,” and that’s how “we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” 

In other words, we talk together about our differences as Christians, and “speak truthfully” to each other, verse 25, “for we are all members of one body.” We still may not agree but if talking out our differences is the best solution, according to Paul, and it’s done “in love” (verse 15), then we all get to experience what it’s like being filled with the fullness of Jesus himself. And isn’t that what matters? 

It’s proof too that we are “putting on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness,” verse 23. In other words, it’s proof we are maturing: it’s in our simple willingness to talk things over with each other in love, and “not give the devil a foothold,” verse 27.

In my own experience it’s been wonderful being in a small group of Christians willing to do just that, talk things out in a spirit of love. It gets heated at times when we don’t or can’t agree, but we don’t stop being friends and it doesn’t stop us listening to each other, or coming back for more. And sometimes a bit of truth sneaks through, or strikes home, that we hadn’t thought of before.

I’ve learnt, therefore, that disagreement is not something to fear or try to stamp out. I’ve also learnt that disagreement doesn’t even matter one bit when you love each other and want “what is helpful for building others up according to their needs,” verse 29. It’s one of the marvellous blessings we get to experience that enables us, verse 3, to “keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” at those awkward moments when disagreement could easily tear us apart.  

     I’m a Christian, but I’m in the same boat as everyone else when it comes to the fear, facts and future of climate change.

     Take the fear, for instance: I may be a Christian but it scares me too when I hear that extreme weather events will increase due to “global warming.” And when it comes to facts, I’m just as confused as millions of others as to who’s right and who’s a fraud among the climate change scientists. And I switch again and again from being an alarmist to a denier of climate change whenever I read or view a convincing argument about the future. Are we on the edge of extinction, or has doom and gloom been deliberately overblown for political and financial gain? 

     But what am I supposed to think when I read a quote like this one: that “The common drivers (of the climate change scare) are bad ‘science’, the press seeking disaster stories, NGOs seeking influence to pursue social engineering agendas, politicians seeking votes, government funded agencies seeking funding, the egos of the proponents and a gullible, uneducated population. The sad reality is that there is little, if any, learning from the past and none of the proponents are ever brought to account.” 

      But is that true? Is it true that global warming is “the greatest scam in history,” or are our children and grandchildren truly facing a frightening future? Can we carry on with our lives without having to worry that much – as a multitude of “experts” say – or should we be frantic in reducing carbon emissions? Well, after watching YouTube videos and reading articles until my eyes crossed and the circulation of blood in my bum quit, I admit I still don’t know what to think.  

     So I turned to my Christian chums for help, to see what they thought. I liked the comment by one prominent TV evangelist, that we don’t have to worry about melting glaciers, because God promised he’d never drown the world in a flood again, the rainbow being his proof of it. In other words, God won’t let us self-destruct, no matter how much the globe warms. 

     But I’ve also been watching a ton of stuff from Katherine Hayhoe, a prominent Canadian atmospheric scientist and wife of a Christian pastor, who says there’ll be lots of destruction as the globe warms. And it’s going to hit the most vulnerable people too, so in love to God and neighbour, turn our fears into action. 

    I like that, because if I love God for creating me and this planet, and I show my love by thinking about and caring for others, isn’t that the obvious approach to global warming? It becomes a pleasure doing business with God too, because if anyone’s got great ideas on what we can actually do about global warming, he does. He just needs people who are interested.

     And that thought came in rather useful when faced with one of my grandchildren recently, who said to me, “What’s the point of doing anything when we’re being told the damage done to the planet is irreversible, and no matter what we do all hell will be let loose in twelve years or so?” 

     But what I see in her is a multitude of talents and amazing thoughts that God implanted in her for just what the planet needs to flourish and survive. So, use your schooling, kiddo, get the best grades you can and develop every talent you’ve got. I went on and on about it to her too, because it’s dawned on me that God will do amazing things through our young people, if they’re interested. I wish I was young again, and someone had told me that when I was in my teens, that God is all for signing us up as partners to become movers and shakers, pioneers and discoverers, and good, solid citizens who care.

     I desperately hope that’s the picture she gets in her head, then, that to God it’s a pleasure doing business with her to make this planet flourish.  

In Mark 16:16 Jesus said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned,” which at first glance seems to drop a very strong hint, that “Yes, a person needs to be baptized to be saved.”  No baptism equals no salvation. Could it be any more clear than that? 

So, if I don’t take the necessary step of believing and being baptized I won’t be saved, right? But isn’t that basing my salvation on things that I do? Or put another way, doesn’t it mean my salvation depends on me – on my belief, first of all, and then on me being baptized too? And does that mean I won’t be saved until those two conditions are met?

No, it doesn’t mean that, because God sent his Son to save us by his death on the cross – meaning we were all saved long before we believed – or even knew anything about – God or baptism. So it can’t be our belief or baptism that saves us, because only Jesus’ death has the power to save. 

And at some point in our lives that dawned on us, didn’t it? It suddenly became clear that when Jesus yelled out on the cross, “It is finished,” it meant his death had saved the world from the eternal death hanging over us, caused by human disobedience to God and lack of trust in him. In his death it had all been forgiven and buried. That job was done. 

The big question then becomes: “Do I believe it?” Do I believe that the job of my salvation from eternal death – caused by my ignorance, disobedience and lack of trust – was completed by Jesus’ death on the cross? Or as Romans 3:24 phrases it – do I believe that I’m “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus”? 

I was “justified freely by his grace,” take note, not by my obedience, my works, my faith, or anything I do or did, including believing and being baptized. “For it’s by grace you have been saved, through faith – and (even that faith) not from yourselves (too); it is the gift of God, not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9), so that no one can boast.” So even my belief was a gift from God. And God didn’t wait for me to believe and be baptized to save me either. He made me “alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions,” verse 6. 

I came “alive with Christ” – meaning my life was altered to the very depths of my being – when I grasped what Jesus had done for me. And it happened without me adding one stitch of belief on my part, or baptism. But the sign that proved this had happened to me was my belief. I grasped what Jesus had done for me. I acknowledged that it was only because of him that such a salvation had been made possible. It was a clear sign that the salvation Jesus had won for humanity on the cross had, and would, continue in its fullness, in me. And if I’d also come across those verses on baptism, and I wanted to be baptized, that too would be an acknowledgement and a sign that I’d been gifted by God with a grasp of his salvation through Christ alone, and the fullness of his salvation would continue in me.

But baptism would be a sign of that, not a requirement. Not being baptized would not damage or affect my salvation at all, because my salvation had already been secured in Jesus’ death. But there’s more salvation to come, where Jesus now lives his life in me, and belief and baptism become lovely signs, therefore, that this salvation would be happening to me as well. 

John the Baptist was really surprised when Jesus came to him to be baptized, but Jesus’ reply in Matthew 3:15 was: “it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” 

But why was Jesus being baptized in John’s water baptism so necessary in fulfilling all righteousness? John’s baptism was all about “confessing sin” (verse 6), and “producing fruits in keeping with repentance” (verse 8), neither of which Jesus needed to do.  Jesus didn’t need to confess to, or repent of, anything. But the Jews of that day, or Israel as a whole, did. They were the ones in desperate need of confessing their sins and producing fruits in keeping with repentance, because they had fallen far short of what God had called them to be and do.

God’s purpose for Israel had been clearly stated back In Isaiah 49:3, that “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendour.” And in verse 6, “I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”  Unfortunately, Israel had failed miserably in fulfilling those two purposes, and God had punished them severely for it, by sentencing them to many years in slavery to pagan nations. And.even after they’d been freed from captivity in Babylon, they were still under the thumb of the Romans 400 years later in Jesus’ day.

But God had sent Jesus to change all that. To prepare Israel for Jesus’ coming, God sent John the Baptist in advance, telling the Jews in Matthew 3:1-3 to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” – taking a quote right out of Isaiah again, about “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him'” in Isaiah 40:3. It resulted in Jews “from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan” going to John to “Confess their sins,” verses 5-6, and be baptized by John in the Jordan river.

And John baptized them “with water for repentance,” verse 11, but that wasn’t enough to make up for Israel’s failure in fulfilling God’s purpose for them. Their baptism in water was only preparation for the one who could make up for it, the one coming after John who would “baptize” them “with the Holy Spirit,” verse 11.   

But before Jesus could baptize those Jews with the Holy Spirit, God needed Jesus himself to be baptized in water too. Not for his own sake, but for Israel’s sake. The Israelites had clearly proved throughout their history that they could not confess their sins or produce fruits for repentance sufficiently enough to make up for all their failures. Their baptism in water, therefore, was only pointing them to the one who could. Only Jesus in his baptism could “fulfill all the righteousness” of confession and repentance they had been unable to fulfill themselves. His baptism could, and would, do that, not theirs.

The message was clear, that only in Jesus could true confession and repentance be made, sufficient enough to take away the sins of Israel. He was doing it for them, in other words, because only he could. But this would be the great beginning of God “bringing back those of Israel I have kept” and “restoring the tribes of Jacob,” in their mission of being “a light to the Gentiles” and bringing “God’s salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6 again).

Or as Peter phrased it in Acts 3:26, “When God raised up his servant (Jesus), he sent him first to you (Jews) to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.” And that “turning from their wicked ways” began with Jesus’ baptism fulfilling the confession and repentance the Jews and Israel had been unable to do themselves. But with that righteousness now fulfilled by Jesus, salvation from sins could now spread from the Jews to the Gentiles too, thereby fulfilling John the Baptist’s statement in John 1:29, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the (whole) world.” That righteousness would now be fulfilled in Jesus too, all pictured so perfectly by his baptism.