“What Then Has Happened?” (1)

 

 

John 14:18 – 24 form an enigmatic unit which requires pondering; it raises questions, it has a wonderful question (“What then has happened?”), and it confronts us with how we see Christ, the world, and ourselves. Previously we considered the theme of Jesus going away and coming again, and we see that again in this passage. As we read the passage, what else do we see? What questions do we have? Are we puzzled by anything Jesus says? Why is Judas (not Iscariot) asking his question? (Please read the entire passage).

 

Since in our previous post we pondered verse 18, we’ll consider verse 19 in this reflection.

 

“After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.” (John 14:19).

 

In 16:16 Jesus also says, “A little while, and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” Do we “see” this theme in the Upper Room?

 

Jesus has a lot to say about the “world” in the Upper Room. (see 15:18 – 16:11; 17:14 – 18). In 14:19 He tells us that a time will come when the world will not see Him, but we will see Him. How can this be? Perhaps a clue is found in, “…because I live, you will live also.”

 

Simply put, people who are alive in Christ see Him, people who are dead do not see Him. We were all once dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1) and our lives were animated by the ways of the world and of the enemy (Eph. 2:2). God, in His mercy, raised us up from spiritual death and made us alive in Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:4 – 10).

 

We are aliens on this planet and in this world, as Jesus says (17:16), “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

 

Why do we not embrace our otherworld identity in Jesus Christ? Why do we instead try to be like the world? Why do we try to attract the world with the things of the world, rather than the things of Christ and God? In Michael Green’s Evangelism in the Early Church, he points out that the Church’s witness has been the most effective when it has been the most counter-cultural. Yet, at least in the West, we give ourselves to economic and political and entertainment movements, allowing them to displace the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. We push “Christian” worldviews on others at the expense of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.

 

(I hope you will forgive me, but I must make this observation. Does no one see the irony that “Christian” conservatives who criticize Christian liberals for preaching a social gospel, have now embraced a political and social gospel of their own?)

 

Should we be surprised if the world cannot “see” Jesus? Should we be surprised if our worldly ways of attempting to communicate the Gospel fail to reach the hearts of others? Aren’t we called to “make disciples” (Mt. 28:19) as opposed to operating group therapy sessions on Sunday mornings?

 

John 14:18 – 24 demonstrates that those whom Christ has called to Himself are not to see and hear and think and live as the people of the world – and yet much of the professing church has adopted the world’s thinking and way of doing things. Let’s remind ourselves that the things that are seen are temporal, while the things that cannot be seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). We are called to live with eyes that see the invisible (consider Hebrews chapters 11 and 12).

 

I find great assurance in Jesus’ words, “…because I live, you will live also.” This means that we not only live in Him today, but that we live in Him tomorrow and for eternity. This means that our existence and forever future is rooted and grounded in Jesus, in the Resurrected One who has conquered and abolished death – and that our reality is not the false reality of a world in rebellion, but of the everlasting Kingdom of God our Father.

 

Jesus says to John (Rev. 1:17 – 18), “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.”

 

Can we hear Jesus saying to us, “Do not be afraid, because I live, you will live also”?

 

Can we hear Jesus saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life”? (John 5:24).

 

Can we hear Jesus saying, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die”? (John 11:25 – 26).

 

I pray that this Easter we will see Him as never before!