Sunday Morning Greek Blog

March 12, 2023

A Woman, a Well, and Worshipping God (John 4; Romans 5:1–11)

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Biblical Studies,Christology,Courage,Ecclesiology,Isaiah,John Gospel of,Life of Christ,Old Testament,Romans,Soteriology,Theology, Biblical — Scott Stocking @ 8:53 pm
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I preached this message on March 12, 2023, Third Sunday in Lent, at Mt. View Presbyterian Church. The Gospel text was pretty much the entire chapter of John 4, so instead of reading all that, I showed a clip from The Chosen, Season 1, Episode 8, where Jesus encounters the woman at the well. Unfortunately, I forgot to record the message, so I do not have an audio file to share with you at this time.

Someone might think John was trying to create scandal from the very first words of his Gospel. In the first couple verses, he claims Jesus is God and was present at creation. The Jewish leaders would have considered that blasphemy. John the Baptizer, who is NOT the same John who wrote this gospel, goes on to claim he is the one sent to prepare the way for the Messiah, and upon Jesus’s baptism, John declares him to be the Son of God.

Then, instead of picking the leading religious rulers of his day, Jesus chooses a few fishermen and other average, everyday men to be in his band of disciples. After that, instead of his first miracle being a healing or exorcism, he decides to make about 180 gallons of premium wine so the party can keep going at the wedding. Then John throws in a story about Jesus cleansing the temple of the money changers and about how he’ll be able to rebuild the temple in three days if it’s destroyed. In John 3, he declares that belief in him ensures eternal life. Again, probably grounds for blasphemy if he were just an ordinary man.

And so we come to John chapter 4, and the scandalous behavior continues. How dare he travel through Samaria! His disciples would have rather walked the extra distance around Samaria rather than soil their sandals with the dust of that land. How dare he talk to a Samaritan woman, let alone ask her for a drink from Jacob’s well, especially when the rest of his followers aren’t around. Don’t you know, Jesus, that we’re not supposed to even touch the Samaritans let alone eat and drink with them?

Many of you know that the Gospel of John is unique in that it has many stories about Jesus’s ministry that are not reflected in the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Many think that John may have organized his Gospel theologically rather than chronologically. For example, the story of Jesus clearing the temple, which is found in chapter 2 of John’s gospel, is placed in the last week of Jesus’s ministry. It’s not clear whether this is the same story, or if there were two different episodes when Jesus cleared the temple.

Jesus is in the land of his ancestors, so it seems fitting, at least to John, that Jesus would want to reveal himself first to his ancestors.

For the sake of argument, then, I’m going to assume there’s a theological message John is trying to get across here: He establishes Jesus is fully divine and that God is his Father. Since he’s God’s “only begotten” on Earth, Jesus then is the primary authority in the Temple, which the Jews believed was home of God’s presence. Finally, Jesus, having been established as the authority for the Jewish religion, essentially abolishes the long-standing prejudice against Samaria by going to the place where his ancestor Judah’s father, Jacob (renamed Israel) first established himself in the Promised Land after returning from Laban’s home. I think this aspect of the story lends to its credibility and to the principle of worship he puts forth.

One of the most important things to note about this encounter with the woman is that Jesus actually takes the time to have a real conversation with the woman, although he slowly reveals that he knows more about her than she thinks he knows. Jesus is in the land of his ancestors, so it seems fitting, at least to John, that Jesus would want to reveal himself first to his ancestors. That would be like me going to the Stocking Township, named after my great, great, great grandfather in the Wahoo area, or perhaps even to the historic site of the 12th-century Stocking Abbey in England, where my ancestors likely came from and ministering to a congregation in either of those places.

So what can we learn from the encounter between Jesus and this woman? The first thing is that Jesus did not recognize the ethnic boundaries that existed in his day and age. The Samaritans followed only the Torah, the five books of Moses, but not the prophets who came later. So they were a people who had deep Jewish roots, but because the Northern Kingdom had been conquered within a couple generations of rise of the prophets and the prohibition against intermarriage had been abandoned, they had little connection to the prophets and they were no longer considered “pure” Jews. The Jews considered them unclean. That didn’t matter to Jesus, though. He wanted the Samaritans to know that a “prophet” had returned to the area after some 700 years,

Because the Jews considered Samaritans unclean, they weren’t permitted to eat or drink from any of any of their plates or vessels. And the fact that she was divorced several times, well beyond what Jewish law would have permitted to remain in good standing, added to her social stigma among her own people not to mention the Jews. This is another barrier that Jesus would shatter: that it was okay to eat and drink with “sinners” and other outcasts like tax collectors.

The other New Testament text from today’s lectionary reading is Romans 5:1–11. Verses 6–8 say this:

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.[1]

Did you catch that? This is really important to understand. When we cry out to God for help, does he say “Quit your womanizing! Quit lying! Quit getting drunk! Then you can come to me and I’ll consider your request?” By no means! That passage doesn’t say Christ died for those who’ve cleaned up their lives first. It says Christ died for the ungodly, while we were still sinners! That sounds like we can have a great weight lifted from us so we can see more hope and more light at the end of whatever dark tunnel sin has led us through. God loves us even before we realize that his love is the greatest gift of all, even when we think we may not be worthy of it. That’s grace!

The offer of “living water” is the centerpiece of the story. Parts of this story hearkens back to Isaiah 49:6 and 10, a prophecy about the Servant of the Lord and the restoration of Israel:

5 And now the Lord says—

he who formed me in the womb to be his servant

to bring Jacob back to him

and gather Israel to himself,

for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord

and my God has been my strength—

6 he says:

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant

to restore the tribes of Jacob

and bring back those of Israel I have kept.

I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,

that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

…

10 They will neither hunger nor thirst,

nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.

He who has compassion on them will guide them

and lead them beside springs of water. [2]

This woman seems to have been suffering for some time because she felt like she needed to draw water in the heat of the day. We don’t know very much about her personal life aside from the divorces; no indication she had any children or what her current relationship was like. This leads us to another principle at play here: Don’t be afraid to speak to someone about whatever it is in their life that is holding them back from a full and vibrant relationship with God. Now Jesus had some special knowledge of her situation here, so he holds the advantage, but it’s for her benefit ultimately. Once he discloses what he knows about her marital status, she understands not only that Jesus is a prophet, but she also believes his claim that he is the Messiah and shared that convincingly with many people in her town.

Don’t be afraid to speak to someone about whatever it is in their life that is holding them back from a full and vibrant relationship with God.

Jeremiah mentions a couple times (2:13; 17:13) about how his listeners have “forsaken the LORD, the spring of living water.” But Zechariah, when prophesying about the second coming of Christ and the consummation of history, says this in 14:8:

On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it east to the Dead Sea and half of it west to the Mediterranean Sea, in summer and in winter.

9 The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.[3]

This is the ultimate and absolute promise of fulfillment we can look forward to when we humble ourselves before God and accept his free gifts of reconciliation and salvation. God will be in total control. No more crying, pain, or grief, just living eternally in the glory of God’s light.

Turning back to Romans 5 for a moment, Paul describes what happens when we come into that justification, and the woman seems to have experienced that, especially with respect to addressing the own suffering she had experienced for so long. Listen to verses 1–5:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. [4]

The final takeaway from this passage is how Jesus is overturning the traditions (and exclusions) about worship. The woman was upset about how the Jews thought the Temple in Jerusalem was the only place you could really worship God. In fact, it seems like she’s trying to use that to get out of talking about her marital history. But Jesus assures her that a new way of worship has arrived. The place no longer matters; what matters is expressing her true feelings and emotions from her heart, soul, and mind to praise God for all he’s done for her. It’s that joy that causes her to leave her water jars behind and hurry back to her people proclaiming, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”[5]

John notes that the woman at the well was responsible, by virtue of her testimony, for many in her town believing, and they had that testimony confirmed by Jesus himself, because he stayed there a few days preaching and teaching. They knew the joy of personal justification and reconciliation with God. They also found the hope of eternal life as well. Listen to Romans 5:9–11:

9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.[6]

My prayer for you this Lenten and Easter season is that you know the salvation of God and receive it with joy just as the woman at the well did. Let us hold fast to our faith and hope and continue to reach out to those who need to experience God’s love, forgiveness, compassion and grace. Amen.

[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[3] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[4] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[5] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[6] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

May 15, 2022

Jesus, the Good Shepherd (John 10:22–30)

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Biblical Studies,Christology,John Gospel of,Life of Christ,Soteriology,Theology, Biblical — Scott Stocking @ 6:14 am
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Author’s Note: I preached this sermon on Mother’s Day (05/08/22) at Mt. View Presbyterian Church. The text is lightly edited for publication. For a related post, see “I Am the Door of the Sheep”; “I Am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:7, 11).

I mentioned last week how the challenge of preaching from the lectionary texts has served to sharpen my preaching and academic skills. But this week’s texts presented an additional challenge for me, because none of them lined up with today’s special designation on our social and cultural calendars: Mother’s Day. What’s a preacher to do!?!

Well, fortunately, God gave me a unique 7-pound mass of gray matter that never ceases to amaze my wife with the connections I can make between seemingly unconnected concepts. At least, I think I amaze her. She would probably tell you I befuddle and bewilder her and then roll her eyes for emphasis. But anyway, I digress. Although I can’t make my whole message about motherhood based on the text today, I can highlight some principles of motherhood that undergird Jesus’s ministry and apply them to our situations.

Jesus in His Father’s House

To set the stage for our text today, we need to go back to Jesus’s preteen years, when he was only 12 years old, probably his “coming of age” year as a young Jewish male. Jesus’s family had gone to Jerusalem every year for the Passover, and that year was no exception. Only this time, according to Luke 2, Jesus decided to give his parents the scare of their lives by staying behind in Jerusalem while his parents headed back to Nazareth. His parents didn’t realize this until about a day later, because they thought he was hanging out with the other kids in the caravan they were travelling with.

It took them three days to find him, and when they did find him, he was in the temple courts hanging out with the teachers of the law. They were “amazed [ἐξίστημι (existēmi)] at Jesus’s understanding and answers.” In other words, they couldn’t believe their ears that such wisdom was coming from a 12-year-old boy. On the other hand, his parents were “astonished” or “overwhelmed” [ἐκπλήσσομαι (ekplēssomai)] that he was apparently commanding so much respect from the teachers of the law, let alone that he had managed to survive half a week in Jerusalem without his parents.

Jesus’s response to his earthly parents I think has been largely underappreciated or at least underemphasized in most circles: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Now every Jewish mother expected her boy might someday be the Messiah, but Mary knew it for a fact that Jesus was the Messiah. So Jesus’s response here may be the first time the implications of his conception and birth really hit her: Jesus IS the Son of God.

Luke says that Mary “treasured these things in her heart,” which probably meant that she had a choice to make about being the mother of the Son of God. Any other Jewish mother would have encouraged her son to follow in his father’s footsteps. But Jesus had a “stepfather,” if you will, in Joseph the carpenter as well as his true father, the God of the universe. So we can make an educated guess at this point that, not only did Mary and Joseph encourage Jesus to be a carpenter, but they also had to respect that his true home was the temple, where God was said to live. It’s fairly easy to assume then, that they continued the annual trips to the temple (perhaps at least three times per year) to help him develop and maintain that connection, at least until Jesus struck out on his own.

Jesus’s love for the temple, which he had such a special, passionate connection to, seems to be a main focus of John’s gospel, wherein lies our text for this morning. Now think about this for a minute: John’s first story about Jesus in the temple is Jesus chasing out the money changers. And what does he say? “Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” If the temple is his father’s house, then isn’t it technically his house too as the son of God? As God’s earthly representative, Jesus has sort of a default power of attorney over the temple and must protect the honor of his father and the integrity of his father’s house. For Jesus, then, clearing the temple wasn’t just an act of righteous indignation, but a deeply personal act of protecting his family honor. I must admit that this thought didn’t occur to me until just this week as I was preparing my message. This is the kind of passion you can expect when a good mother—and a good father—instill in their children a profound respect for family and home.

Seven of the 21 chapters in John place Jesus at the temple in all or part of the chapters. This is one feature that sets the gospel of John apart from the other three gospels. Sure, John does have Jesus ministering in locations outside of Jerusalem, like the wedding at Cana and the feeding of the multitudes. But he always comes back to the temple or a festival at the temple.

Jesus: The Gate and the Good Shepherd

That’s where we find ourselves in today’s passage, John 10:22–30. Jesus has come to the Festival of Dedication, what we know today as Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, to participate in the celebration and do a little more teaching as well. He uses the metaphor of sheep in his discussion, which fits right in with two “I am” statements John records in the first part of chapter 10: “I am the good shepherd [ποιμήν (poimēn)],” and “I am the gate [θύρα (thyra)] for the sheep.” In fact, John 10–14 would seem to be the core of John’s gospel, because we also have two more “I am” statements in that section: “I am the resurrection and the life,” and “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

So how does this all tie together? And why is Jesus using the imagery of sheep here? His first “I am” statement in John 10 is perhaps the biggest clue. When he says, “I am the gate for the sheep,” he’s most likely standing very near the Sheep Gate, one of the ancient entrances into Jerusalem, which is within 100 feet of the outer court of the Temple, the Court of the Gentiles. The Sheep Gate was so important given its proximity to the temple that Nehemiah (3:1) lists it as the first gate the Israelites repaired when they returned to Jerusalem. John’s first account of Jesus healing someone is in chapter 5, where Jesus healed a man who had been lame for 38 years at the pool of Bethesda near the Sheep Gate.

The other thing Jesus says about being the gate for the sheep is significant: “Through me, whoever enters will be saved.” That sounds very much like “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” in John 14:6. Another way to look at this is that John arranges this core section of his gospel with the two “I am” statements where Jesus says he’s the only way at the beginning and end.

Now Jesus saying that he’s the gate for the sheep leads naturally into Jesus’s next “I am” statement: “I am the good shepherd.” The shepherd fulfills multiple roles while he’s tending his flock. He serves as protector of the flock, fighting off wolves, predators, and thieves in the wilderness. Of course, these are roles we’d typically assign to a father, especially in Jesus’s day. But the shepherd also helps the ewes give birth and tends to any injured sheep, roles we would typically assign to, wait for it, mothers! See what I did there? I snuck that reference into my Mother’s Day message, wink and a nod.

And why can Jesus say he’s a good shepherd? Well in part, it’s because he healed that man at the Sheep Gate a few chapters earlier. But that’s not all. Jesus gives a pretty full explanation of what it means to be a shepherd. Here are the highlights:

  • The shepherd knows his sheep by name.
  • The sheep know the shepherd’s voice and to follow the shepherd’s voice; they won’t follow a stranger’s voice.
  • The shepherd will lead them to fertile pastures.
  • The shepherd ensures the sheep will have a full and abundant life (sounds kind of like “I am the resurrection and the life,” right?)
  • The shepherd will not abandon the sheep when danger is present; in fact, he will lay down his life for the sheep.

So with this background in mind, let’s read again today’s passage.

22 Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. 24 The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.” [1]

John 10:22–30

The Jews want to know if Jesus is the Messiah, but many of the Jews are probably still thinking of a political Messiah who will overthrow the rule of Rome from their lives and restore a theocracy again, or at least something akin to what they had in the days of David and Solomon. Jesus’s response is a bit cryptic, as it usually is. He doesn’t want people to believe because he’s told them so. He wants people to look at what he’s done in the way of his miracles and teaching and figure it out for themselves. Figuring it out for yourself is always more convincing than just being told outright, right? Jesus’s followers know him and recognize him for who he is. They made the sacrifice to follow him, learn from him, and grow closer to God in him. They were the “sheep” following the shepherd. I don’t use that term in a disparaging way, of course. His followers put their trust in him, and Jesus proved faithful with that trust. But those who haven’t been following him or are just casual observers, they can’t believe because they don’t have the experience with him just yet.

Recognizing the Shepherd’s Voice

I think vs. 27 is the most important concept to grasp here. “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” How is it we can get to a place where we can distinguish the Savior’s voice from all the other noise around us? I’m going to include another motherly fact here: audiologists say that between 6 and 7 months in the womb, a baby begins to recognize their mother’s voice and respond consistently. That’s two to three months BEFORE they’re born! How about you? When did you first realize God was speaking to you, calling you into his fold? Are you able to look back on your life and recognize, “Hey, maybe God was talking to me in this or that situation and I didn’t even realize it!” I’m sure he was talking to you even before you made your faith your own.

Another way we recognize God’s voice is by staying engaged with his word. I will never forget the time when I was a campus minister at Northern Illinois University, and our ministry operated some student housing. We had one resident who wasn’t working; he claimed God didn’t want him to work. Unfortunately, that meant he never had money to pay his rent. I guess he thought it would somehow magically fall from the sky and into his pockets. However, somehow, he always had money for food. When we finally confronted him about this, including Scriptures about working to provide for yourself (Eph 4:28; 1 Thess 5:14; 2 Thess 3:6–13, esp. v. 10), his response floored me: “I can’t help it if I’m more spiritual and you’re more scriptural.” In other words, he thought the Holy Spirit was telling him to do something that contradicted the word of God! I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that. The more we get into God’s word, the more we understand what he wants for our lives.

Assurance of Eternal Life

In the final part of this passage, we see that the good shepherd has given us eternal life; “life” without end. On the one hand, that means life to the fullest, as he promised earlier in the chapter. On the other hand, that means we have the promise of his resurrection, which he affirms in chapter 11 not only by saying he is the resurrection and the life, but by raising Lazarus from the dead as well. Not only do we have this eternal life, but we have the promise that, as long as we abide in him, nothing will ever overcome or nullify that promise of eternal life.

Paul reaffirms this in Romans 8:38–39:

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38–39

Conclusion

To bring this to a close, I want to look briefly at chapters 12 & 13, the rest of this core section of John’s gospel, to grasp how Jesus further demonstrates himself as the good shepherd. In chapter 12, we see Jesus anointed with perfume in preparation for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which we looked at a few weeks ago. In chapter 13, we see the true servant nature of Jesus as he washes the disciples’ feet. He’s also preparing his disciples for when he departs from them after his crucifixion and resurrection, although they don’t seem to fully comprehend that. He’s truly ready and preparing for the time when he’d have to lay down his life for his sheep.

Are you a member of God’s flock? Are you part of the fold? Now is the time if you’re not. Reach out to the Father and ask him for forgiveness and acceptance, while pledging your life to be part of his kingdom.

[1] Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

April 10, 2022

The Day of the Donkey: Holy Week Events From the Perspective of the Prophesied Donkey

Filed under: Biblical Animals,Biblical Studies,Christology,Genesis,Greek,Hebrew,Isaiah,John Gospel of,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Passion,Prophet,Zechariah — Scott Stocking @ 2:47 pm
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Press play to hear the message. I had forgotten to record this the day of the message, so I recorded it at home. My apologies for the cat chiming in.

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™
Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Author’s Note: Dr. Wayne Shaw, my preaching professor at Lincoln Christian Seminary in late 1980s, had assigned as one of our textbooks Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor. He did this so that we as preachers would not just preach exegetical, point-by-point sermons all the time, but to learn how tell stories as well. Every once in a while, I will break from my normal preaching (and writing) style and do just that, tell a story. My message this morning (April 10, 2022) at Mt. View Presbyterian Church in Omaha, Nebraska, was a retelling of the triumphal entry and the events of Holy Week from the perspective of the donkey who carried Jesus into Jerusalem on what we now know as Palm Sunday. I hope you enjoy.

My name is Ḥamor (חֲמוֹר). A silly, almost embarrassing name, really. I mean, why couldn’t my parents just name me Hammer, like the great Judas “the Hammer” Maccabeus. That sounds so much cooler than “Ḥamor.” That guy knew how to take it to the enemy and gain Jewish independence 200 years ago. But I digress.

I said my name is almost embarrassing. In fact, it really is quite embarrassing unless you know the history of my ancestors and how they’ve played an important role in the spiritual history of my people. Wait, what? You say you don’t know what the name Ḥamor means? Ohhh, that’s right, most of you probably don’t speak Hebrew, do you. Well, this is embarrassing then, because in your language, my name really doesn’t have a good reputation at all. In the language of the Romans, Latin, I’m known as Equus asinus (AH see noose). The Greeks would call me ὄνος (onos). That came over into the King James Version of the Bible as, well, uh—this is so embarrassing—(whisper) “ass.” Whew, there, I said it. Let me say it again (with confidence): “I am an ass.” Feels good to get that out. Yes, I say it proudly: I am a donkey! Go ahead, get it out of your system. Laugh if you want, “heehaw” and all that. I’m used to it. But be careful: I’m not just any donkey. I am THE donkey. Yep, I’m the one the prophets talked about as far back as the time of Jacob and his sons in Egypt. I’m the one the Messiah rode into Jerusalem last week.

Now you may think I’m just a dumb…donkey, a beast of burden to carry your stuff around and pull your plows. But what you don’t know is that, just like every Hebrew mother thought her son would be the Messiah, every donkey mom thought her little colt would be the one who’d fulfill the donkey prophecies in what you call the Old Testament. What? You’re not familiar with those prophecies? Well, we donkeys are taught them from the time we’re born. I guess if you’re not a donkey, it might be hard to appreciate the stories about donkeys. But it really is a fascinating story, and I hope by the end, you’ll have a new appreciation of donkeys, and maybe you’ll stop using that other word as a bad word, because I’m proud of our history and heritage.

Before we get too far into those stories, let me give you a little history of donkeys, especially as they relate to this part of the world. We donkeys have a bit of a mixed reputation throughout history. Let me start with the bad news first: some Christian traditions later on will associate us with absurdity, obstinacy, and slothfulness, and at some point, a red donkey becomes the symbol of Satan. I really don’t know how we got connected with that evil accuser, but I do admit that we can sometimes be a bit stubborn and slow starters. Plato called us “perverse” for whatever reason, and another Roman writer said we were the meanest of all animals. Not sure where he got that one from. Maybe he was thinking of our half-breed cousins, the mules.

But the good news is, there were plenty of cultures that had very high opinions of donkeys, so much so that they were always included in royal ceremonies. The Ugarits have artwork showing their gods riding donkeys, while the Muslims would call some of their heroes “donkey-riders.” One ancient Christian tale (Vita Sanctae Pelagiae Meretricis) even suggests that a woman riding on a donkey represents the height of beauty. Generally speaking, if someone with a lot of power and clout was riding a donkey, it usually meant that they were coming in peace.[1]

As far as the Bible itself goes, however, we seem to get a pretty fair shake. It all started with Jacob when, on his deathbed, he was blessing all his children, and pronounced this regarding Judah (Genesis 49:8‒12):

      8 “Judah, your brothers will praise you;

         your hand will be on the neck of your enemies;

         your father’s sons will bow down to you.

      9 You are a lion’s cub, Judah;

         you return from the prey, my son.

         Like a lion he crouches and lies down,

         like a lioness—who dares to rouse him?

      10 The scepter will not depart from Judah,

         nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,

         until he to whom it belongs shall come

         and the obedience of the nations shall be his.

      11 He will tether his donkey to a vine,

         his colt to the choicest branch;

         he will wash his garments in wine,

         his robes in the blood of grapes.

      12 His eyes will be darker than wine,

         his teeth whiter than milk.

All the Hebrews knew that the Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah based on this prophecy. And all the donkeys knew that this ruler, the Lion of Judah, would eventually choose one of us for the most important mission in history. It seems like God is saying that he’s already got a plan to put all the players in place for when this ruler comes, even though the Hebrews had never had a king to this point. But one thing we’ve never been able to figure out about that prophecy is the bit about washing his garments in wine and his robes in the blood of grapes. Seems like they’d come out sticky and disgusting if we did that. One day we’ll know, though, I guess, right?

It’s not really a prophecy, but there is that story about Balaam in Numbers when he got a little too eager to help Moab out against the Hebrews. Keep in mind that Balaam probably wasn’t a Hebrew, but just a pagan prophet for hire. When the mama donkey (אָתוֹן, ʾāṯôn) he was riding (yes, she was female!) saw the angel of the Lord trying to stop him three times, she stopped and got a beating each time from Balaam. When mama donkey had finally had enough of that, she became a mama bear and chewed Balaam’s…, I mean scolded Balaam for his misplaced eagerness. Wouldn’t you have loved to see Balaam’s face when that mama bear voice started reading the riot act to him? He must have been white as a ghost. Mama donkey saved our reputation that day. She’s definitely one of our heroes.

Then there was that time that David had his son Solomon ride David’s own mule (פִּרְדָּה, pirdā(h); in case you don’t know, a mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey) to name him as successor to his throne. That must have been quite a day of celebration, pomp, and circumstance. I wish I could have been there.

But the ultimate prophecy that impacts us donkeys is the one in Zechariah 9. All of us have to learn this one.

      9 Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!

         Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!

         See, your king comes to you,

         righteous and victorious,

         lowly and riding on a donkey,

         on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

      10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim

         and the warhorses from Jerusalem,

         and the battle bow will be broken.

         He will proclaim peace to the nations.

         His rule will extend from sea to sea

         and from the River to the ends of the earth.

      11 As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you,

         I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.

      12 Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;

         even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.

      13 I will bend Judah as I bend my bow

         and fill it with Ephraim.

         I will rouse your sons, Zion,

         against your sons, Greece,

         and make you like a warrior’s sword.

Oh, how I love this prophecy, especially now, because I’m realizing I’m living in the midst of it. Verse 13 refers to Judas Maccabeus, you know, the Hammer guy I mentioned at the beginning of my story. He and his followers were able to overcome the Greek Seleucids and bring independence to Judah for a long time. It was from them that the Herod dynasty arose in Judah. They were okay at first, as most new rulers are, but they’re just sniveling little Roman puppets now. Nobody likes them. In fact, one of them tried to have the Messiah killed after he was born, and another one had John the Baptist beheaded. They’re just puppet kings; they’re not real kings, and they’re certainly not on the Messiah’s side. But, that was exactly the situation God needed to send the Messiah.

I’m pretty sure the current Herodian wouldn’t have ridden into town on a donkey. He’s too full of himself to go near us donkeys. But about a week ago, we started to hear the buzz around Jerusalem: Jesus and his disciples were on their way. He’d already earned quite a reputation with his miracles and his teaching, and it was obvious he was doing something right because the religious rulers were having a really hard time accepting him. Our donkey spy network, if you want to call it that, had been hearing troubling conversations, even to the point of the religious rulers wanting to crucify the Messiah. We were scared and excited at the same time.

We had been noticing that the crowds coming to Jerusalem for Passover were a lot bigger than in recent years, so my person thought we ought to get a jump on the day last Sunday, even though my hometown of Bethphage was only a few miles away. My mom and I were tied up outside, waiting to get loaded up and leave, when these two guys who looked like they’d been traveling forever came up, scratched my nose, and started to untie me. Now you’d think my mom would have started braying and kicking up a storm when that happened, but instead, she gave them both a gentle nuzzle. My person came out and asked, “Why are you untying the colt?” The older of the two just smiled and said, “The Lord needs it.” That was good enough for my person. Mom gave me a knowing look and kind of nudged me, as if to say, “It’s okay. Go with them. It’s time.”

So they led me a little way toward Jerusalem, and who do think was at their camp waiting for me? It was Jesus!!! There were so many people around, I was a little scared, but I realized this must be the time that Zechariah and Jacob had talked about in their prophecies. People put their cloaks on me and on the road ahead of me, waved palm branches, and Jesus himself sat on me! What an honor! A whole crowd of people were so happy to see him and were shouting all kinds of praises to him. But I saw a couple grumpy Pharisees trying to get Jesus to quiet the crowd. Yeah, right. Good luck with that, Pharisees. I imagine Rome was getting pretty nervous as well.

Even though the crowd was cheering, as we got closer to Jerusalem, Jesus started crying and pronounced a sad, scary prophecy about the city. That kind of took me by surprise. Why was he so sad and so gloomy about Jerusalem when most everyone else seemed so excited and joyful?

Well, it didn’t take too long to find out. Our huge parade went into the city, and the first place we went, as you might imagine, was the Temple. I couldn’t go in, but Jesus was really upset at those who were taking advantage of the poor who were coming in for the Passover and overturned their tables and chased them out of the Temple courts. Something about making his father’s house a den of robbers. That just seemed like quite a turn of events at that point, and it seems to have set the stage for what happened the rest of the week.

Now I did stay in Jerusalem after that Temple incident, but I didn’t go everywhere Jesus went. However, I had begun to hear stories of Jesus confronting the Pharisees, prophesying against the Temple, and other stuff like that. When I did see Jesus, he was resolute, like a man on a mission who could not be deterred. On Thursday night, a few of the disciples loaded me up with some Passover food and we headed to a house in town. The meal was upstairs, so I had to stay outside. It was a quiet night because it was the Passover meal, so I was able to hear bits and pieces of the conversation coming through the windows. Something about washing their feet, body and blood, and even a betrayer. It wasn’t long after that conversation that I saw Judas running out of the house and headed toward the Temple.

After that is when things get a little confusing. Jesus and the rest of the disciples sang a hymn and came down from the meal. We all went to the Garden of Gethsemane, but by that time we were all getting pretty tired and the sun had set. I lay down there to try to sleep, and I heard Jesus say something to Peter and John about staying awake. All of the sudden, everyone started shouting, because Judas had come to the garden with soldiers. They were arresting Jesus!!! Things got really confusing then. I heard a couple swords drawn, someone got hurt but Jesus healed him, and then all the disciples scattered, forgetting about me.

I managed to follow Jesus back to Jerusalem without being too obvious and was just able to slip through the city gate before they closed it again. I heard someone say they were going to the high priest’s house. We got there, and there was quite a crowd for that late at night. I heard a lot of shouting and arguing coming from the house, and eventually Jesus came out, still tied up. It was weird. Right when he came out, a rooster crowed, and I could see Jesus was looking straight at Peter, who was in the crowd. Peter looked sad, but the crowd surged at that point, and I lost sight of him.

It’s hard for me to describe what happened the next day, because it was so gruesome and ugly and I’m still pretty shaken by it. The pharisees turned Jesus over to the Romans, who whipped him, then he was brought to Pilate, who wanted to release him. But the Pharisees were stirring up the crowd, shouting “Crucify him!” I couldn’t bear it anymore. I just wanted to go home. Here, I thought I was the donkey of the prophecies, yet the “king” was going to be crucified instead. As I was exiting the city, I saw three poles on a hill nearby. It looked like there were already several Roman soldiers there and a crowd gathering. Then I heard behind me a mob approaching. I went down the road a little bit where I could get off to the side and still watch the hill. In the midst of the mob, I saw Jesus, whipped, bleeding, struggling to carry the horizontal beam of the cross. Oh, wait, maybe that’s what the prophecy meant about his garments washed in wine. Eww (shudder). It couldn’t be. I watched the rest of that scene unfold in utter disbelief. I watched as they hung Jesus from the cross between two other criminals. I could see that Jesus was shouting something as best he could, but I couldn’t make it out. I saw a soldier poke him in the side. Then the sky went dark. Yeah, that seems to fit the way this day is going.

As I was watching all this, I remembered that along with the donkey prophecies, my parents had taught me an Isaiah passage as well: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds, we are healed.” How could all that pain and suffering bring healing? Then I made the connection: I realized I have a cross on my back; most donkeys do. Could it be that God made us beasts of burden with a cross on our backs because one of us would one day bear the one who would be burdened with the sin of mankind on a cross? As much as I wanted to go home, my eyes and my soul were captivated by the horror of what I was seeing. I had to get closer. I watched as they took his limp body down from the cross. I could see the general direction they were headed, so I tried to get to where they seemed to be headed. I’m glad I did. When I got to the place where they would bury him, I watched as they took his body, wrapped in linen cloths, into the tomb, rolled the stone in front of it, and put the Roman seal on it. And then I saw two people I recognized: Mary and John. I went up and nudged them gently, and they recognized me. But it was getting close to sundown, and they had to get home before the Sabbath started. They tried to get me to come, but I put on my stubbornness and wouldn’t budge. I wanted to stay near the tomb.

As much as I wanted to go home, my eyes and my soul were captivated by the horror of what I was seeing. I had to get closer. I watched as they took his limp body down from the cross.

That Sabbath yesterday was the worst day of my young life. I was still in shock. I couldn’t even move, let alone eat. I just hid out in some nearby trees and kept guard as best I could. I dozed off and on all day (just like the Roman guards!), until I finally realized I had slept through most of the night. Just before daybreak on the morning after the Sabbath, I felt the ground shake and heard the Roman guards yelling as they ran away. Then I saw them at the tomb, two angels rolling the stone away! I saw Jesus come to the opening of the tomb. He looked straight at me, winked, and disappeared. Could I be dreaming?

Just then Jesus’s mother, Mary, and Mary Magdalene came running up to the tomb, only to find the stone rolled away. I hadn’t been dreaming! I wanted to approach them, but before they noticed me, the angels appeared to them and told them what had happened. It was true then, Jesus was alive! The women never saw me, but turned and ran back toward Jerusalem, presumably to tell the rest of the disciples.

After the women ran off, one of the angels looked at me and said, “Well done, faithful Ḥamor. You may return home.” I had done my part that the prophets had predicted so long ago. I was indeed THE donkey that gave the king a ride into Jerusalem, and now I knew just what kind of king he would be. I headed home to tell my mom, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

[1] Ryken, Leland, Jim Wilhoit, Tremper Longman, Colin Duriez, Douglas Penney, and Daniel G. Reid. 2000. In Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, electronic ed., 215. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

February 19, 2022

From Wine to the Vine

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Biblical Studies,Christology,Greek,John Gospel of,Life of Christ,Soteriology,Theology, Biblical — Scott Stocking @ 12:18 am

Historical Note: This sermon is based on one of my earlier articles on the Seven “I Am” Statements of Jesus. I preached the sermon (in its current form) at Wheeler Grove Church on January 16, 2022, and at Mount View Presbyterian Church two weeks later.

In my message on Halloween Day, I walked us through Jesus’s miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead and his corresponding “I am” statement, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Of the seven “I am” statements Jesus makes in John, and the seven miracles, or “signs,” of Jesus that John records in his gospel, those two are the closest in the text, and of course most closely related.

This morning, I want to look at another related combination of an “I am” statement and a miracle of Jesus. Only this time, the two are about as far apart as they could be in John’s gospel. Jesus’s first miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana in chapter 2, and Jesus’s final “I am” statement in John 15: “I am the true vine.” His final “I am” statement comes in the middle of his final instructions to the disciples after the Last Supper and before his final prayer and arrest.

These two stories form “bookends” for the core of John’s gospel because they represent one of the key messages of Scripture: the power of and in the blood of Jesus. Now you may wonder why my sermon title is “From Wine to Vine,” especially since the process of making wine works the other way, but that’s the way they’re ordered in the gospel, so I’m going to respect that order. Let’s take a look at the miracle first: turning water into wine.

Read John 2:1–10

John opens his gospel with a profound statement of the incarnation: God’s only son has come to us as a human being, experiencing the fullness of life, from birth in a stable through the “terrible twos” (if that even applied to Jesus), the challenges of puberty, and into adolescence and adulthood. John also emphasizes in the opening chapter that Jesus is the light, something Jesus will affirm some time later with another “I am” statement. It shouldn’t surprise us that Jesus’s first miracle has to do with a basic, joyful human celebration: that of a wedding.

Wine is an interesting choice for a first miracle, because the OT has a mixed bag of opinion about wine, depending on the word the Hebrews used for it. The most common word for wine is connected to violence, poverty, and anguish in Proverbs; drunkenness in several other places; and is forbidden for those who take the Nazarite vow as Samson did.

But since Jesus is the one making about 180 gallons of premium vino, I think we’re okay looking at some of the positive uses of wine in the OT.

Melchizedek, who is seen as a Christ figure in Genesis, brings out bread and wine to Abraham after a military victory. It was often used as a drink offering in sacrificial or other sacramental rites. Psalm 104:14–15 says this about God’s provision:

14 He makes grass grow for the cattle,

and plants for people to cultivate—

bringing forth food from the earth:

15 wine that gladdens human hearts,

oil to make their faces shine,

and bread that sustains their hearts.[1]

Psalm 104:14–15

Solomon, as you might imagine, had a positive view of wine and understood the joy it could bring to life:

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do.[2]

Ecclesiastes 9:7 

And again,

A feast is made for laughter,

wine makes life merry,

and money is the answer for everything. [3]

Ecclesiastes 10:19 

Even the Greeks were concerned about the proper use of wine, and this may in fact reflect some of Solomon’s own philosophy. I came across this quote from Plato’s Laws while doing some other research recently. The discussion involves rules about wine for various age groups: They prohibited wine to those under 18 years old, saying it would have poured “fire upon fire” of unchecked youthful desire. They allowed young men under 30 to drink wine in moderation. But my favorite part of this description is what they allow for us old folks:

But when a man has reached the age of forty, he may join in the convivial gatherings and invoke Dionysus, above all other gods, inviting his presence at the rite (which is also the recreation) of the elders, which he bestowed on mankind as a medicine potent against the crabbedness of old age, that thereby we men may renew our youth, and that, through forgetfulness of care, the temper of our souls [666c] may lose its hardness and become softer and more ductile, even as iron when it has been forged in the fire.

Plato, Laws, 665–666, emphasis mine

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not endorsing the drunken parties of Dionysus, Greco-Roman god of wine. That text goes on to say that the purpose of the wine was to loosen tongues of those who were afraid to sing the praises of Dionysus amongst their friends. I most certainly do not endorse that practice as a way pep up a church’s worship service! All kidding aside, though, the point is, they did consider wine from their own worldview as something that made life merrier, a little more bearable, but seemingly only in its proper context.

The Old Testament also had a separate word for “new wine” (תִּיר֖וֹשׁ tirōwsh) that is, wine from the current year’s harvest. It was not fermented as much as older wine, so it was not as sweet, but the literature of the day still suggests you could get drunk on it. This new wine is usually spoken of positively in the OT. The NT didn’t really have a special word for “new wine,” so the author would have to use the word “new” if they wanted to specify “new wine.” Jesus’s wine is obviously “new,” but the fact that it was far superior to the wine served initially suggests it wasn’t the typical “new wine,” nor was it even comparable to the old wine.

Jesus’s first miracle saved the wedding. It saved the host from the terrible embarrassment of running out of wine. Jesus thought that much of celebrating the joys of life here on earth that he was willing to create 180 gallons of premium wine to keep the party going. But that’s only a small part of the picture here with this miracle. There’s a seemingly innocuous fact in vs. 6 that we should pay attention to. John says the stone water jars were “the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing”[4] (καθαρισμός katharismos) or “purification” as some translations have it. We see the concept of purification or washing in the next passage we’ll look at, Jesus’s last “I am” statement, “I am the true vine.” It’s also should not go unnoticed that there’s a connection here between wine and the concept of ceremonial cleansing. Sound familiar?

[Note on katharismos: The -ismos ending added to the Greek root typically indicates an intensification of the base meaning of the root word. It’s not just “clean,” but “clean through and through, inside and out,” which is what one should expect from a ceremonial cleansing.]

Read John 15:1–10

This passage comes in the midst of Jesus’s final instructions to his disciples. The last half of John’s gospel, from chapter 12 on, covers the last week of Jesus’s life on earth and his resurrection. John gives us a great deal more detail what happened between the Last Supper and his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane than the other gospels do. In chapter 14, he describes the ministry and role of the Holy Spirit. In 15, he reassures them that they can still be connected to him when he’s gone. In 16, he prepares them for the struggles ahead. And in 17, he prays for his disciples and all of us who come after them that we would be secure in our faith.

The vine metaphor is pretty straightforward to understand. A vine has one root structure with a bunch of branches that spread out, attaching to whatever it can find around it, even to the ground itself. Jesus is that singular root from which we all derive. In order to remain fruitful, we need to stay connected to the main vine and its root structure. And this is the goal of our lives: not just to be Christ followers but fruit bearers. Jesus extends this further: not only should we remain in Jesus, we should also remain in his love by showing love to those around us.

Now the word “vine” isn’t found in the wine miracle, and the word “wine” isn’t found in the “vine” story. But vs. 3, which seems to come out of nowhere, makes the connection with wine miracle: “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” The word for “clean” is from the same root (καθαρός katharos) as the word for “washing” or “purification” in the miracle story.

Perhaps by now, you know where I’m headed with this connection between the two passages, and how they form the thematic bookends of the gospel of John. In chapter 13, John’s version of the Last Supper with details not found in the other three gospel accounts, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, and addresses Peter’s objection by saying, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” In vs. 10, Jesus says, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean.” There’s that word “clean” again.

So these two very different stories we’ve looked at have a common thread, even if that thread isn’t the main message of the stories: the concept of being cleansed in a spiritual sense. I think this cuts to the heart of how the people in Jesus’s day felt about themselves spiritually: beat down by the culture around them while trying to abide by a rigorous legalistic application of God’s laws. They felt like they had no hope of freedom, no hope of ever feeling like they were truly right with their God. Jesus comes to bring joy and to assure the people that they are and can continue to be connected to their God.

If we look at the Last Supper stories in the other gospels, we get a better idea of just what Jesus means by “clean.” In Matthew, when Jesus takes the cup and blesses it, he says, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”[5] This, of course, is a far cry from Plato’s “potent medicine against the crabbedness of old age”! Jesus forgives us, cleanses us, and makes us complete in him.

So we see how John has woven the theme of the cleansing blood of Jesus throughout his gospel, with miracle of the wine in the ceremonial washing jars, the “I am the true vine” statement, John’s unique account of the Last Supper, the “True Vine” statement, and the theme of cleansing therein.

So the next time you have Communion, or even the next time you read the gospel of John, consider how Jesus, from the very beginning of his ministry, was concerned not just with enjoying life on earth, but about assuring us that we can be forgiven of our sins and made pure and righteous in him. Peace and safety to you all in the new year, and thank you for asking me back again. I am truly enjoying these opportunities to share with you.

[1] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ps 104:14–15.

[2] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ec 9:7.

[3] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ec 10:19.

[4] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Jn 2:6.

[5] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Mt 26:28.

June 24, 2012

Scandalous Living

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,John Gospel of,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Mark Gospel of,Matthew Gospel of,New Testament — Scott Stocking @ 6:04 pm

This past weekend, I finished leading our men’s group in a nine-week study through John Eldredge‘s Beautiful Outlaw. The subtitle of the book is “Experiencing the Playful, Disruptive, Extravagant Personality of Jesus,” which should clue you in as to the subject of the book. The basic premise of the book is this: because Jesus is the incarnation of God, every aspect of his personality has the divine imprint. If God the Father could be human, Jesus is the ultimate and unique example of how God the Father would live on this earth. Every aspect of Jesus’s personality is perfect in human form: his sense of humor, generosity, conversation, passions, playfulness, love, relationships, and so forth all emanate from his Father, God the Father (John 5:19).

Breaking Barriers

Jesus went places where good Jews of his day avoided. Jesus spoke to men and women of ethnic backgrounds the Jews despised. Jesus broke the barriers of cultural taboos by reaching out to and even touching the “untouchables.” Jesus challenged the religiosity of the status quo to shed a fresh new light on what it meant to be a God-follower. Unfortunately, too many Christians, both individually and collectively in various expressions of the church, have exalted Jesus to so heavenly a status that they have forgotten he had his human side. Lest I be misunderstood, Jesus’s human side was kept in check by his divine nature, something you and I don’t have. He had no sin. We can get away with saying, “I’m only human.” But Jesus can’t. Jesus was humanity at its best because he was divinely empowered to live the human life. So the church needs to take a closer look at not just the words he said, but the things he did and the way he lived here on terra firma.

The Samaritan Taboo

The story of Jesus’s encounter with the woman at the well in John 4 is a perfect example. In vs. 4, John says of Jesus, “It was necessary for him to travel through Samaria” (my translation). Similar constructions elsewhere in the New Testament are often translated “He must.” If Jews wanted to go north and south from Galilee to Jerusalem, the direct route was through Samaria. But since Jews hated Samaritans with such a passion, they would often cross over to the east side of the Jordan River and travel the longer route rather than set foot in Samaritan territory. Why was it necessary for him to go through Samaria? Because that’s what his Father wanted him to do!

Now when Jesus and the disciples arrive, Jesus breaks two taboos (at least). First, he talks to a Samaritan, the most despised class of people to the Jews. That’s bad enough in the eyes of the religious elite of the day. But this Samaritan is also a woman, and it was certainly not the norm for a Jewish male to talk to any woman alone in public (the disciples had gone off to buy food). I think it is important to note that in talking with this woman who in on her sixth “husband,” who has come out to the well at an unusual time of day, that Jesus never actually condemns the woman in any way or outright says that she’s living a sinful life, although the latter could be implied from his statement that her current “man” is not her husband. Historical and modern scholars have mostly inferred that the woman has a questionable character from the circumstantial evidence in the text. But just as he would later refuse to condemn the woman caught in adultery (variant reading in John 8), he does not speak words of condemnation here, only words of life.

A third taboo may be implied as well, although I find some mixed evidence in the Mishnah (the written interpretation of Jewish oral law generally accepted or debated at the time of Jesus). Drinking or eating from a Samaritan vessel may have been frowned upon as well. In some passages in the Mishnah, Samaritan offerings are acceptable, whereas some gentile offerings are specifically forbidden or given a lower status. However, Shebiith 8:10 says that Rabbi Eliezer considered eating Samaritan bread equivalent to eating the flesh of swine. If the disciples went off to a Samaritan town to get food, it’s most likely that R. Eliezer’s opinion was in the minority and not widely accepted.

The Sinful Anointer

This wasn’t Jesus’s only “scandalous” contact with a woman. In Matthew 26 and Mark 14, we have parallel accounts of a woman anointing Jesus’s head with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume, which Jesus says is part of his preparation for burial. In Luke 7, we have a similar story, except in Luke’s account, the woman pours the perfume on Jesus’s feet after washing them with her tears and her hair. Not only that, this woman kisses Jesus’s feet as well. Luke mentions that Simon considers the woman a sinner. In the Matthew and Mark accounts, the disciples and other dinner guests are indignant with the woman and treat her rudely. But Jesus hardly bats an eye at the event. He considers it a beautiful thing and even says that the woman’s actions would be immortalized in the Gospels.

Standing with the Leper

Jesus’s “scandals” were not limited to women, though. Many are familiar with the story of Jesus healing lepers. That’s something we would expect a compassionate healer like Jesus to do. But not only does he heal some of them merely by his words, he also reaches out and touches a leper. In the normal course of Jewish life, lepers had to walk around with their faces covered and shout “Unclean!” so that Jews would not be ceremonially defiled by them. But Jesus chooses to skirt the custom rather than the leper. When he touches the leper, the leper is healed. So is Jesus unclean or not? Or does Jesus even care if he’s unclean? Jesus chooses compassion over custom so that the world can know the deep, deep love that he and his Father have for creation.

Jesus, Lord of Life

I’ve blogged before about Jesus’s “I am” statements in the Gospel of John. Three of them are relevant here: “I am the Bread of Life,”
“I am the Resurrection and the Life,” and “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Jesus came to bring life to a world that was looking for it in the wrong places. The religious leaders of the Jews thought it was found in absolute strict adherence to the law, so much so that they built a “hedge” around the law so that people might know when they were close to crossing the boundary (the word “Mishnah” means “hedge,” and the book is just as thick as a Bible with tinier print!). But Jesus blows that all to smithereens by simplifying it all for us: “Love God and love your neighbor.” If you do those two things, you don’t have to worry about the hedge.

Scandalous Living in the 21st Century Church

For many years, I pastored in small, rural congregations in Illinois. As you might expect in a small town, everyone knows your business whether you want them to or not. In some ways that’s good, but in other ways, that can be a great hindrance to ministry. Why? Because you can’t go to the places where those not religiously inclined hang out to share what’s important. I decided early in my Christian walk that it would be okay for me to hang out in bar with friends and acquaintances. I really don’t have a problem with Christians (or people of any other faith or nonfaith for that matter) drinking alcohol in moderation. Jesus, the true vine, did change water into premium alcoholic wine at the wedding in Cana. In my journey to be like Jesus, I want to be where the people are.

My half-siblings play in a trivia league in Omaha. Most of the trivia contests take place in bars. I love trivia, and I’m a pretty smart cookie, so I think I’d do pretty well in that setting. So last week, I joined the trivia league that meets at Maloney’s Irish Pub. It’s fun, and it’s great interaction with family and new friends and acquaintances. And it certainly beats staying home alone playing Words with Friends and Hidden Chronicles. I enjoy the company and the challenge. If Jesus can supply a couple hundred gallons of premium wine for a celebration, certainly I can enjoy a Sprite with friends!

Conclusion

Although I enjoyed my time as a pastor, I’m not sure I was really cut out for the rural scene. I am glad I’m not a pastor now, because I feel freer than ever to share the life of Jesus in places where my previous congregations would have surely fired me for going. I feel like I can truly have a ministry of the mundane (as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it) among friends, family, and coworkers while I live the scandalous life of Jesus.

Peace!

Scott Stocking

March 11, 2012

The Passion Week of Christ

Filed under: John Gospel of,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Mark Gospel of,Matthew Gospel of — Scott Stocking @ 2:11 pm

I have been swamped this past week or so with an albatross of an edit. I haven’t had time to put anything new together, but I thought with Resurrection Sunday coming up, I’d index the links to my blog posts on the final week of Christ’s earthly ministry. I’m guessing there might be a minister or two out there struggling for some sermon ideas.

“Why Have You Forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34, par. Psalm 22:1)

Thieves, Robbers, or Rebels?

“I Am the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25)

Judas’s Kiss (Matthew 26:48–49; Mark 14:45)

“If I’ve Told You Once, I’ve Told You a Thousand Times…”

εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν (eis aphesin hamartiōn, ‘for the forgiveness of sins’)

Let the Sleeping Saints Arise!

“Father, Forgive Them…” (Luke 23:34)

A Truly Open Communion?

Peace to all!

Scott Stocking

January 29, 2012

“I Am” Statement of Yahweh (Exodus 3–6, esp. Exodus 3:14)

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Exodus,Hebrew,John Gospel of,Old Testament — Scott Stocking @ 8:33 am

As I was reading through the early chapters of Exodus last week, I was not only reminded of the “I Am” statements of Jesus in John’s gospel, but I gained some new insight into the overall application of those statements. I want to share that with you in this post.

Face to Face at the Bush

Exodus 3 is the story of Moses’s first encounter with God at the burning bush in Midian. This is also the chapter where we have the story of God revealing his personal name to Moses: יְהוָ֖ה “Yahweh” (English texts set in small caps: LORD). But the text leading up to that revelation is a story that deserves the *facepalm* of all *facepalms*! God has been preparing Moses to confront Pharaoh and deliver the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. You’d have to admit, that’s a pretty big task in those days, considering most kings and their subjects wouldn’t give a second thought about having you beheaded or drawn and quartered for merely approaching the king without invitation let alone confronting the king.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Moses approaches the burning bush when Yahweh calls out to him. He removes his sandals, because he’s on holy ground. Yahweh proceeds to identify himself and his purposes for calling Moses, while Moses does his own reverent version of a facepalm (Exodus 3:6b). Listen to what Yahweh says to Moses in Exodus 3:6–10 (NIV) and see if you detect a pattern:

I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.

I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.

I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and

I am concerned about their suffering. So

I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land…

And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and

I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.

So now, go.

I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.

Yahweh makes seven(!) “I” statements here about who he is and what he will do, and he affirms that he has the power to do all this through Moses. I suppose God could have done it without all the pomp and circumstance of the plagues, but then how would anyone ever know what God thinks of kings who exalt themselves to positions of deity? But here’s the facepalm moment: after God affirms that he’s going to do all this through Moses, what does Moses say?

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11).

*FACEPALM!*

Evidently Moses didn’t have Verizon, because he obviously didn’t hear God the first time. The creator of the universe is speaking to Moses, giving him more information about himself than he’s ever given to any other patriarch (except perhaps Abraham), and Moses is worried about himself! Duh, Moses, it’s not about you; God just confirmed that!

Saving Face

Of course, it’s easy for us 3500 years later to look back on this story and be a little critical of Moses. The story does show his human side, and I wonder how many of us would have be willing to saddle up and head out without questioning God further on the matter. God isn’t afraid of having a conversation with us, and he’s big enough to deal with our questions and fears. He’s ever so patient with us as we muddle through life trying to figure out his will and purpose for us. But he also offers reassurance to us in the form of a promise that is repeated time and again in both the Old and New Testaments. He offered that promise to the patriarchs before Moses, and he offers it again to Moses in 3:12: “I will be with you.”

This is where the Hebrew gets very interesting, and most English translations relegate the significant issue to a footnote. The Hebrew word for “I will be” is the standard “to be” verb: הָיָה (hāyāh), but since Hebrew, like Greek, alters the spelling of its verbs based on the person and number of the verb, the form that is used in 3:12 is אֶהְיֶה (first person singular ʾehyeh; notice the letters are the same, except for the aleph א added to the front of the word). This is the exact same form that most English translations render “I AM WHO I AM” in 3:14 when God reveals his name! To their credit, most English translations have a footnote on v. 14 saying that this could be “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE,” but in my opinion, that should be the translation in the main text. The form יְהוָ֖ה “Yahweh” that is used regularly throughout the Hebrew Old Testament is probably related to the third person singular form of the verb.

Hebrew verbs don’t have tense in the same way that English verbs do. Hebrew verbs either represent completed action (perfects) or incomplete action (imperfects). The verb form Yahweh uses for his name is imperfect (ironic, I know, but that’s the grammar). What I hear Yahweh saying to Moses here is that he will do whatever it takes, he will be whatever he needs to be, to deliver the Israelites from Egypt. That is a father showing ultimate love for his children: even if it comes to destroying every last trace of the Egyptian people and culture, God will deliver his people.

Facing Up

Once was not enough, though. God has to go back through the I statements again in Exodus 6, but the Israelites were too oppressed to hear it or believe it. So God’s mighty plagues were not just to break Pharaoh’s stubborn heart, but also to show Israel that he meant business about delivering them from the Egyptians. This is emphasized in the latter plagues that have no effect on the land of Goshen where the Israelites lived.

So what does all this have to do with the “I am” statements of Jesus? What occurred to me is that Jesus was doing for his audience what Yahweh did for Moses and the Israelites. His “I am” statements affirm that he is the savior and that he can and will do whatever it takes to deliver people from sin and Satan, even to the point of dying on a cross. Jesus stood up to the religious oppressors of his day and proclaimed the good news of God’s deliverance and love for his creation.

Many of us Christ followers I’m sure have done our own facepalms when friends or family just don’t comprehend the good news. Well, you’re in good company. Be patient and keep at it, because you might have to witness a lot of pain and suffering before the deliverance finally happens. And Christ offers the same assurance to us as Yahweh did to Moses: “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20 TNIV).

Peace,

Scott Stocking

Please check out my friend Eric Weiss’s post on this topic: http://theoblogoumena.blogspot.com/2011/05/exodus-314-and.html.

August 7, 2011

“I Am the True Vine” (John 15:1)

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Biblical Studies,Christology,Greek,John Gospel of,New Testament,Theology, Biblical — Scott Stocking @ 8:40 am

See my new post, From Wine to the Vine, a recent sermon on this topic, published 2/19/22.

Wow! What an incredible, tiring July I had. My kids were with me for the first two weeks, and we had a great time together. Alec got to drive in the big city and learned what hills can do to the speed of a car. I took three days off from work, and we went to Sempeck’s and Papio Fun Center for laser tag, go carts, bowling, mini golf, and other frivolities. I’m glad they were here, and I miss them sorely now.

There was a price to pay, however (besides the cost of making two round trips to Illinois): I spent the last three weeks playing catch up on my secondary work, and for several consecutive days, I was going on minimal sleep. My Greek Bible reading had to be put on hold, but I certainly got my fill of Bible! I did a cold proofread on a Jewish commentary on the Torah and got to proofread Ezra–Psalms in a King James Version. I guess God wanted to remind there’s still an Old Testament to be reckoned with. The Jewish commentaries are always engaging, because they’re not afraid to tackle anyone who comments on the Torah; from Maimonides (Rambam) to Freud, the authors covered the gamut! I finished off my three-week marathon by editing a devotional guidebook for Christians. It was quite the adventure, to say the least.

Through the sleepless nights and drowsy days, however, I needed an extraordinary strength and endurance that could only come from a connection to the one who said, “I am the True Vine” (Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἄμπελος ἡ ἀληθινή egō eimi hē ampelos hē alēthinē), Jesus Christ (how’s that for a segue!). And thus I come to the final chapter, belatedly so, of my discussion of the seven “I Am” statements of Jesus. To recap, here is the table showing the comparisons I have made along the way: (2/13/2012: You can click the “I Am” statement to open the blog post for that statement.)

Table 1: Linking the “I Am” Statements with Jesus’ Miracles

“I Am” Statement

Sign/Miracle
John 6:35: I Am the Bread of Life John 6:1–15: Jesus Feeds the 5000+
John 8:12: I Am the Light of the World John 9:1–12: Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
John 10:7: I Am the Door of the Sheep John 5:1–15: Healing of the Invalid at Bethesda [Sheep Gate]
John 10:11: I Am the Good Shepherd John 6:16–24: Jesus Walks on Water
John 11:25: I Am the Resurrection and the Life John 11:38–44: Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead
John 14:6: I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life John 4:43–54: Healing of the Official’s Son
John 15:1: I Am the True Vine John 2:1–11: Water into Wine

The connections between the last “I am” statement of Jesus and his first “sign” in John’s Gospel are striking. The most obvious connection that can be made is the thematic parallel of wine/vine. Although the respective words (οἶνος oinos ‘wine’; ἄμπελος ‘vine’) are not found in the opposite passage, there is no mistaking that the vine produces the fruit that would eventually become wine. Ἄμπελος is found nine times in the NT: three times in John 15:1–9; once each in the other three Gospels, all in the same statement of Jesus at the Last Supper, “I will not drink of the fruit of the vine…”; once in James 3:12; and twice in Revelation 14:18–19, where the earth is compared to a vine about to be harvested in God’s wrath.

One verbal parallel is of note in the passages: the word for “clean” and its related word “cleansing” appear in both passages. What makes this significant, in my mind anyway, is that Jesus, seemingly out of the blue in the midst of talking about vines and pruning, makes the statement in John 15:3, “You are
already clean because of the word I have spoken to you” (ἤδη ὑμεῖς καθαροί ἐστε ēdē hymeis katharoi este). The statement does not seem to fit the context very well, unless you make the connection to the water-into-wine pericope. In John 2:6, we learn that the vessels that contained the water turned to wine were those used for “ceremonial purification” (καθαρισμός katharismos) by the Jews. So, as early as John 2, wine is connected with cleansing. Is this a mere coincidence of circumstances? In Matthew 26:28 at the Last Supper, Jesus says that the cup is his blood-covenant for forgiving their sins. The very next verse is where Jesus says he will not drink of the fruit of the vine until he’s in the Father’s kingdom. The vine, then, represents the blood of Jesus and its cleansing power, and I believe that Jesus suggested the same thing with his first miracle, although, as he told his mother, it wasn’t his time yet for him to reveal his purpose.

Skeptical? I could understand, but look at the parallel language in the last part of the vine pericope, especially verse 10. (Note: the pericope comprises John 15:1–17). The NIV series has the paragraph break after verse 8, but the Greek text and several other English versions break the paragraph after verse 10, so I consider verse 10 to close out the first half of the pericope.) The word for “remain” (μένω menō) appears 10 times in the entire pericope, with 9 of those occurrences concentrated in verses 4–10. Jesus speaks of remaining connected to the vine all the way up to verse 10, where he switches things up and says, “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love” (μενεῖτε ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ μου meneite en tē agapē
mou). How does Jesus define that love in verse 13? “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.” In the very next breath, Jesus calls his disciples his friends. But do they (or we!) understand the implication there? In a very sneaky (if Jesus can be sneaky) sort of way, Jesus again here predicts his death. Remaining in the vine is remaining in the love of God exemplified in the shed blood of Jesus the Messiah.

I want to make one more point here, although there is much more that could be said about the two passages. The water-into-wine and vine pericopes also reflect a theme of God’s miraculous provision in our lives. In John 2, Jesus’ mother, Mary, has faith in her son (as any good Jewish mother would) that he can fix the problem of the wine shortage. Jesus reluctantly obliges, and provides not only an abundance of wine, but an abundance of quality wine such that the steward is incredulous. John closes out the vine pericope with Jesus’ promise of provision for his disciples (vs. 16): “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last (= μένω)—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.” This not to undermine the first part of the verse about bearing fruit that will remain; the emphasis here is, I think, that our asking should focus on those things that help us remain in the vine.

What are those things? I think they are very basic: How can I love God more and remain in his love, and how can I love my neighbors more so that they can discover and remain in God’s love. I could elaborate, but I think it’s best to keep it simple, just like Jesus did when he summed up the law and the prophets with the two greatest commandments.

Peace!

Scott Stocking

PS It’s great to back in the blogosphere again!

July 5, 2011

“I Am the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25)

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Biblical Studies,Christology,Greek,John Gospel of,Matthew Gospel of,New Testament,Theology, Biblical — Scott Stocking @ 10:18 am

The next two weeks will be busier than usual for me, as I have my three kids for their opportunity to live with me. I am glad they are here, and I look forward to our time together. It took a 19-hour round trip to get them here, and we all slept in Sunday (they more than I), but it was worth it to be able to attend the evening service at StoneBridge Christian Church with them, then head out to my aunt and uncle’s cabin near Fremont to watch some professional and not-so-amateur fireworks displays. As my daughter said in her Facebook post, “‎1 good thing about driving at night on 4th of july weekend is never ending fireworks!:)\n”

I have made my way through Stephen’s “fatal” testimony in Acts 7 in my reading schedule, and his summary of Israel’s history has many mnemonic elements to it, almost as if Stephen had developed a primitive version of the popular “Walk Thru the Bible” events, where you learn motions to go along with the biblical story. Key words are repeated two or three times in each section, and a few inclusios stick out as well.

However, before I am too far removed from John’s Gospel, I want to tackle one of the two remaining “I am” statements I have not yet covered. “I am the resurrection and the life” (Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἀνάστασις καὶ ἡ ζωή egō eimi hē anastasis kai hē zōē, John 11:25) is almost certainly the heart of John’s Gospel. It is the middle chapter of the book for starters. It is also the “I am” statement that is most closely associated with the historical event that prompted the statement, at least in terms of proximity in the biblical text. Finally, it is the one that reveals the power Jesus has over death and that looks forward to his own victory over death.

Once again, we should not be surprised that John has brought us to the point where this statement becomes significant. To keep it simple, a search of the phrase “eternal life” (ζωὴ αἰώνιός zōē aiōnios, usually used in accusative ζωὴν αἰώνιόν zōēn aiōnion) in the TNIV reveals 43 occurrences. John uses the phrase 17 times in his Gospel, more than twice that of the Synoptic authors combined. If 1 John is figured into the picture, John has over half the occurrences of the phrase in his writings. John had used the phrase 13 times up through chapter 10, but not at all in chapter 11 where we find our text.

In the Synoptic Gospels, the primary use of the phrase is in the three parallel passages where Jesus is asked what must be done to inherit eternal life. But John doesn’t record anyone asking that question. John (or Jesus’ words in John) is always forthright about declaring eternal life. In fact, three of the passages that have figured prominently in this discussion of the “I am” statements contain teaching about eternal life (John 4—woman at the well; John 6—”I am the bread of life”; John 10—”I am the door of the sheep”/”I am the good shepherd”; John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life,” should also be included, because the last part is a restatement of 11:25).

Eternal life does not mean life forever on this earth in our current bodies. Eventually, the earth would run out of room to hold everyone. Death is in the offing for all of us; but if we are Christ followers, we also know death is not the end. The NT writers use several words for “resurrection” (noun) or “raise up (to life),” but the main ones are the noun ἀνάστασις (anastasis, the word found in Jesus’ “I am” statement) and the verbs ἐγείρω (egeirō) and ἀνίστημι (anistēmi). The verb ἐγείρω is by far the most popular of the two; John uses it 13 times as opposed to 8 times for ἀνίστημι. (Note: Because both the nouns and the verbs can refer to “standing up from being seated” or “rising up from a reclined position” as well as “rising from the dead,” I used Logos Bible Software to search for the Louw & Nida semantic domain numbers for each word when they specifically refer to “rising from the dead”; if you use a regular concordance to look these up, make sure you note the distinctions in usage.)

In the immediate context of the passage at hand (John 11:23–25), we find five occurrences of words that mean “come back to life.” Martha believes in the resurrection in the last day, but she also seems to hold out some hope that Jesus could restore Lazarus to them even at that time, even after he has been dead four days. Broadening the context, these resurrection words appear three times in John 6:39–40. But the occurrences that should make us sit up and take notice is that in John 2:20–22, where right from the start, Jesus predicts his own resurrection. John even points out in vs. 22 that the disciples remembered Jesus had said that after he rose from the dead (see John 20:9). Putting it all together, the resurrection and eternal life permeate John’s Gospel, while in the Synoptic Gospels, such discussion is limited to a few pericopes, the most significant being the Sadducees discussion with Jesus about marriage and the resurrection and Jesus’ own repeated predictions of his resurrection.

John develops this concept more completely than the other Gospel writers, especially by providing a living, breathing example, Lazarus, of someone raised from the dead other than Jesus. Matthew does mention the “sleeping saints” who came out of their tombs that resurrection weekend (27:51–53), but we’re never really told if that was an enduring earthly resurrection as we are with Lazarus (John 12:1, 9, 17). This is not to say John’s Gospel is better than the Synoptic Gospels. But it does reveal that John was not so much into telling a chronological story like the Synoptic authors; his focus is theology, or more specifically, Christology and eschatology. (I suppose technically I could use the words “anastasiology” [ἀνάστασις] and “zoology” [ζωή], but the first one’s not in the dictionary [which has never stopped me before!], and the second one is used primarily of nonhuman living beings.)

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul develops even further the theology and centrality of the resurrection. I think it is safe to assume he had been influenced by John on this point. On the one hand, Paul says that it is futile to be a Christ follower if Jesus has not been raised from the dead. On the other hand, he talks about the spiritual realities of the resurrection: it’s not the earthly resurrection that Lazarus experienced. It is a transformation of our mortal bodies into an immortal substance that can never die. That is the substance of our “eternal life.”

Peace!

Scott Stocking

June 19, 2011

“I Am the Door of the Sheep”; “I Am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:7, 11)

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Biblical Studies,Christology,Greek,John Gospel of,New Testament,Old Testament,Psalms,Theology, Biblical — Scott Stocking @ 8:47 am

Well, the summer solstice is just around the corner, and so is the end of my time reading through the Gospels. I read the first part of the crucifixion story this morning in John 19, and that has some interesting tidbits I may come back to:

  • Barabbas’s name is Aramaic for “Son of the Father,” or more colloquially, “Daddy’s Boy” (בַּר bar ‘son’ + אַבָּא abba ‘father, daddy’, perhaps with definite article); Jesus is the “Son of God [the Father]”: irony at its finest!
  • Three times, Pilate said he could find no charge against Jesus, and he seems to work tirelessly (and with concern for his own integrity) to try to release Jesus, even justifying his innocense to the Jewish leaders and the crowd, to no avail;
  • Jesus tries to ease Pilate’s worries about handing him over to be crucified by telling him, “The one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” Note that Jesus cannot be accusing the God the Father here, but either Judas or the high priest.

But I digress from my intentions this morning. I want to tackle two more of the “I am” statements of Jesus found within a few verses of each other in chapter 10: “I am the Door of the Sheep” (v. 7) and “I am the good shepherd” (v. 11). The two statements are obviously closely related, but I will deal with each one separately, even though there will be some overlap.

“I Am the Door of the Sheep” (John 10:7)

I’m going to reproduce here my table (Table 1) from an earlier post that shows the connections between the seven “I am” statements of Jesus and the seven signs he performed, with today’s two statements highlighted: (2/13/2012: You can click the “I Am” statement to open the blog post for that statement.)

Table 1: Linking the “I Am” Statements with Jesus’ Miracles

“I Am” Statement

Sign/Miracle
John 6:35: I Am the Bread of Life John 6:1–15: Jesus Feeds the 5000+
John 8:12: I Am the Light of the World John 9:1–12: Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
John 10:7: I Am the Door of the Sheep John 5:1–15: Healing of the Invalid at Bethesda [Sheep Gate]
*John 10:11: I Am the Good Shepherd John 6:16–24: Jesus Walks on Water
John 11:25: I Am the Resurrection and the Life John 11:38–44: Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead
*John 14:6: I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life John 4:43–54: Healing of the Official’s Son
John 15:1: I Am the True Vine John 2:1–11: Water into Wine

One of the first connections to note out of the gate (pun intended) is that Jesus’ third sign is healing a man at the pool by the Sheep Gate (προβατικῇ probatikē, literally “of the sheep”; the feminine form is elliptical or shorthand because the word for “gate”, which is feminine, is not in the text there) in the walls of Jerusalem (John 5:1–15). This is the city gate through which the sheep entered when being brought to town for the market or the Temple. I will grant that Jesus’ statement, “I am the door of the sheep” (ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ θὑρα τῶν προβάτων egō eimi hē thura tōn probatōn) is more agrarian and rural than it is commercial and political, but the connection is significant nonetheless, because chapter 5 is the only time the Sheep Gate is mentioned in the Gospels. The Sheep Gate is mentioned three times in Nehemiah in connection with rebuilding the wall. It is probably not coincidence, then, that the high priest and his fellow priests had the responsibility to rebuild that section of the wall and rehang the gates (Nehemiah 3:1; cf. Hebrews 4:14, where Jesus is called our “great high priest”).

This “I am” statement has a connection to John 14:6 as well. In John 10:9, Jesus repeats the “I am” statement, this time without the sheep (“I am the door”), and the salvific connection is obvious (TNIV modified to reflect Greek word order): “Through me, whoever enters will be saved.” The phrase “through me” (διʼ ἐμοῦ di’ emou; the emphatic form of the pronoun is used) comes first in 10:9, even before the conjunction, which is a grammatical tool for emphasizing a phrase. The same phrase is found in John 14:6 (“no one comes to the Father except through me“) at the end. (Don’t ask me why, but Greek scholars say that an element of a Greek sentence can be emphasized at the beginning or the ending of a sentence; just one of those quirky things about Greek.) Here’s the beautiful part: normally you might think a prepositional phrase like “through me” should be common enough, right? Want to guess how many times it occurs in John? If you said “twice,” you are exactly right! Because it appears at the beginning of the phrase in 10:9 and at the end of the phrase in 14:6, I would say we have an inclusio here. Was it intentional by John? Perhaps not. Did God have a hand in ordering the text that way? I certainly think so.

Now if we have an inclusio, we need to look at the text in between and see what’s going on. Jesus does make his other statement about being a good shepherd two verses later in 10:11, but two other significant events are bracketed by the “through me” statements. The first is the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead and Jesus’ accompanying “I am the resurrection and the life” statement. More on that in a future post. The other significant event is the Last Supper, in which Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. In 13:8, Jesus makes another statement about his exclusivity as the Savior: after Peter objects to Jesus washing his feet, Jesus replies (my translation, emphasizing the present continuous aspect of the verbs), “Unless I am washing your feet, you are not having any part with me [μετʼ ἐμοῦ met’ emou].” This act of washing the feet is the act of a good shepherd who cares for his sheep, so we now turn to that “I am” statement.

“I Am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:11, 14)

In Table 1 above, I make a tentative link between “I am the good shepherd” (Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός egō eimi ho poimēn ho kalos) and Jesus walking on the water in John 6. Here’s the connection, but again, it is tentative: Only Matthew records that Jesus called Peter to walk on the water (14:28–31); perhaps John doesn’t record this because he doesn’t want to call attention to Peter’s lack of faith in that instance. The connection has its “degrees of separation,” but it’s more than just about feet and water.

Jesus had stayed behind when his disciples set out in the boat in John 6. But when he saw the disciples were having trouble managing the boat in the strong winds, Jesus left whatever shelter he had sought out and walked out onto the raging sea to get to those he loved. He was looking out for his sheep. This reminds of the parable of the wandering sheep in Matthew 18:10–14, only in the walking on the water pericope, the wilderness is the sea itself. I can imagine that even for the son of God, walking on the water was not the safest thing to do, let alone doing it in a storm, yet Jesus says in the latter part of John 10:11: “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (repeated in vv. 15, 17, 18).

The concept of the good shepherd has its roots in the Old Testament. King David, of course, was a shepherd himself, and Psalm 23 is a popular treatise on how the Lord shepherds us on a daily basis. Ezekiel 34 is an extended treatise on the bad shepherds of Israel, who had led the nation on the path of exile. A few relevant passages from Ezekiel make the connection between Jesus’ “I am the good shepherd” statement and Jesus’ walking on water even more pronounced (all excerpts from the TNIV):

For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As shepherds look after their scattered flocks when they are with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness (34:11–12).

As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats (34:17; note parallel to Matthew 25:32–33).

I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord have spoken (34:23–24).

They will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid…. Then they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Sovereign Lord. You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord (34:28b, 30–31)

Live It Out

I find no shortage of irony that the one John called “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (1:29b) is also the door (or gate) for the sheep and the good shepherd. Both of these statements emphasize Jesus’ compassion for his flock. He protects us from thieves and bandits who would rob us of our joy. He is a refuge for us in times of storm and disaster. And he is the only one through whom we can be saved and have the promise of eternal life.

In John 21:15, Jesus has an emotional exchange with Peter to restore him to service after his denial. Three times, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Twice Jesus uses ἀγαπάω (agapaō) and once φιλέω (phileō), but Peter always responds with φιλέω. I don’t think much can made of the difference in the different words used for “love” as some have, but that’s not my point here. Jesus responds, “Feed my lambs” or “Feed my sheep.” Can we model the shepherding of the Savior? Some days it’s easier than others, but if Peter was forgiven for his triple-denial and went on to be instrumental in commencing the church, what great things can we do for God?

I had a stormy period this past month. Last month would have been my 19th anniversary with my (now ex-)wife, and I found myself craving the intimacy I once had with her. It was a struggle to get through that, but God, who is never unfaithful, continued to be faithful to me as I worked through my issues. I’ve come out on the other side now, but as much as I know I’m forgiven for the past, I still find that it haunts me at times. I need to trust that my shepherd is watching out for me in those times when I wander into the wilderness and know that as I “bleat” for his presence, protection, and love, he will hear me and come running to me to give me the only comfort that matters.

Peace!

Scott Stocking

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