Author: Bryan Richardson

Re:Verse passage – John 20:1-21 (day three)

“They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.”

Three years ago, these disciples were workaday peasants in an occupied corner of the sprawling Roman Empire—law abiding citizens existing in a politically and spiritually totalitarian state with little-to-no civil rights, trying their best to live at peace with however much of God their religious teachers deemed they were fit to understand. But that was then. Now they were intimately connected to a capital criminal branded an enemy of the state, summarily executed. But it was worse than that. They loved him. This empty tomb meant, apparently, that the state, with the cynical support of religious leaders, was now sealing the disciples’ doom by its power to extinguish all dignity and hope. Suddenly, Jesus, dead no more, shifted their understanding of history with one word: “Mary.”

Re:Verse passage – John 19:1-30 (day three)

“He bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

It’s not uncommon for one to encounter reasoning that de-emphasizes the body. This happens in the church as well as in the world, albeit in different ways. The world often declares both that the bodily appetites must be obeyed, and also that the desires must rule the body in any way they see fit, and that such living is without consequence—as if the body has no bearing on the soul. The church often declares that the body is merely temporary because “I’ll fly away”—as if the body were only a stopgap measure. In Jesus Christ, we see these misunderstandings corrected. He bore our sins in his body, and they dis-integrated him; body and spirit were no longer integrated, resulting in death. That death—the cross—rescues your spirit and your body.

Re:Verse passage – John 14: 15-31 (day three)

“He has no hold on me.”

Consider the human being: a brain with enough memory capacity to store the entire Internet; a mind possessing the ability to communicate complex ideas across centuries through literature and the arts; a spirit with the capacity to envision justice; and a means to form alliances with other persons to build cultures that carry out those ideals of justice. Such is a human being at his or her best—and most hypothetical. In the actual world, disease and aging ravage the body. Flawed character clouds noble ideas and artistic expression. Greed corrupts attempts to maintain justice. Lust for power and penchant for war destroy cultures. What would a human being look like if never touched by these sin-infused signatures of spiritual sepsis? That person would look like…Jesus. His is the life we must learn.

Re:Verse passage – John 13: 1-17 (day three)

“He had come from God and was returning to God.” 

It might seem counterintuitive that one of the primary responsibilities of the human creature is to pay close attention to one’s self. Why would a disciple of Jesus do that? Because self awareness and knowledge are key components of the way Jesus lived his life. It was precisely because he knew the areas of his inner life in which he would experience temptation that he could take measures to resist the tempter’s lure. Such self knowledge doesn’t just appear magically. It comes with studied and unflinching introspection. From the Psalmist’s “search me and know me” prayer to Jesus’s frequent times of solitude in the “lonely places”, serious servants of God have always sought to know where they came from, their proper place before the Lord, and where they’re going.

Re:Verse passage – John 12:20-37, 42-50 (day three)

“I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.”

Indeed, why would Jesus judge anybody when we can take care of that job ourselves?  I’m kidding. Or am I? Seriously, though, who’s up for a little more immediacy when it comes to bad people getting their comeuppance? Do you really want to go there, though? God’s slowness has some good things going for it. Consider the composer of Psalm 139 who prayed, “God, slay the wicked,” then turned around and said, “Wait a minute, you better check my heart first and forgive my sin before you do that.” Or consider Peter’s words telling us that what seems like a delay in God’s justice actually allowed you the interval you needed to come to Christ. There will be a time for judgment. Right now, we need a Savior.

Re:Verse reading–John 9:1-7, 13-41 (day three)

“This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”

Yeah, it would be pretty great to witness a big blessing from God, wouldn’t it? And yet, have you really thought it through? What if the blessing came not to you, but to someone else? And what if that someone else was not a person you hold in high regard? And furthermore, what if that blessing didn’t square with your perspective of how God would act? One way to deal with all that is to find a different way to tell the story. That’s exactly what the Pharisees did. Maybe it would be a good idea to sift through the stories you tell yourself and others about God. Are you editing those stories in a way that molds God into a reflection of your own wishes?

Re:Verse reading–John 6:52-69 (day three) 

“He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.”

There’s a certain convenience we find in quoting well-known historical figures. Reaching back through the mists of history for adages and maxims and platitudes lends an air of wisdom and heft to whatever point we’re trying to make. The historical figure can become for us merely a free library of quotations we use for just the right occasion. It’s easy. But Jesus is an actual person who stood upon the ground of a real place and looked into the eyes of each individual around him. He’s not a collection of quotations. We can shape quotations to fit any occasion. The words Jesus spoke, though, are the source of all life. His words will shape us.

Re:Verse reading–John 5:1-30 (day three)

“Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

We don’t know what the man by the pool was thinking after Jesus healed his body. But in the light of his subsequent encounter with Jesus, one could reasonably draw this conclusion: He didn’t want to get well, he just wanted to get by. Jesus had plenty to say about seeking God’s minimum requirements: a man with an evil spirit who cleaned up his act but failed to act cleaned up; a son who faked obedience to get his father off his back; a man who was all yoke and no ox when it came to working the field. The only life that remains unharmed by disease and suffering is the actual life of Jesus. It is our learning to live that life which is the purpose for every single miracle he did.

Re:Verse reading–John 4:4-30, 39-42 (day three) 

“Could this be the Christ?”

Sometimes—probably most times—a question carries more power than a statement. A question invites another person into the process of discovery. A question adopts a humble posture, not claiming to have all the answers. Perhaps most important, a question presents an alternative to what one has always accepted as immovable, settled, conventional wisdom. If the woman on her water errand had returned to the village declaring unequivocally that she had found the Christ, the likely responses would have been either disbelief or a tendency to regard her as the gatekeeper of her discovery. Instead, her question prompted the townsfolk to investigate for themselves. In this world, many people claim many things. In the midst of that noise, a well-placed question will invite all true searchers to open a door they might otherwise never notice.

Re:Verse reading–John 3:1-21 (day three)

“Whosoever believeth” 

The most amazing thing about God is not his exclusivity. That’s simply a function of how God designed the universe to operate logically: Two competing truth claims cannot both be correct.  But the most amazing thing about God is his radical inclusivity.  “Whosoever will may come.”  Who gives invitations like that?  Everybody excludes somebody.  You’ve never planned a party for which you’ve said absolutely anybody can attend.  Life eventually breaks it to you that there’s an “A” list out there somewhere that you’re not on.  In the grand old English of the King James translation, we read, “whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  And the grand old lyrics of a long-forgotten hymn remind us: “Whosoever Meaneth Me”.  Yes, when Jesus says “whosoever”, that means you.  And if it means you, then it means everybody.