Luke 10. 38-42... Friends not servants...

Jesus calls us friends not servants...

Martha was the home owner probably; certainly she was the home manager.  Her name means “mistress” (i.e. not a lover but the female version of “master”) A woman of some energy, drive, ability, determination. She had the presence of mind to recognise something special about Jesus, the desire to honour him, and the generosity to welcome him into her home. Martha had a mission statement. She had an agenda. She wanted to honour the Rabbi Jesus. She was going to host the Rabbi for a meal.  She had a project; she had a programme...

Don’t fall for the lie that Mary was this weepy, emotional, lassie swooning at Jesus' feet. Mary was smart too. She had a mission statement.  She was going to be a Rabbi's disciple at least for a day. She recognised a teacher of quality; and she  revelled in the rare privilege of sitting at the feet of a Rabbi, something that as a first century Jewish woman she would have no chance of doing, humanly speaking.  But here she was, being Jesus' student, his disciple. To listen to someone is probably the simplest way we can honour them.  (Incidentally, here is Jesus honouring women and challenging the accepted norms of what women could do!)

Now Mary's mission statement didn’t fit with Martha's mission statement...  she was distracted (the Greek word means “pulled in different directions” possibly hoped to hear what Jesus had to say but couldn’t concentrate) by her much serving.  She was getting stressed, I imagine Martha banging  pots and pans, getting more and more irate.  She was developing a sense of injustice at the situation;  getting cross at Mary and at Jesus.  So made an entrance.  The Greek is quite clear – she stood over Jesus, and had this wee rant...  “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”  Tell her to grasp with opposite me, to take her share of the work.  To co-operate with me.  It's the sort of word I would have liked to be able to use when trying to get my boys to help fold up a tent!  “Get hold of it with me – opposite me.  Take the other end of this... "

Now to be fair to Martha, a Rabbi’s student was supposed to be willing to do the menial tasks for the master.  Such was the humble nature of he relationship between Rabbi and student, that the student was also expected to serve – and could be expected to untie the Rabbi's sandals.   Martha felt she was kind of justified to suggest, “Order your student to get up and help in the house!”

It certainly wasn't Martha's finest moment. You can imagine the embarrassed silence...  some are thinking “Poor Mary... Poor Jesus”, others are thinking “Quite right, Martha”, and others “Perhaps we better be  going!”  It was unjust that Martha should cook all the food while Mary had a good time listening to Jesus.  But it was a self inflicted injury.  Why should Mary be deprived of her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sit at the feet of Rabbi Jesus, just because her sister had set the agenda to produce a fantastic feast for Jesus.

But Jesus, lovingly, gently, challenges Martha.  Now Jesus isn't saying to Martha “Martha, you're wearing yourself out making a spread when a sandwich is really all I need....”  He's not rejecting Martha and what Martha has offered to do. He's not actually suggesting that the contemplative life and the activist life are opposites and it’s better to choose the contemplative.

But what he does say goes a lot deeper. “Martha, Martha (There's tenderness, and maybe a hint of firmness, too, in the use of Martha's name twice.) you are careful, (The Greek word means to take thought or care, from root word to divide or part: it suggests the lady with the eye for detail: you know, the salad perfectly arranged in the dish...) thinking about every detail, thinking about so many things all at once... and troubled (The Greek word  means to be disturbed, in an uproar... ) as a result.  There's only one thing we really need in life...”

What is the “one thing?  What made Mary's choice so good?  What was Jesus teaching?  We don't actually know what Jesus was saying in his teaching time... But we can guess it was about the Kingdom of God – that was Jesus' regular theme: to announce that the Kingdom was at hand; to define the characteristics of the Kingdom and describe its demands; or to refer to the ultimate cost of bringing the Kingdom through his death on the Cross...  Mary certainly had a deep appreciation that Jesus was going to suffer and die (John 12. 7)  And that is the most important thing; the one thing we really need.   Jesus said “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” (Mt 4. 4)   The Word of God not just teaching and more teaching but teaching put into practise, the living word that births the reality of the Kingdom of God.  The Word, experienced in the Kingdom, its simplicity, its justice, its compassion, its power. is what we need: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Mt 6. 33)

The Kingdom was there, among them in the person of Jesus.  But up to that point in the meal the kingdom has passed Martha by.  Mary has chosen the Kingdom.  That's the thing we need.  That's the point Jesus was making.

But we need that to have arms and legs; otherwise we are left with the choice between "contemplative Mary" or "activist Martha".   But in this story,  the medium is the message...  although I don't know what Jesus said about the Kingdom in his teaching:  I do know what Jesus said about the Kingdom in his actions and his response to Martha.  Because Jesus is modelling the new wine of the Kingdom and Martha is modelling the old wine of conventional, organised religion.

Organised religion

1. Puts people in boxes
2. values Programmes and Projects
3. Expects compliance to achieve success
4. activities matter so relationships feed activities
5. Can depend on manipulation and coercion
6. challenges mistakes harshly
7. Trusts in man

Kingdom approach

1. Sets people free
2. Values people and  “presence”
3. Encourages growth towards fruitfulness.
4. Relationships matter, so activities build relationships (including working together!)
5. avoids manipulation and coercion
6. challenges mistakes lovingly and gently,
7. Trusts in God

 We have a Mission Statement as a Church.  “Learning to show the Father’s Love.”  But I have a problem with mission statements... if they are about targets and programmes and success.  A misisn statement can so easily be an expression of a "Martha" church.  But “Learning to show the Father’s Love”  is about being a "Mary" church.  It is consciously rooted in something God has said to us and has to be about relationships, people, and fruitfulness. God wants our Christianity to be relational, not institutional.  It's about friendship, about listening, about taking care of each other.

Now Luke finishes the story right there: he doesn't tell us what Martha did, how Martha responded. To do that would have been to take the focus away from Jesus and back onto Martha.  The focus remains on Jesus and the main point that shouts at us as we read Luke's story.  Luke was a careful historian, an eminent theologian and a skilful story teller...  Here he unashamedly tells the story in such a way as to teach theology... Choose the most important thing – choose the Kingdom, choose the relational way – and win!

...But I wonder how you and I are going to respond?


© Gilmour Lilly April  2012

1 John 5

John has been writing to build joyful fellowship between people, rooted in fellowship with God himself! (1. 3f)As he finishes off he wants to leave his readers utterly confident in who Jesus is and who they are in him. (v13).   Three times, John uses a very similar and slightly unusual structure and language – This is the victory – this is the testimony – this is the confidence. He's giving us three keys,  three certainties, three essentials for “confident Christian living...

This is the victory – our faith.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God (v 1) John lists a cluster of realities that are core to Christian experience. New birth, love for God and his people, obedience, victory, and faith.  It's meant to work like this:  we are born again; we literally become new people. As  a result, we love God and we love each other. Once again John insists that any other way is unthinkable, and he reminds us that this is God's command, and is not a burden.  Really? 

It doesn't always seem like that. Loving one another is at times scary; to walk in love is to make ourselves vulnerable, in the real world.  It is the world   - the fallen messed up society around us generated by humanity cut off from God. But being born again, born from God, makes us new people who ... overcome the world! Day to day, present tense, day by day, moment by moment.

This is the victory – our faith.. the faith we have within us is the victory that has overcome the world.  That's why we are overcoming the world. Now god wants everyone who knows him to be living in victory over the world...

How, we ask ourselves, can we live a life of love in an environment like we do.  The self-sacrificing life of a believer, a life of love, is potentially costly, scary.  We make ourselves vulnerable; but in so doing, we take a step of faith. As individuals, we have the call and the responsibility to be the the ones who are overcoming the world through our faith in Jesus.

This is the testimony  – we have eternal life through Jesus
Jesus is central... We overcome, through faith that Jesus is the Son of God.  We can rely on who Jesus is, because he really is the son of God.  He came by water and blood.  When he was baptised in water, his father declared “This is my Son...”  When he died on the cross, one of the soldiers said “This guy has to be the son of God” (Mk 15. 39) and John recognises that this supremely is how God shows his love to us. The Cross is the greatest miracle.  And this Spirit who came upon Jesus at his baptism, also lives in every believer... so the Spirit, the water and the blood say something: they agree together to speak of who Jesus is and what he is all about. 

It's good when we can make a witness statement about Jesus; but the greatest witness statements are the ones God makes about his son. Becoming a Christian, is receiving that testimony about Jesus.  And as we receive that testimony, we become part of the testimony.  There is in our lives the witness statement : we are part of the evidence... When God gave eternal life to us, through Jesus, he was bearing witness to who Jesus is.  

Jesus is central in his Church.  Through the fact that we are here, experiencing eternal life, living that eternal life, God is saying something: the reshaping work of the Spirit in our lives, is evidence that Jesus is the Son of God. 

This is the confidence  – as we ask, he hears
If you've got the son, you've got life and can be bold in your approach to God.   This is the confidence... having eternal life is meant to be fruitful: it is not just to be enjoyed in private, but rather to be fruitful.  It gives us a relationship with God characterised by confidence, boldness, the freedom to be outspoken...
It reminds me of the stories Jesus told – of a friend who comes at midnight, asking for bread, banging the door, because he's in an embarrassing situation and needs help – of a woman who keeps on pestering the judge, waiting to pounce every time he comes out the front door, because she wants justice.  There's a pushyness, a cheek about it, that God is actually pleased with... 

But there's a condition: “When we ask according to his will.”   There's always a condition to this promise: it's about faith – an inner knowing that we are right in line with what God plans to do (Mk 11. 24); it's about praying in Jesus' name that is, speaking as his agents (Jn 14. 13); it's about walking in intimacy with Jesus (Jn 15. 7).  It is the intimacy with Jesus that releases the faith, the confidence about what he is going to do. Sometimes we struggle with all that – we love to be in control and we're not in control!  What matters more than anything, is not getting the things we want; it is walking intimately with Jesus! 

John gives one example of a prayer we might pray: for someone going away from God, into sin.  Poem churches believe in two kinds of sins: some cut you off from God's grace, others cause only a partial loss of grace. Paul tells us the wages of sin is death (Romans ) but can be forgiven. The “Sin that leads (inevitably) to death” is what Jesus calls “blasphemy against the Spirit”, which means we are so determined to reject the way of God in our lives that we make black into white and white into black.  When we pray for someone else, we are engaging in a dynamic supernatural event which involves God's plan, our desires, and the will of the person we are praying for. I guess that is part of the reason why we don’t always get what we ask for. But the miracle and mystery is, that God hears and answers when we pray. 

In Conclusion
John finishes off his letter by saying, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”   “Little Children” is a John word.  Paul used it once. Jesus used it once in the Gospels.  And John uses is seven times in this letter. This is John being himself; and speaking to the people he loves.  The whole flavour of John's letters, and indeed the whole flavour of the NT vision of Church is about relationships and community.  How do we imagine Church?  Is it a group of individuals who love Jesus?  Is it an organisation that expects individuals to play their part and offers individuals benefits – teaching, worship, kids ministry, and so on...  Is it an institution that is there to do good in the world or get more people to sign up for Christianity, or both?  Or is it a living thing, an organism, a family, a real community that has an identity of its own, in which the members fit perfectly, fulfil their destiny, and are nurtured to growth and maturity.  That is rather nearer to the vision of “Church” we find in the New Testament. That is what Paul describes in Eph 4. 16  “the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly...  builds itself up in love.”

Every culture has its weaknesses: the weakness of our “Global capitalist” culture is its individualism. Ancient, tribal cultures are by no means perfect. Anyone who has seen on TV Bruce Parry's adventures in tribal cultures will know that tribal customs can at times be barbaric and brutal; but generally there is a strong sense of the tribe rather than the individual.   We need to dip into the culture of Biblical times and rediscover the idea of community, of the family, the village, being more important than the individual.  A Christian is someone who has asked Jesus to be his own, personal saviour. We somehow think that our Christian faith is totally personal.  But we are in community.  We are in this together.  One of the biggest idols of our world, is the cult of the individual.  “Me, me, me me!”

By contrast, I'm amazed at how John – like Paul – talks in corporate terms.  “We know... our faith... God gave us eternal life... the confidence that we have... if we ask”    Remember the game you play with tiny children? “This little piggy went to market”?   God wants us to be like the fifth little piggy....  “We, we, we ,we, all the way home.” 

© Gilmour Lilly April  2012

1 John 4... What's God like?

1 John 4...   What's God like?  
God is Father (1 Jn 3. 1); He is Spirit (Jn 4. 24); He is light  (1Jn 1. 5); He is Love; He is like Jesus. 

God is spirit...
When John wrote his letter there were people coming into the Church who claimed to be “led by the Spirit.”  John writes that God has given us his spirit; then he imagines the situation where someone turns up to preach: they are shaking with emotion; their voice is charged with passion; the words flow freely with a persuasive power; maybe they have even healed one or two people, or spoken in tongues, or prophesied something that happened.  How do you know if all that power is from God?

Just because a person has a supernatural experience, just because they are speaking out under some powerful influence, does not mean that the Spirit of God has come upon them.  And yet you can't get away from the reality that the Christian life is life in the Spirit.  God is Spirit (Jn 4. 24) and has given us his Spirit (v. 16) so we know we belong to him. 

The dangers are that, as we enter into this realm of spiritual experience – which we should do because God has given us his Spirit – we can be confused, deceived, by spirits  and spiritual experience that are not from God.  The answer isn’t' whether you like what the person is doing.  Having the preacher heal your arthiritis may be quite appealing.  You may be put off by the shaking or the shouting.  But what John is saying is that we shouldn't be affected by that one way or the other.  John's question is “What do they say about Jesus.?”  “If a person claims to believe in Jesus, it is proper to ask “Is your Jesus the real Jesus.”

The Spirit of God will confirm that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.  The Spirit of Antichrist will deny that Jesus has come in the flesh.  Spiritual power, in other words, takes you into truth about Jesus.  That means at least three things:

1. Pre-existence.  He “Came” from somewhere – from God's presence.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the word was God...”  Jesus is really, truly, eternally God. It's not enough to agree that Jesus was a nice guy. It's not enough, to say that Jesus showed us something of God's character.  To say that Jesus has come in the flesh implies that he came from Heaven, that he is fully God.
2. Personhood.   He came in the flesh.  He didn't just look human. He was and is really human.  He was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.  When he was in the desert and saw the stones, thought how like loaves they were, something inside him said “That would be a great idea!”  When he talked about the cross and Simon said to him “That will never happen to you”  his humanity said “Come to think of it, I don’t have to do this: maybe I should back of...”  When an attractive young woman was crying on his shoulder, he felt the pull of sexual temptation.   He came in the flesh.  To say he came in the flews h is to say he was fully human. 
3. Permanence.  .. Jesus came once for all in the flesh.  He did not adopt a human body. He didn't borrow someone else's flesh.  He became a human person and retains his humanity today.  To say he came in the flesh is to say that he is fully God, and that he was fully human, at he same time.  

To say that about Jesus is to accept that there is a supernatural, spiritual reality to life; and that such reality isn't locked away in its own realm beyond our reach.  Jesus has come in the flesh.  The other worldly dimension is a reality, and one that is seeking us. God is seeking us, because God is love.

God is love...
What is God like?  God is love.  John repeats that astounding definition of the nature of God twice, in verse 8 and 16.   Let's allow that truth to sink in.  God is love.  He isn't just loving.   On Thursday morning someone was upset and needed a hug and Rosemary gave her that hug.  Now you could say Rosemary is a loving person?  But God isn't just loving. He is love...  Love defines who and what God is.  God isn't someone who does loving things.  God is love and all he does is an expression of that love. Even the things we don't initially understand.   Listen, we don’t  have a vengeful, cruel, narrow, nasty God.   We have a God who is love.  Everything he does is done in love.   His very nature, the heart of who he is, is love. 

That doesn't mean that everything of love is “God.” To make “love” into “God” is to make an idol – and one all too common in our world; secondly, because we need to define love correctly, in the way that God defines it; “Human love...falls short if it refuses to include the Father and the Son as the supreme objects of its affection.”   What is true is that because God is love, all true love is “of God”, comes from Him.  We are created in God's image so when anyone shows love it can only come from God.  No definition of love is adequate that does not start with god and his Son. 

That means God is personal, not just a force. Creation is about a God who is love, relational in Himself, (therefore triune?) Father, Son and Holy Spirit living in a wonderful dance of love with one another,  extending that love, creating worlds, in love.  Creating mankind in his image (complex like God, male and female equally human as Father Son and Holy Spirit are equally God) is an act of love.  Judgement, driving sinful man out of Eden, is an act of love.  The Covenants,the agreements God made with his people, are an act of love. 

Sending his Son is an act of love. The Kingdom Jesus brought and that is yet to be completed, is a gift of love.  The death of Jesus on the Cross is an act of love.  We have seen God through Jesus.  Jesus shows us what God is like.  He shows us what God's Kingdom is like. And he deals with the stuff that prevents God's Kingdom from happening in our lives and in the world: our sins.  In his amazing love he sent Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins... 

God's Spirit, God's love and us...
When John tells us, twice, that “God is love” he does so for one very specific reason.  He does so because he wants his readers to be loving one another.  It is as simple as that. God's love calls us to love each other (v. 11). We love because he first loved us (v. 19) anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister (v. 21).  John is describing the natural flow of how things are meant to be, how the whole Christian, Spirit-filled, Jesus. Believing life is meant to work. It's the most natural thing that should follow from loving God.  The most unnatural thing by contrast, is a failure to love one another.  That, says John, is  absurd, a joke in very bad taste.  It can't happen, it's a contradiction in terms. 

We want to be close to God. So close to him that he is our home and we are his home.  To know he lives, in us, and the we live in him (v 12, 13, 15).   “If we love one another, God abides in us...”   Is loving each other is both the condition and the evidence of God abiding in us.  God's presence nurtures the love, which welcomes God's presence.   Love welcomes the Spirit and is evidence of the work of the Spirit. We journey together as  from Easter to Pentecost: we want to welcome the Spirit and all he wants to do. The environment the Spirit chooses to operate in, is one of love.

There are three things that prove who're real who who isn't
1. Right wonders: the power of the Spirit (v 13)
2. Right words: the truth about Jesus. (v 15)
3. Right works: the love of the Father. (v 12)

Love makes us fearless: in this life and on judgement day we have nothing to fear, because we are in that perfect two way relationship of love, that produces love in our lives for others.  We are in no doubt, we have no fear.  We are secure.  

The reason I am here is to teach you to show the Father’s love. We are learning to show the Father’s love.  Because people outside the Church are looking at us and asking, “So what's God like?”   


© Gilmour Lilly April  2012

Jesus and Thomas: John 20

Those who believe, seeing or not, have “life in His Name”


 Here he is, feeling so useless – despite having seen Jesus alive, and despite having experienced something of the presence of the Spirit in his life – that he goes back to the fishing.  If there ever was an admission of defeat it was this.  Or maybe Peter was just bored; always the man of action, unsure about the future, uncomfortable with the new, unpredictable situation where Jesus was seen then disappeared again... he is struggling to come to terms with it all....  so he goes fishing. 

The point is not that Jesus is asking Peter a less demanding question each time as though to make him realise he's not really a very good friend to Jesus.

I love the way Jesus takes the initiative in relationship with his disciples in these passages.   Thomas had missed out on the Easter Sunday evening encounter. And when he met up with the rest of the disciples, and heard their breathless reports of having met Jesus, he had said  “Unless I see him – hands with nail prints, mind you – I will not believe.” He wasn't being fooled by any smoke and mirrors tricks or carried along by their enthusiasm to make believe what he didn't really believe...

But he was still there.  Despite his having missed out on seeing Jesus, despite his cynicism about the experience the rest of them were so excited about, something kept him coming back.  Thomas was still hanging with the disciples.  And, as far as I can see, he was still welcome.    There was already a dynamic at work among the eleven... they may each be carrying their own particular burden of shame, embarrassment, guilt, doubt and confusion.  But they were still friends. It was still the most natural thing in the world, to hang around together. Yes, he may have said some pretty blood-curdling things about sticking his fingers in the nail prints; but he was still welcomed and understood.  “Such vigour of disbelief plainly represents a strong urge to believe, held down by common sense and its habitual dread of disillusionment.” says Wm. Temple.  Understanding the pain underlying his unbelief  the rest of them were still there for Thomas. 

And Jesus is there for Thomas. And what does Jesus do?  He takes the initiative.  Bruce Milne points out that ”this further appearance would seem to be essentially for his benefit.”   He's as it were knocking on Thomas' door.  We call him “Doubting Thomas.”  Jesus calls him “Unbelieving Thomas.”   But despite the things Thomas had said, Jesus is there for him, reaching out to him, taking the initiative to clear away the embarrassment and rebuild the relationship.  

There may be people – there will be people – whose experience isn't the same as ours.  People who wish they had our faith, but right now, they haven’t.  People who don't understand the confidence and intensity of our faith.  But they still keep hanging around.  They still want to meet up.  They are still our friends.   And we are still their friends.  What matters more? Agreeing about all the details of faith?  Or walking together, even if we don't always agree?  We need to learn to build relationships with people, and to stay in those relationships, even if people don't walk a smooth and straight path towards Christian faith.  And we need to recognise that if people struggle along that path, they may still be on the journey and to rejoice that they still want to walk with us.  Relationships are a vital component in reaching out to people on the journey to faith.

And as we reach out to people, we recognise, too, that Jesus reaches out. He takes the initiative. Indeed, however outraged the other disciples were, however embarrassed Thomas may have been when Jesus actually turned up, that Jesus took the initiative.  He came, with Thomas in the room this time.  And he approached directly, the precise issue Thomas had.  No skirting round things.  No length conversation about everything else, ending with Thomas saying, “Phew! He never mentioned what I said...”   No criticism or recriminations. Just an invitation to do what he said he needed to do: “Put your finger here, Thomas..  Don't become an unbeliever but a believer.”  What are we becoming?  

To say “My Lord and my God” was a provocative, missionary statement in a world where it was thought that “Caesar is Lord”   So Thomas moves on, to become a believer, with the rest of the apostles in the mission to the Jews and by reliable tradition going to India with the Gospel.  

Peter, had gone through that horrible experience, of trying to prove he was better than the rest of the disciples – then failing completely to stand up for Jesus in the moment of trial.    Confused, exhausted, needing to relax, to think, and if the truth be told, needing to eat, Peter goes fishing and takes six of the disciples with him.  As the sun rises, and Peter is admitting a wasted night's work, and rowing for the shore line, he sees a stranger making a fire on the beach, barbecuing some fish and baking bread.  The Stranger shouts out to Peter, “Caught anything?”  “No!”  “Have another go; throw your nets over the right side of the boat”  and they catch a big load of fish.  And the penny drops: the stranger is Jesus! Embarrassing for Peter: it seems the Carpenter knows best how to catch fish.  But it's not about Jesus knowing best.  It's about walking together, relationships. 

What has Jesus been doing? Making a fire, cooking fish, and he adds one or two of Peter's catch to the breakfast.   A shared meal is a great relationship builder.  Jesus recognises the importance of relationship-building times, when we waste time with each other – eating together, talking together.  But there is also a sense of “Holy wonder” at this breakfast shared together with the risen Jesus. “The sharing of the meal is the unveiling of his presence”. (Newbigin)

But, just as Thomas had said things he felt embarrassed about, Peter was feeling embarrassed too, about his bragging, his denials.  William Temple suggests “There was a self-will at the  heart of his loyalty”  that led to his failure.  And Jesus knew, Teeter needed to face up to his mistakes and be healed of the scars...   Three times, Peter had claimed hi didn't have anything to do with Jesus.   So after breakfast, Jesus and Peter went for a stroll along the beach...  Three times, Jesus called Peter “Simon”. (Peter knew he'd not been much of a “Rock”; he'd slipped back to being just “Simon”, but Jesus accepted him as just “Simon”)  Three times Jesus asked him “Do you love me more than the others do?  Do you love me?”    Forget what preachers have told you about the Greek using two different words for love here – Jesus spoke Aramaic not Greek! The two Greek words are simply John's rich use of language.   The point is that, just as Peter has denied Jesus three times, he has three opportunities to restate his love for Jesus.  Jesus is indeed taking Peter back to his denials, but not to humiliate him or expose his weakness. If anyone felt a sense of conviction of sin it was Peter.  What Jesus was doing is taking Peter back to “undo” his denials, by three times stating clearly and out loud that he really does love Jesus.   And three times, Jesus told Peter that he is called to feed his flock. One day, Jesus says, this big weakling will have the strength to go to a cross for Jesus.   Like Thomas, Peter is “turned around” - converted Jesus says, and set up for his place in God's mission.

There may be times when we need to revisit the past, with Jesus – and maybe with someone we can trust to walk there with us – and to speak out truth in place of the lies that the past speaks to us.  If you have been hurt by events in the past, that tell you you are rubbish, stupid, unlovely, wicked, doomed to fail, you need to hear truth spoken more loudly than these lies. You are a son of God, made in his image.  He has called you and chosen you; nothing can separate you from his love.  If you have done things in the past that accuse you today, and question whether you can ever be forgiven, you need to hear the truth speaking more loudly than the lies of accusation.  There is no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus.   

Resurrection relationships then

• Involve broken people...and we're all broken
• Balance challenge and affirmation...
• Are built up through the ordinary things like fishing trips, meals, and walks on the beach
• And have the potential to bring healing.

And this talk about Peter's death prompted a question.  Peter caught sight of John, and asked, “What about him?”  Jesus answered “Never mind if he lives until I come back, Peter. You follow me.”  It's amazing how quickly we get to comparing our lives, our call, our blessings, with others.  And it's amazing how quickly we take the words of Jesus and misuse them.  John was embarrassed about the rumour going around that he was going to live until Jesus came back (which was not what Jesus said! It just goes to show the danger of trying to figure out when Jesus is coming back!)   And John, finishes  the story by drawing inattention for a brief moment, to himself:   “That was me.  I was there too...”    Resurrection relationships are meant to continue today, to draw attention to this amazing Jesus, not a concept but a person.  Our relationships with each other, with the world, with Jesus, are meant to lead to eyewitness accounts... I was there too.

Resurrection relationships are still happening.  John's “I was there!” is an invitation to everyone who reads his story, to get to know this Jesus whom all the books in the world could not describe. 

© Gilmour Lilly April  2012