Restless Wonderer

Christ’s life was a pattern of the perfect human life.   In His incarnation He modelled to us what perfect obedience to His Father looks like.   As He contemplated His return to the Father’s side He was able to say to those who had followed Him closely for three years that He was sending them into the world as He had been sent.   Not only does the message of Christian mission centre on Jesus, but the means of Christian mission should look a lot like Jesus!   We must remember that Jesus was speaking in John 20 to the men who would be foundational apostles in His Church.   The authority they have to forgive sins on earth is not something we possess today.   They remain authoritative for the Church in all ages through their gospel, recorded in the New Testament.   The Church of the present continues the mission they began, going into the world in Jesus’ name. As we do this, we learn many lessons from the example of Christ: Sent to complete God’s w...

They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.   ‘My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.   I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one –   I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Few Bible passages can compare with the majesty John 17.   In this amazing chapter, following His teaching in the upper room, Jesus prays to His Father.   The prayer is an insight into the relationship they have enjoyed etern...

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. ‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them.   You call me “Teacher” and “Lord”, and rightly so, for that is what I am.   Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.   I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them…. Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.’ The pace changes in John 13 as we are given an insight into Jesus’ most intimate moments with His disciples.   Leading up to this point, ever since the journey to Jerusalem for the Festival of Tabernacles, John’s account has told of increasingly intense confrontation between...

‘ Who are you?’ they asked.   ‘Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,’ Jesus replied. ‘I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.’   They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.   The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.’   Even as he spoke, many believed in him. Jesus was sent into the world by His Father.   Jesus was the perfect Son of God who went to the cross in obedience to His Father.   Jesus took our place on the cross, bearing God’s punishment for our sin.   The Father poured out His wrath upon the Son.   This is orthodox Christian teaching (the technical term is ‘penal substitution’ since the substitute t...

Not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. The Jews there were amazed and asked, ‘How did this man get such learning without having been taught?’ Jesus answered, ‘My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. The Feast of Tabernacles was the last of seven annual celebrations given to Israel by God.   These dates in the calendar marked the seasons and enfolded the year in gratitude to God.   Tabernacles, specifically, reminded the nation that their ancestors had lived in tents as they wandered through the desert.   It challenged them to be thankful for God’s provision of a permanent home where they could live and serve...

For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.’ John 6 opens with the only miracle, other than the resurrection, that is recorded in all four Gospels – the feeding of more than five thousand hungry people on a hillside beside the Sea of Galilee.   The miracle is a demonstration both of Jesus’ identity as the Good Shepherd (the act of feeding people as they rest on green grass, followed by stilling of waters is reminiscent of Psalm 23) and of His ability to provide for His sheep.   It is also an illustration for the disciples of their Master’s provision for their needs (the 12 leftover baskets are perfectly sized lunchboxes for each of them) as they distribute ...

Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. ‘Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out – those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.   In John 5 we see Jesus healing a man who had been paralysed for 38 years.   The miracle took place at a pool in Jerusalem called Bethesda.   When the Jewish leaders heard about it they were incensed because the healing took place on the Sabbath.   This is one of several occasions when Jesus’ actions c...

My food,’ said Jesus, ‘is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ‘Don’t you have a saying, “It’s still four months until harvest”? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying “One sows and another reaps” is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labour.’ John 4 recounts Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well in her hometown of Sychar.   The woman is amazed at the insight this Jewish traveller has into her life and at the words he speaks about God.   She runs to tell her neighbours about this amazing man, wondering if he might even be the Messiah God had promised.   The disciples, seeing   the approaching Samaritan crowd and disapproving of Jesus’ conversation with a...

Towards the end of John’s Gospel Jesus commissions His disciples to go into the world on mission.   The incident the aged John chooses to recount is different from those recorded by Matthew and Luke.   Matthew, whose record of Jesus’ commissioning words is the most famous, describes Jesus’ words on a mountain top in Galilee.   He sends the disciples out, confident in His universal authority and enduring presence, to make disciples from all nations through teaching and baptising (Matthew 28:18-20).   Luke, meanwhile, tells of an occasion in Jerusalem when Jesus opens the disciples’ minds to see how his life and death fulfilled the Old Testament and then commissions them to be His witnesses.   To fulfil their task of preaching forgiveness of sins in His name, they must wait for the power that will soon be given from heaven, a reference to the coming Holy Spirit (Luke 24:44-49).   There is also a version of the ‘Great Commission’ in the so-called long ending...