Category: John

He Is Risen!

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

John 20:1-23 (New Living Translation)

Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

Peter and the other disciple started out for the tomb. They were both running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn’t go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings. Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed— for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead. Then they went home.

Mary was standing outside the tomb crying, and as she wept, she stooped and looked in. She saw two white-robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying. “Dear woman, why are you crying?” the angels asked her.

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

She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize him. “Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?”

She thought he was the gardener. “Sir,” she said, “if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.”

“Mary!” Jesus said.

She turned to him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for “Teacher”).

“Don’t cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, “I have seen the Lord!” Then she gave them his message.

That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

The Grace of Good Friday

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

Worship is important whenever it happens, but if I had to rank the importance of worship services, I would say that Good Friday and Easter Sunday would tie for the top spot. On Good Friday, we relive the story of Christ’s suffering and death, knowing this gracious act is what saves us from sin. Easter, of course, brings us the story of the resurrection, proof that the work done by our Savior on Good Friday is effective.

Wherever you may be, let me encourage you to find a Good Friday worship service near you in a church that will treat the story as real and relevant. (If you’re near Holston View Methodist Church in Weber City, Va., ours will be at 7 p.m.) If for some reason you cannot do so, let me at least offer you the chance to read it for yourself:

John Chapters 18 and 19

Blessings on you all.

Thursday: What Matters

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 1 Comment

John 13:34-35 (NLT)

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

“Love each other.” Easy to say, but sometimes hard to do.

It helps to remember the context of Jesus’ words. It is the same as yesterday’s devotion. Jesus and the disciples gathered to share a meal, with Jesus clearly knowing he was headed for arrest, scourging and death on a cross.

Jesus looked around the room, and he also knew how his followers would fail at love over the next few days. He knew what everyone was going to do. He knew where Judas was headed. He knew Peter, brash early in their evening together, would deny him three times before morning broke, before the rooster crowed. He knew these supposedly loyal followers would run and hide as soon as the situation got scary.

Jesus knew how alone he was about to be, hanging on a cross naked and bleeding. And yet, he loved them. He washed their feet. He offered them words of grace. And for the time to come, the time when they would regather and form a fledgling church, he gave them a new commandment.

Love each other. Love would show the world something very important about God and his followers. Their mutual love would mark them, making it easy for the world to identify them. Not a building with a steeple. Not a cross on a wall. Love.

So, here’s a simple question for us on this Holy Thursday. How are we doing at this “love each other” thing?

We’ve learned some hard lessons the past few years. During a pandemic, we discovered who held on to the idea of living as a church regardless of their ability to gather in a building. Through an acrimonious denominational breakup, Methodists saw just how ugly and vindictive followers of Christ could be to each other.

American churches in general find themselves further separated from the shifting values of the culture around them, although in the long run, that could be a sign of future growth. Christianity has always had more dynamic success as a counter-cultural influence, an alternate way of life.

We may grow angry or frustrated as what was so familiar seems to change so much. We are a little like the disciples after they saw Jesus dragged away in chains, their Lord not forcing the situation to turn out the way they had imagined.

The solution is to love each other regardless of the troubling events of the day. If we each meditate on this new commandment long enough, we will figure out a response to any circumstances we will face.

Lord, let love guide all our decisions. Amen.

Wednesday: The One Who Betrays

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John 13:21-27 (NLT)

Now Jesus was deeply troubled, and he exclaimed, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me!”

The disciples looked at each other, wondering whom he could mean. The disciple Jesus loved was sitting next to Jesus at the table. Simon Peter motioned to him to ask, “Who’s he talking about?” So that disciple leaned over to Jesus and asked, “Lord, who is it?”

Jesus responded, “It is the one to whom I give the bread I dip in the bowl.” And when he had dipped it, he gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. When Judas had eaten the bread, Satan entered into him. Then Jesus told him, “Hurry and do what you’re going to do.”

If you have a strong reaction to this story, you’ve probably been betrayed. A co-worker, a friend, a relative, a spouse—someone not only let you down, the person actually turned on you, consciously violating a long-established trust.

And the closer the relationship, the worse the pain caused by the betrayal. It usually is hard for the victim of betrayal to forgive.

Most cultures hold betrayers in very low esteem. In Dante’s fictional account of hell, punishments grew progressively more severe moving inward, and the heart of the inner circle was for betrayers who remained frozen in painfully contorted positions. In the very center, Satan munched on the people Dante considered to be the three greatest traitors, Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius.

In contrast to our personal and cultural reactions, Jesus seemed resigned to betrayal. Of course, by this point in the story, he knew exactly where he was headed, down to the minute, I suspect.

Jesus didn’t do anything to change Judas when he gave him the morsel of bread; Judas’ heart was already turned toward sin. In the act, Jesus simply identified who among the 12 was most deeply broken. The sharing of the gravy-dipped bread seems poignant, though.

To eat with someone on such a night—in this case, to literally break bread—is an intimate moment. To compound the intimacy, earlier in the evening Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, Judas included. But none of those acts could turn the betrayer from his plan.

On that night, Judas truly was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And once your mind is so firmly set in such a terrible direction, it is easy for Satan or one of his minions to enter and lead the way.

I do wonder about something, though. The Bible tells us that Judas died shortly after the betrayal. (The accounts in Matthew 27 and Acts 1 are difficult to reconcile, but in each one he ends up dead.) Had he lived, how would the resurrected Jesus have treated his betrayer?

The closest analogy we have is Peter, who proved to be the worst of the deniers once Jesus had been arrested. Near the end of the Gospel of John, we see Jesus forgive and restore Peter. Again, the scene is intimate, on a beach near a charcoal fire, a breakfast of fish and bread cooked and waiting for some very ashamed men.

Had Judas lived, carrying with him the remorse and repentance he seems to bear in Matthew 27:3-4, I suspect he would have found forgiveness, too. Such radical forgiveness would be typical of the Savior we serve.

Lord, where we have been betrayed, let us find a way to forgive, and where we have betrayed others, may we be forgiven. Amen.

Tuesday: A Deep Truth

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John 12:34-36 (NLT)

The crowd responded, “We understood from Scripture that the Messiah would live forever. How can you say the Son of Man will die? Just who is this Son of Man, anyway?”

Jesus replied, “My light will shine for you just a little longer. Walk in the light while you can, so the darkness will not overtake you. Those who walk in the darkness cannot see where they are going. Put your trust in the light while there is still time; then you will become children of the light.”

After saying these things, Jesus went away and was hidden from them.

After watching Jesus ride into Jerusalem, hailed as a king, people in the crowd had questions. They had heard Jesus repeatedly call himself “Son of Man,” and they understood he was staking claim to the role of Messiah, the one to fulfill the greatest promises in their Jewish Bible. But they also had heard Jesus indicate how he would die.

How can one anointed and glorified by God, the one we now understand to be God in flesh, die such a horrible, humiliating death? Over time, Christians have gotten used to the idea of the bloodied Jesus hanging on a cross, but we simultaneously have to admit the image is strange, particularly to people not raised in the faith.

Probably the most dramatic Old Testament reference to the “Son of Man” comes in Daniel 7:13-14: “As my vision continued that night, I saw someone like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence. He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him. His rule is eternal—it will never end. His kingdom will never be destroyed.”

Any orthodox-minded Christian reading that passage is going to think, “This is a prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ.” We believe Jesus has authority, honor and sovereignty over all the nations, something all people will one day recognize. The vision does make him appear invincible, however.

To answer the crowd’s question, we have to explore the design of salvation, and that means we delve into a mystery too complex for us to understand in full, at least in this life. Jesus’ answer gives us deep insight, however.

For all practical purposes, the Son of Man mounted a rescue mission. Because of our sins, we were trapped in darkness—a place that the Holy God, who is light, has every right to disregard. Out of love, however, he chose not to forget us or destroy us. Instead, the light entered the darkness to find us, taking on flesh. The title “Son of God” reminds us of his divinity; the title “Son of Man” reminds us of his blessed humanity. (Now we’re back to the Christmas story, the incarnation.)

To break the grip sin and death had on us, Jesus had to bear our punishment for sin. Or we might say he had to ransom us from sin. Or we might say he carried our shame. Or we might say he became the one perfect sacrifice for sin, simultaneously priest and slain lamb. These and other descriptions of how atonement works mark the point where the mystery becomes almost unfathomable. We use metaphors to understand what can be grasped in full only by the mind of God.

What’s important is that we believe Christ’s death on the cross is effective, that the divine machinery behind salvation works even if we cannot comprehend all its cogs and pulleys.

We also have an advantage the Passover crowd did not have. We know that ultimately, the Son of Man is invincible. Death could not bind him, and ultimately will be destroyed by him. The proof lies in an event following the crucifixion.

That’s a story for Easter Sunday, though.

Lord, today we reaffirm our belief that the Son of Man died on the cross, knowing our belief is enough to pull us from darkness into light.

Over-the-Top Monday

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 2 Comments

John 12:1-11 (NLT)

Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.

But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself.

Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

When all the people heard of Jesus’ arrival, they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus had raised from the dead. Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too, for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus.

Yes, we are to care for the poor. Yes, we are to do all sorts of good works. We should commit a significant portion of our resources to the work Jesus calls us to do, caring for people living on the edge of ruin and death.

In this story, however, is a remarkable idea, one that even some very good-hearted people might find confusing. Honoring Jesus Christ—who he is and what he has done for the world on the cross—takes precedence over all other motivations and actions.

The story of Mary anointing Jesus is a story of extravagant thanks. Jesus had recently restored to life Mary and Martha’s brother, after Lazarus had decomposed in a tomb for four days.

Mary took what was probably her life savings, her security, and used it all at once to honor the one who had granted this miracle. The stench of death had been the sisters’ great fear; now, a perfumed declaration of joy filled the room, emanating from the one who had driven death away. If you’ve never smelled spikenard, know that it is sweet and musky, an earthy, lively odor. Try to imagine peat from the Garden of Eden.

Even though Judas’ motivation likely was theft, some people might agree with his stated objection—the pouring out of all that nard in one place can seem like an awful waste! These likely would be people who take a strictly humanist approach to solving the problems of the world, saying if people would just act right and do enough good, with enough efficiency, most of the problems of the world would go away.

Christians see that as a cart-before-horse assertion, however. God is our motivator. God provides the power. In John 17:20-26, we hear Jesus root his relationship in the Father, and then Jesus prays that we will be similarly rooted in the Father and Son. Even altruistic actions properly begin with an understanding of who we are in relation to God.

If we are to develop that relationship, we need to stop now and then to give extravagant and even inefficient thanks. Then, rightly motivated, we will see God pour grace into us until it spills out of our church and onto the world.

In fact, grace can arrive in such abundance that efficiency becomes at most a side-issue. Remember the stories of Jesus feeding the multitudes—all those leftovers indicate efficiency was not something the disciples needed during the distribution.

Great works have always happened through Christ’s church. People living on the edge of ruin constantly find themselves pulled back from the brink by people with a firm grip on God, the anchor for all altruism.

Lord, we offer thanks for who you are today, and we consider in our hearts what we might do to show extravagant thanks. May we revel in the inefficiency of it all. Amen.

Good Friday

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment
“Jesus Christ Crucified,” Diego Velázquez, 17th century.

Now it gets deeply serious. Today is about Jesus’ suffering and death, the events that make eternal life for us possible. We again will use our pattern of daily prayer to sink deeper into this powerful story.

Morning

Praise: See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! (1 John 3:1.) He loves us so much that he would send his Son, God in flesh, to die for our sins, bearing the punishment we deserve. As much as we can, let’s consider for a few moments what an incredible gift we have been given—eternal life rather than death, which is eternal separation from this grand and glorious love.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow; praise him all creatures here below; praise him above ye heavenly host; praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost! Amen.“

Confession: We know we have fallen short of God’s expectations, failing to follow his will for us and in the process, committing sins. Let’s take time to search ourselves and confess those sins, today bringing them before a cross we know to have been soaked in our Savior’s blood. Those of us who take part in a Good Friday service should have powerful reminders of the work done on our behalf.

Time in Scripture: John, Chapters 18 and 19.

Noon

Take time to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Because of the season we are in, it also is a good time to consider the words of the Apostles’ Creed.

Night

If you’re not able to attend an evening Good Friday service, try to find some time for meditative quiet, listening to what God has to say.

Holy (Maundy) Thursday

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

Easter approaches, but as we wrap up this season of Lent, we want to be sure we are appropriately absorbing what makes the celebration of Christ’s resurrection possible. First, we have to walk with our Savior as he moves through suffering and death.

If you have lost the pattern of prayer we rehearsed together last September and during the season of Advent, today and tomorrow are good days to try to recover them.

Morning

Praise: Let’s first take time to consider who God is and acknowledge that truth appropriately. He is Creator, Savior and Comforter, revealed to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Let’s praise God for the love poured out on us! Let’s also give thanks for the blessings we can see in our lives. Try to say a few out loud.

Confession: We know we have fallen short of God’s expectations, failing to follow his will for us and in the process, committing sins. Let’s take time to search ourselves and confess those sins. Those of us who take part in a Holy Thursday communion service tonight will find ourselves better prepared for that experience as we confess and remember this: Because we believe in Christ’s work on the cross, we are forgiven!

Time in Scripture: John 13 (NLT). Again, those of us in a Holy Thursday service are likely to hear this story tonight. Jesus teaches much simply through his actions; how do we imitate him?

Noon

Take time to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Because of the season we are in, it also is a good time to consider the words of the Apostles’ Creed.

Night

If you’re not able to attend an evening Holy Thursday service, try to find some time for meditative quiet, listening to what God has to say.

Cheering a Slave

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

Let’s prepare ourselves for a shift in the Lenten season. If you’re in a worship service this Sunday, you likely will hear a story that moves us into “Holy Week,” a chance to walk toward the cross with Jesus.

We are about to arrive at Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter. The main point of Palm Sunday is to remember Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem, the trip taking him toward death on a cross.

Crowds cheered Jesus as he rode along, hailing him as a conquering king. In our Palm Sunday worship, we mimic them, singing “Hosanna!” and waving palm fronds. (Luke 19:28-40 and John 12:12-15 record this celebration.)

The scene in Jerusalem was a raucous one, a rally in danger of becoming a revolt against the Promised Land’s Roman rulers. But let’s try to shift our viewpoint a little, looking into Christ’s mind as he traveled through the crowd.

In the second chapter of Philippians, the Apostle Paul wrote about this entry-into-Jerusalem moment and the days that followed, when Jesus made our salvation possible.

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness,” Paul wrote. “And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”

The people hailed Jesus as a king, and indeed, he had more power available to him than any earthly leader has ever held. In Matthew 26, which contains one record of Jesus’ arrest, he stops his followers from resisting the soldiers and police by noting he could call down 12 legions of angels if he wanted to do so.

But this power did not go to his head; in fact, Jesus understood the use of such power to be counterproductive where salvation was concerned. Only a perfect sacrifice could save humanity from sin and death.

As Jesus rode by the people along the road entering Jerusalem, they unknowingly cheered a slave, one who had completely submitted himself to the horror to come. He did this for our sakes, of course, expressing a kind of love that is hard to comprehend.

From this story, with a little help from Paul, we learn what it means to be a Christian with power, be it power in a big setting, like a nation, or a small setting, like an office. As Paul wrote, we need to carry within us the mind of Christ, living sacrificially for others.

There’s also a lesson here about assuming knowledge of other people’s motives. A lot of backbiting seems to begin with phrases like, “I know why he did that” or “I know what she was thinking.”

Actually, you don’t. One of the hardest things to understand is another person’s motivation.

Those palm-waving crowds certainly didn’t understand what was in Jesus’ mind. That’s why they abandoned him when he didn’t behave as they thought he should, using power to establish a worldly throne.

As you prepare for worship this Sunday, pay close attention to how people exercise power around you or in the broader world. How would our world be different if people mimicked the mind of Christ as they wielded power?

Surprisingly Simple

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

In this Lenten season, we’ll call this “Back to Basics Day.” Let’s begin by considering exactly what Abram (later to be called Abraham) gave up when he listened to God and moved toward an unspecified land.

This initial call in Genesis 12:1-4 is written in a rather matter-of-fact tone, but the risk must have seemed huge for an aging man. He had property and people around him, including slaves, the mark of a comfortable, wealthy man. We don’t know how long Abram had been in Haran—we only know his father Terah had moved the family from far-away Ur some time earlier—but as the family had been able to grow their wealth while there, we can assume life in Haran had been good for them.

Now Abram was to pack his family and possessions and make a journey that ultimately would prove to be more than 500 miles, about the same distance as walking from from Upper East Tennessee to Jacksonville, Fla. For them, it was a dangerous month-long one-way trip, assuming the animals in their caravan were in good shape. A return visit to Haran or the true family homeplace, Ur, might be a once-in-a-lifetime event, perhaps when someone needed a bride of proper bloodlines.

And yet, Abram went, without question, without comment. He would have questions later, but not in this initial act of faith, this huge, trusting leap toward God.

It’s easy to get caught up in what Abram did rather than focusing on the importance of what was in his heart. The Apostle Paul uses Abram in the fourth chapter of Romans to illustrate that it’s the trust we exhibit that saves us, not any work we do. When God sees we trust him, he goes ahead and calls us righteous, even though we don’t deserve it. Paul made clear he was talking about the God we know best through Jesus Christ, the one who made all things and then restored all things to holiness despite sin.

So, we’re invited to a simple act of faith. But at the same time, we’re also called to remember that it’s so simple it can be confusing, particularly for the uninitiated. When we’ve turned away from God and are caught up in sin, we feel like we’re trapped in that Harry Potter hedge maze, the one where the turns and dead-ends seem endless and the roots and branches grab at us. We have to figure the maze out, right? To survive, we have to beat back what entangles us, right?

Wrong. All we really have to do is look up and say, “Lord Jesus, I believe you can pluck me out of this.”

In the third chapter of John’s gospel, we see the Pharisee Nicodemus desperately wanting to follow Jesus, but at the same time struggling in his rigid, legalistic mind with how to do so. Accept what is from above, Jesus told him. Trust God. Trust God’s love for his creation.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life,” Jesus said. And then came the real kicker, particularly for a legalist striving to make himself righteous: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

What, God doesn’t seek to punish us first? I don’t have to clean up my act to accept God’s gift of salvation?

We have Nicodemus types around us, perhaps even among us in church. They want to make that first step toward God much more difficult than it is, trying to resolve personal angst and the global problem of evil in one fell swoop. Often, they expect a requirement to crawl at least halfway back toward the one they’ve offended before being accepted.

As Christians, our job is to keep simple what can be misunderstood as complicated. The God of Abraham, the God who walked among us and died for our sins, loves us. He’s been reaching down to humanity for thousands of years and continues to do so today.

Sure, once we accept God’s offer, there’s more to do. It’s only natural that we want a developing, continuing relationship with the one who gives us eternal life in place of death. We pray, we study, we joyfully respond to his simple requests, the first being, “Go and tell others.”

That initial act of accepting God’s outstretched loving hand remains simple, however.