Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (17)

 

On page 210 Bonhoeffer tells us that the Body of Christ takes on visible form in the preaching of the word, in baptism, and in the Lord’s Supper; all three of these are sacramental, all three of them mediate Christ Jesus, and community in Christ, all three form us as Christ’s community. While forgiveness of sins is indeed present in the sacraments, Bonhoeffer writes:

 

“Nether the gift of baptism nor the gift of the Lord’s Supper is fully understood if we interpret them only in terms of the forgiveness of sin. The gift of the body conferred in the sacraments presents us with the Lord in bodily form dwelling in his church – community” (page 211).

 

On pages 211 – 213 Bonhoeffer touches on expressions and forms of the visible church – community. He does this both quickly and in-depth, yes, this seems like a contradiction. He does it quickly in that he points us to a number of Biblical considerations in just three pages, but he also does this in-depth if we will read and ponder the Scriptures to which he points us. There is no point in reading Bonhoeffer is we are not going to read the Bible, if we are not going to read and ponder, in context, the Scripture passages which are his frame of reference and his authority.

 

“This community is a differentiated whole. The body of Christ as church-community includes both differentiation and a common order. These are characteristics essential to the body itself. A body lacking differentiation is in the process of decomposition” (page 211, italics mine). Bonhoeffer cites Romans 12:5 and 1 Corinthians 12:12ff.

 

Bonhoeffer is saying that the visible church-community will have common expressions everywhere it gathers, and that it will also have expressions peculiar to its time and place. These expressions ought to all originate in Christ and be sustained by Christ, and we can anticipate that they will change over time – after all, the visible church-community is the Living Body of Christ; it is a Person, yes, a unique Person, but nevertheless a Person.

 

On pages 211 – 213 Bonhoeffer cites around 30 Scriptures to help us see the visible Body of Christ and understand the Holy Spirit’s working within us as God’s People. He emphasizes that the “order” of the church is of “divine origin” and that it is intended to serve and not to be served. The offices of the church are appointed by God within, but not by, the community. “Even where the church-community itself assigns offices, it does so in complete submission to the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:2)” (page 212).

 

Bonhoeffer holds that “different congregations require different offices or ministries.” This is, I think, a high view of the organic Nature of the Body of Christ and the Headship of Jesus. Bonhoeffer trusts Christ to lead and care for and form His Body – that is a higher trust than most of us are likely to have ourselves and tolerate in others. Bonhoeffer writes that the “specific form [of our visible expression] is open to change” (page 212).

 

Can we imagine a local church climate in which congregations are seeking to sense and respond to the Holy Spirit and our Lord Jesus as a way of life? A climate in which we are open to changes in the forms of our expressions, in ministry offices, in the forms of our gatherings?

 

Bonhoeffer sees all ministry offices and gifts as functioning “for the benefit of the church-community,” and as being “servants of the church-community” (page 212). This is hardly a picture of the clergy – laity dichotomy that we see today, or of the sacred – secular dichotomy.

 

A visible church-community is more than a group of people who gather to listen to others, to give money, to pray as they are given permission, and to whom baptism and the Lord’s Supper is a routine.  We are to be living and vibrant expressions of the Incarnation, members of one another and members of Christ Jesus. We are to each share the grace of God and the life of Christ with one another – we all have faith and hope and love to share. We ought to be encouraging one another in the koinonia of the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:14 – 16).

 

There is always a cost of discipleship, both as individuals and as a people. Those who follow the Christ of the Cross will always be a minority among professing Christians, as will those groups of disciples who seek to be expressions of the Body of Christ – new wine cannot be contained in old wineskins.

 

The Church of Jesus Christ must always be separate and distinct from the world, for its Nature is Christ and He is transcendent.

 

Bonhoeffer’s German contemporaries sought to maintain the status quo, most of them rejected his Biblical teaching as they sought alliance and accommodation with the social and political and military forces around them.

 

Just as we are doing today.

Glorify Together

 

 

“Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5).

 

Jesus’ communion with the Father begins, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You” (17:1).

 

The glory of the Father is the glory of the Son, and the glory of the Son is the glory of the Father. As we will see in verse 22, the glory of the Trinity is given to us in Christ. Sadly, much of the story of humanity is the story of us, “exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man” (Rom. 1:23). Do we not see this today in our society? Do we not worship the image of man, of ourselves? The conflicts we see within nations and among nations is a conflict about which idol we will worship.

 

Jesus seeks no glory apart from the Father, in fact, the Father is the glory of the Son. Jesus recalls the glory He had with the Father “before the world was.” This not only takes us back to the very beginning of the Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being,” but it also takes us through the Gospel of John.

 

“’My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.’ For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (5:17 – 18).

 

“I Am the Bread of life” (6:35).

 

“I Am the Light of the world” (8:12).

 

“I Am the Good Shepherd” (10:11).

 

“I Am the Resurrection and the Life” (11:25).

 

“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham came into being, I Am,” (8:58).

 

One of the mysteries of the “I AM” statements is that, while the glory of the Father was pouring in and through Jesus in the Incarnation, the bestowal of the “glory which I had with You before the world was,” was yet to come.

 

This takes us to Philippians 2:5 – 11 in which we see that “He [Jesus] emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” Hebrews 2:9 – 18 also speaks to us of Jesus being “made like His brethren in all things.”

 

As Jesus Himself asked the disciples on the road to Emmaus, “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26).

 

Jesus is emptied, in a fashion we cannot understand, in the Incarnation, and He is restored to the glory which He had with the Father before the world was through suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. We behold elements of this in Scripture, we see refracted Light through this, we even participate in this mystery ourselves, but I think it beyond our comprehension – such is the greatness of the glory of God and of His Story, for this is truly the Story of the Lamb – He includes us in His Story, but He is the Story, the Message, the Gospel – the Lamb is the Light, not me, not you, not us.

 

We are called to enter into His glory as we participate with Him in His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. This is a Divine koinonia (Phil. 3:10), this is our inheritance (Rom. 8:16 – 18). Mystery of mysteries, in doing so, in touching the eternal glory, in receiving the glory which Christ bestows on us (John 17:22), we touch the I AM THAT I AM, and in touching Him we touch the “glory which I had with You before the world was.”

 

Well, as Paul writes, there are some things which are not lawful to talk about (2 Cor. 12:4). I think this is because of our propensity to profane and make merchandise of the holy, and also because some things are simply too beyond us for human words. But then, what do I really know?  

 

Let’s consider that we are changed into the image of Jesus Christ “from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18) and that this occurs in the liberty of the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:17). This resonates with the “freedom of the glory of the children of God” in Romans 8:21. Let us also consider the progression we see in Romans 8:30:

 

“These whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called,  He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

 

The Father is indeed “bringing many sons to glory” (Heb. 2:10).

 

That which we had lost and fallen short of (Rom. 3:23), is now being restored in us, in Christ, always in Christ (Rom. 5:1 – 11).

 

As we look forward into eternity, we see that the Bride has the glory of God (Rev. 21:10) and that the glory of God illuminates that Holy City (Rev. 21:23).

 

If you ask me what the “glory” is, I cannot answer you. O for sure it is the Presence, the all – enveloping Presence of God. For sure, His holiness and purity and Otherness, His love and mercy and grace, His Essence. But who has words for the Ineffable? We must fall on our face speechless at times, at other times we can but raise our hands and hearts and cry, “Holy, holy, holy.”

 

I think this, that only fools merchandise and sell such things, and for sure there are fools aplenty within professing Christianity. Wise men and women are circumspect in touching and communicating the Holy, they fear to take liberties with holy things, with sacred things, for they are servants and not masters, they follow the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain.

 

I also think this, that one touch of the Shekinah is worth a lifetime of “worship and praise” songs, for when the Other touches you, you know you have been touched – and you know you had nothing to do with it – you were touched because it pleased Him to touch you.

 

You can no more speak of these things than you ought to speak of that which transpires between a husband and wife in their sacred chambers…but we have so profaned our religion and made merchandise of it that it challenges us to conceive of such things…well, the Song of Solomon may help us with this…perhaps.

 

O that we would return to our purity of devotion to Christ! (2 Cor. 11:1 – 3; Rev. 2:4).

 

John 17:1 – 5 is the first movement in the Holy of Holies of Chapter 17. As you mediate on these words of Jesus, allow the Holy Spirit to draw you into the heart of your High Priest, into the Presence of the Lamb, into the glory of the Father.

 

As you read this passage aloud, can you hear the Voice of Jesus?

 

Can you see Him speaking to the Father?

Accomplishing the Work

 

 

“I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do” (John 17:4).

 

Gethsemane lies just ahead, with its plea, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.”  Beyond Gethsemane is the mockery and torture of Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod. Beyond them looms Golgotha. Yet, Jesus speaks to the Father of “having accomplished the work.”

 

Already Jesus is seeing beyond the Cross, already He is seeing His joy and prize, already He is beholding the Face of the Father as He anticipates declaring, “It is finished.”

 

We are reminded that on the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus discussed with Moses and Elijah “His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). We know that Jesus, “for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2).

 

Let us recall that Jesus said, “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour” (John 12:27).

 

Paul displays his Master Jesus when he writes, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness” (2 Tim. 4:6 – 8).

 

Paul sees himself as an offering, just as Jesus saw Himself. Paul knew that his hour had come, just as Jesus knew. Paul had a sense of having accomplished his calling, of doing the works which Christ gave him to do, of finishing the course, even though trial and execution awaited him, just as it awaited Jesus. Paul saw beyond imprisonment and execution, to the crown of righteousness, just as Jesus saw beyond the Cross to the joy that lay ahead.

 

Prior to his letter to Timothy, Paul writes to the Philippians while in prison, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14).

 

Just as Jesus glorified the Father by completing the work which the Father had given Him to do, and just as Paul glorified Christ Jesus by completing the work to which he was called, so are you and I to glorify the Father and the Son by accomplishing the work to which we have been called. Let us never forget that Jesus says, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21; see also 17:18).

 

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

 

We all have a destiny in Christ, a calling in Christ, a purpose in Christ.

 

There are at least four ways we can think about the “good works” which God has prepared for us, all of them constitute a holistic calling. The first one is what I’ll term “general good works,” that is, “good works as our Way of Life in Christ.”

 

We see this in Matthew 5:43 – 48, in which Jesus teaches that we are to love our enemies and pray for them, and to “greet” or bless all people, the evil and the good, the righteous and the unrighteous, so that we may be the sons of our Father in heaven. Jesus tells us that we are to let our light shine before men, “That they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:16).

 

Similarly, Paul writes, “Let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Gal. 6:10; see also John 15:8, Titus 2:14; 3:8).

 

Then we have the good work of witnessing for Jesus. For sure this work is twofold, consisting of both word and deed, they must not be separated, each is vital. We are called to make disciples of all peoples, teaching them to obey what Jesus has taught (Mt. 28:18 – 20). That witness is inherent is discipleship is seen in Mark 8:38, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

 

Paul asks, “How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard?” (Rom. 10:14).

 

The third element of our calling to good works is our placement in the Body of Christ (Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4:14 – 16; 1 Peter 10 – 11). We all have a part to play in the Body of Christ, we are members of one another, we truly need one another to be complete. We need each other to function in the Body so that we may all grow up into Christ and be a faithful witness to the world. Each one of us has a facet of our Father to display to the others. Each one of us has a unique deposit of the grace of Jesus within us that the rest of us need in order to be whole, and in order to fulfill our own callings.

 

This is not so much about what we “do,” as about who we are. Our worth is not in what we do, it is in who we are. Who we are will be expressed in what we do, but we must abide in the Vine if we are to “do” anything of lasting value (John 15:5).

 

This is an ever – growing experience, this discovery of the works of God, the calling of God, including within the Body of Christ. Our roles may change, the way we play those roles may change, our understanding will hopefully grow and mature, we will learn from others, we will learn from our mistakes, we will learn and be encouraged when things go well. We ought to never be stagnant, but ought to be in God’s process of being transformed from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18; Rom. 12:1 – 2).

 

And this leads to the fourth element of working the works of God, and that is that these works which God has laid out for us lead us into the image of the Firstborn Son (Rom. 8:29). That is, we are called to do the works that Jesus did, and does, and…in some sense which is still a mystery to me…we are called to do “greater works” (John 14:12). This encompasses the work of the Cross, again a mystery, but we see this in “death working in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:12), and in “I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Col. 1:24).

 

I imagine there are other facets embedded in the idea of us being “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” Can you think of other elements to this?

 

What about those of us who have gone our own way for much of life? What about those of us who have done nothing but sit in a pew year after year, who have never shared Jesus with others, who have not really lived in the Word of God, not really prayed and interceded for others? What about those of us who have frankly lived as if our lives belonged to ourselves rather than to Jesus? What about those of us who have missed opportunity after opportunity to walk in the works which our Father has purposed for us?

 

I find great encouragement in Matthew 20:1 – 16 in the sense that our Father is merciful and gracious and generous. Now I’ll say that were I an eleventh-hour laborer, I’d be happy with an hour’s pay; actually, I’d be happy and thankful to just be allowed to serve for one hour whether I was rewarded or not, the opportunity to serve would be reward enough.

 

I have missed many opportunities over the years, I have missed years of opportunity. I am afraid that I have been like the second son in Matthew 21:28 – 31. Yet, I have also been given the merciful opportunity to learn to be as the first son, and I hope that I am that son in some measure. Life can be complicated…yes?

 

Let me please share something with you, Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, and we can trust Him. Christ can redeem our missed opportunities, He can redeem our disgusting selfishness, He can bring us out of the depths to which we have plummeted, He can restore the wasted years of our lives (Joel 2:25). But let us make no mistake, we must acknowledge our sin and disobedience and turn to Him, following Him according to His call to discipleship (Mark 8:34 – 38). This is not a religious game, this all has eternal consequences, both for ourselves and for those around us – our faithfulness to Jesus Christ matters to others.

 

Am I glorifying the Father by accomplishing the work which He has given me to do?

 

Are you?

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (16)

 

 

“The body of Christ takes up physical space here on earth” (page 207).

 

“A truth, a doctrine, or a religion needs no space of its own. Such entities are bodyless. They do not go beyond being heard, learned, and understood” (page 207).

 

“The body of the exalted Lord is…a visible body, taking the form of the church – community” (page 208).

 

The Body of Christ is more than a group of people who believe the same thing, it is the actual, physical, Body of Jesus Christ – visible on earth, taking up space on earth; to touch a member of the Body is to touch the Person of Jesus Christ. The Incarnation continues in the Body of Christ.

 

Bonhoeffer writes that the Body is made visible through preaching the word (Acts 2:42), we are to “continue in the apostles teaching.” Since the foundation of the church consists in the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20), all teaching and preaching must be based on this foundation – we must continue to teach what the apostles and prophets taught, which is founded upon Jesus Christ, always Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:11). (See pages 208 – 209).

 

Then he writes, “The Word of God seeks out community in order to accept it. It exists mainly within the community. It moves on its own into the community. It has an inherent impulse toward community” (page 209).

 

“The Word moves along this path of its own accord. The preacher should and can do nothing more than be a servant of this movement inherent in the Word itself, and refrain from placing obstacles in its path” (page 209).

 

What is the “Word” of which Bonhoeffer writes?

 

It is what we read of in John: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

 

It is, as Bonhoeffer notes on pages 209 and 210, that which John wrote about, “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life” (1 John 1:1).

 

This can be a challenge for us, for it may be that when we think of the “Word” that we think of only the Bible, that is, it may be that we do not “see” the Word as the Word, that we do not “see” the Bible as…mysterious as it may be…the Living Word of John 1:1 and 1 John 1:1…it may be that we see only paper and ink. It may be that we see only one dimensionally, rather than in the Holy Spirit.

 

Perhaps the personification of Wisdom in Proverbs Chapter 8 (and elsewhere) can help us with this, a passage long understood as revealing Christ. I do not understand this mystery, anymore than I understand baptism or the Lord’s Table or the Incarnation or the Trinity; but just because we may not understand something, does not mean that we cannot “see” it and experience it.

 

To be sure, it usually takes time for our vision to mature, for us to develop an eye to see these things, but isn’t this often the case with growth and appreciation?

When Bonhoeffer writes, “The Word of God seeks out community in order to accept it,” he points us to Christ the Word, coming to earth and to us to bring us to Himself and the Father, thus creating community within Himself, inhabiting His Body, His Church, His Temple.

 

The “movement inherent in the Word itself,” is the Divine Life of Christ, and preachers are to be servants of this movement, we are to submit to Christ the Word, not seek to manipulate, dominate, or dictate, but rather to submit and serve and cooperate. We ought not to put obstacles in the path of the movement of the Word, nor to restrict the movement and expression of the Word.

 

Now this can be a bit frightening, for it means that we give up control; we do not abdicate responsibility to obey and teach, but we do give up control to Christ and the Holy Spirit. This is, by its nature, uncomfortable for most of us, for who knows how God will surprise us? We like control, not surprise.

 

It also means that we are not called to apply the Word of God, it means that we are called to obey the Word of God. If I can apply something then I can control it, as a teacher I am tasked with proclaiming the Word and making disciples; in Christ I call us to obey the Word, to obey Jesus Christ.

 

I realize some may not see the distinction, but it is important to me in our pragmatic culture to attempt to make the point. I want to inculcate obedience to Christ and the Cross, not pragmatic application. I want to stress our servanthood, we no longer belong to ourselves but to our Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

 

Bonhoeffer tells us that the Word “can no longer exist in isolation from the humanity it has assumed…Jesus Christ himself has come to be present in our midst in the power of his body” (page 210).

 

This is a high view of the Incarnation which we are unaccustomed to. While there may be traditions which are more comfortable and familiar with this vision than others, even in those few groups the average person doesn’t really live in this awareness. We simply don’t live in the spiritual realm, we don’t experience the supernatural, the numinous, the Other. While our forefathers may have lived naturally supernatural lives, experiencing the communion of the saints, we have become so earthbound that these things can be difficult for us. What was once natural, is now unnatural.

 

(I am reminded of the series on Geerhardus Vos’s Heavenly – Mindedness from a few years ago. Vos took us on a naturally supernatural experience of Hebrews 11:9- 10. I kept thinking as I was reading and writing, “We don’t talk like this now, we don’t think like this now, we don’t experience this now. In fact, we often discourage it.”)

 

To encounter the Word is to encounter Christ, and to encounter Christ is to encounter the Word. When we encounter the Word, when the Word comes to us and we are drawn to the Word, we must submit and obey (by the grace of God). The Word does indeed create community – see John Chapter 17. If we submit to Him we will be drawn deeper and deeper into the koinonia of the Trinity.

 

My own sense is that this is why we often find deep fellowship outside of our own movements and traditions, for when we gather with those outside our home boundaries and wineskins, we are usually gathering with those who are hungry for Jesus and seeking to serve Him and others. Again, this is just my sense; it has often been my experience.

 

There is always a risk, in the natural sense, in submitting to the Word of God, for we just don’t know where our Shepherd will lead us. O yes, we can trust Him, and He will always care for us; but He will also always draw us to His Cross…for reconciliation with God and with one another, for our source of Life in Him, and as our Way of Life as we lay our lives down for others.

 

As I have written before, Bonhoeffer is dense and there is no substitute for actually reading what he writes in its full context, we are only touching some highlights, only trying to keep the signposts in focus.

 

This is quite challenging to me, and I hope to you.

 

 

This Is Eternal Life

 

 

“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:2).

 

How does the Son give us eternal life? By bringing us into a relationship with our Father. We may have different perspectives and language to describe this, but whatever that might be, we ought to be wise enough to understand that the Bible uses expansive language for this relationship, so expansive that it takes 66 books and numerous authors over centuries to express it. Even within the Gospels, we see actions and language that refuses to be confined, refuses to be codified, and frankly refuses to be systematized – for God is God and we are not, and the purpose of the Bible is to reveal God and bring us into a relationship with Him, into the Nature of the Divine, that we might be “partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

 

As Tozer writes in The Pursuit of God, “The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts” (page 10).

 

Do we use the language of relationship, or do we use the language of the classroom when we speak of Scripture and of the Trinity? Do we use the language of relational knowing or the language of knowing data and information when we speak of God?

 

What Jesus says about the apostles in John 17 makes no sense. How can Jesus say that they have kept the Father’s word (17:6)? How can He say that they “truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent me” (17:8)? These men will shortly abandon Jesus and will lock themselves in the Upper Room – this time not to share bread and wine with Jesus, and not to hear the glorious words of Jesus drawing them to the Father – but they will cower in this very same room for fear. These are hardly the actions of men who fit Jesus’ description in verses 6 and 8.

 

These statements make no sense unless we learn to see as Jesus sees, hear as Jesus hears, and receive the wisdom of God that makes no sense to the world, including the religious world (1 Cor. 1:17 – 2:16).  

 

Somehow, some way, these men, did indeed have eternal life and did know the Father; that relational knowing of Jesus and the Father would carry them through their fear and anxiety and doubt and uncertainty and momentary unbelief.  There was no real doubt about this (17:12).

 

We have eternal life in knowing the Father and Son, not in simply knowing about them. We can know the Scriptures and not know Jesus, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me” (John 5:39).

 

Seminary graduates can know the Scriptures and not know Jesus. Elders, deacons, Sunday school teachers, seminary professors, pastors, bishops, metropolitans, and popes can know the Scriptures and not know Jesus. Longtime church members can know the Scriptures and not know Jesus.

 

On the other hand, an illiterate man or woman may very well know Jesus and know Him deeply.

 

As my old friend George Will used to point out, but which I didn’t understand at the time, the position of those with head knowledge toward those who are not “educated” is often that of the synagogue leaders toward the blind man Jesus healed, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” (John 9:34).

 

I know I have written this before, but more likely than not, when I am in a small group or Sunday school class and am listening to the group, I hear people talking about God as if they are talking about George Washington, they are talking about someone they study and read about, but not about someone they actually know and are in a relationship with. The idea of the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus Christ to them through the Word of God is about as foreign to them as thinking that the picture of Colonel Saunders will jump off a KFC box and ask them how they like his recipe.

 

Yet, John writes that to have koinonia with him and his companions is to have koinonia with the Trinity (1 John 1:3)! How far we have fallen from Biblical Christianity. Why have we rejected Jesus’ invitation, indeed His call and command, to enter the Holy of Holies of intimacy with the Father, Himself, the Holy Spirit, and with one another?

 

When we know the Father, we know Him as “the only true God,” and we have some sense that He has sent Jesus Christ. I write that we have “some sense” that the Father sent the Son, because the depth and mystery of that reality ought to be ever dawning upon us – if we think we can encapsulate the Message of the Incarnation into a statement or two, we are foolish. Yes, we can and ought to appreciate the Nicene Creed, perhaps no finer creed has ever been produced and if we actually saw what it says we would be a better people in Christ, but the Creed is a framework for unfolding mystery, it is a highway with guardrails, it sets the stage for greater glory and travel, it keeps us safe and also points us onward and upward and deeper. The inside of the Creed is greater than the outside.

 

When we know the Father and the Son and the Spirit as the only true God, then we look to no other god and no other message, no other gospel. This singularity of devotion, this true Monotheism (Mark 12:29 – 30), sets the person who knows God apart from those who know only religion, including “Christian” religion. This is one reason why a church setting can be an uncomfortable place for a Christian to be, for she or he can be in a place where people talk about God but who do not speak of Him as if they actually know Him. They may identify as members or adherents of a particular brand of Christianity, but they do not identify as disciples of Jesus Christ, as those who belong to Him and whose lives belong to Him and to Him alone.

 

If we understand that the Father sent the Son, then we must grapple with the fact that the Son sends us as the Father sent Him (John 17:18; 20:21). Are we living lives of obedience to this calling? Are our lives cruciform as that of the Incarnate Son?

 

Perhaps there are two types of people in a church building, those who live as if their lives are their own, and those who live as owned by Jesus Christ, those who are the property of Jesus Christ.

 

To recognize that the Father sent the Son, to truly “see” this, must mean that at some point we confront the fact that Jesus sends us as the Father sent Him, and that our lives are not our own, we have been bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19 – 20).  This necessarily means that we embrace the Cross and the Way of Suffering for Christ and others. We learn to exchange our cushioned pews and seats and coffee bars and Sunday morning entertainment for the Cross of Christ with its rough-hewn wood and nails and mockery – so that others may live in Jesus. Make no mistake, we must die so that others may live.

 

Eternal life is knowing the Father and the Son, and sharing the Gospel is bringing others into this eternal koinonia, bringing them home to the Father’s House. O the joy of the Father’s House! The joy of living every day with Jesus! The joy of the Holy Spirit! The joy of the koinonia of the saints!

 

It is said that we don’t know what we don’t know.

 

Well, now we know.

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (16)

 

 

“The body of Christ takes up physical space here on earth” (page 207).

 

“A truth, a doctrine, or a religion needs no space of its own. Such entities are bodyless. They do not go beyond being heard, learned, and understood” (page 207).

 

“The body of the exalted Lord is…a visible body, taking the form of the church – community” (page 208).

 

I have read and pondered the first pages of The Visible Church – Community and am struggling with how to communicate what I’m reading, for Bonhoeffer is leading me on quite the dance of point and counterpoint. It could be that he sees more than he can succinctly communicate, or it could be that I simply can’t see clearly. I am loath to distill what I may not fully understand, so I won’t pretend to do it. This is my disclaimer, it is also my endorsement of Discipleship, for it challenges me in the best way possible, it stretches me, it calls me further up and further in, as Lewis might say.

 

I hope you are reading and pondering The Cost of Discipleship, what I’m writing is meant to point us to Christ and to Bonhoeffer’s message, it is never meant as a substitute. As a reminder, I recommend the Fortress Press Reader’s Edition, under the title Discipleship.

 

I have chosen the above three quotations with which to move into Chapter 11, I think as we continue into the chapter that we’ll see treasures in our Lord Jesus Christ – I have my copy underlined and marked up.

 

“The body of Christ takes up physical space here on earth” (page 207).

 

“The body of the exalted Lord is…a visible body, taking the form of the church – community” (page 208).

 

Taking the first and third quotations: Jesus Christ took up space on earth during the Incarnation, and He continues to take up space, for His Incarnation continues in His Body. This goes back to what we’ve previously seen, the Church, the Body, the Temple, is a person rather than an institution or an organization, a unique Person, but indeed a Person. We ought to be thinking of the Church, the Body, the Temple, as a Person.

 

Now if you have ever thought about something a particular way for many years, and then changed your mind about it, you may know that it can take a while for your whole person to make the change. Sometimes it takes a while for our hearts to catch up with our heads, sometimes for our heads to catch up with our hearts, sometimes for conflicts within us to be resolved (and sometimes we may have to learn to live with loose ends). Isn’t this what we should expect? We are not machines, we are women and men created in the image of God in Jesus Christ with feelings, emotions, intellectual constructs, and so much else.

 

There are times when I think my intellect is engaged in bumper cars as I work through elements of Scripture and life, and the same is true of my emotions and feelings. The things that matter are often wrestled with for a lifetime.

 

Why are we so quick to insist on what people should believe, rather than teaching and modeling for them how to believe? Yes, yes, what we believe is critical, but the “what” without the “how” falls short. Belief and a life of faith is continuous engagement, it cannot be compartmentalized as Christians tend to do, it engages all of life, insisting that all of life must be in Christ and that Christ must be in all of life.

 

If we have spent our lives thinking of the Church as an institution or organization, rather than as the Person of the Body of Christ, then it is likely that a change in seeing and thinking will be a process, it is not likely that we can flip a switch and cross from A to C without experiencing a process, without working through B.

 

If we are rooted in a movement, a system of doctrine or practice, or in a denomination (and I daresay that we all are whether we acknowledge it or not), this will be challenging, for despite our protestations, our vision of the Church has been limited by our practice, if not also by our doctrine. Some of us have no qualms in asserting that our mother church is the only true church, while others may be nuanced but practically think the same thing – we just don’t advertise it or teach it as a matter of dogma.

 

For most of us, it takes time to learn to think of the Church as a Person, it takes time to read the Scriptures as they are written rather than through the filter of our religious and ecclesiastical conditioning. For others, to think of the Church as a Person may be an economic threat, for our livelihood may depend on maintaining a parochial view of church. For still others, social considerations may take precedence.

 

My own sense is that our God is able to redeem where we are and to use where we are to be a blessing to the Body of Christ – yes, there is risk, there is always risk – but are we not to lay our lives down (including our denominational and organizational lives) for the brethren? What opportunities we have!

 

What would it be like if we were to say, “Yes, I am a Baptist, but I am more than a Baptist. Yes, I am a Presbyterian, but I am more than a Presbyterian. Yes, I am Pentecostal, but I am more than a Pentecostal. Yes, I am Reformed but I am more than Reformed.”

 

There are deeply practical ramifications to thinking and living Biblically in Christ. There are ecclesiastical consequences, and for those in vocational ministry or education, there are vocational consequences – some will bring sunshine, some may bring storms.

 

As we learn to visualize the Church as a Person, let’s recall the words of Jesus to Saul, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:3 – 6).

 

When Saul touched the Church, he touched the Person of Jesus Christ. As Saul would learn and teach, the Church is not an organization or an institution, it is a Person, a unique Person for sure, but nevertheless a Person, a Person taking up space. 

 

The Lord willing, we’ll pick these quotations back up in the next reflection in this series.

 

 

 

 

To Glorify and Be Glorified

 

“Glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You” (John 17:1).

 

As we enter into the Holy of Holies we encounter the glory of God, a glory that flows from the Father to the Son to the Spirit, from the Spirt to the Son to the Father; indeed it flows within the mysterious Godhead in Divine Oneness and Unity and Koinonia – beyond what we can understand, but not beyond what we can touch and in which we may participate. Indeed, this is our destiny in Jesus Christ. We will have occasion to touch on “glory” more than once in the Holy of Holies – see for example 17:22 – 24.

 

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (12:23).

 

“Father, glorify Your name” (12:28).

 

“I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” (12:28).

 

The Name (Nature, Essence) of the Father is glorified in the Son, and the Name of the Son is glorified in the Father.

 

The Son’s glorification of the Father is found in the Son giving eternal life to those whom the Father has given Him:

 

“Even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life” (17:2).

 

Here is a thread of the tapestry of the Holy of Holies, that of the Father giving men and women and young people to the Son:

 

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave me out of the world” (17:6).

 

“Those whom You have given me” (17:9).

 

“They also, whom You have given me” (17:24).

 

The Holy of Holies, this intimate communion of the Son and the Father in John 17, includes you and it includes me, it includes us; it encompasses those whom the Father has given to Jesus, those to whom Jesus gives eternal life. This prayer is not only about the Father and the Son, it is about us in the Father and the Son and about the Son and the Father within us (17:21 – 23).

 

This is not about information my dear friends, nor is it about right doctrine (though make no mistake, what we believe is vital), it is about relationship, friendship. Sonship, intimacy, and eternal life in the Trinity and the Trinity in us. Right doctrine that does not lead to intimacy with God is amiss, it has gone awry, and we must ask whether it is truly “right” in a Biblical sense, in a holistic healthy sense. Let us not forget what Jesus says in John 5:39 and 6:63.

 

“Glorify Your Son, that the Son many glorify You,” is not only the destiny of the Firstborn Son, but it is the destiny of all the sons and daughters of God, indeed, it is the destiny of the corporate Son, the Body of Christ. We see in Hebrews 2:10 that the Father is “bringing many sons to glory” through Jesus Christ. In 2 Thessalonians 1:10 and 12 Paul writes of Jesus being “glorified in His saints” and that “the name (the Essence, the Nature) of our Lord Jesus Christ will be glorified in you, and you in Him.”

 

In Romans Chapter 8 we read of being “glorified with Him,” of the “glory that is to be revealed in us,” of the “freedom of the glory of the children of God,” and of the Father having “glorified” us. To be sure, we can only experience glory, we can only be glorified, in Jesus Christ, only in Jesus Christ.

 

If Jesus glorifies the Father by giving eternal life to those whom the Father has given Him, then ought not we also to glorify the Father by sharing eternal life with others? In fact, does not Jesus give eternal life to others through His Body, through the unity of Word and deed through His Body?

 

If you know Jesus Christ, it is because someone has prayed for you, talked to you about Jesus in some fashion, demonstrated grace and love to you, translated Scripture for you – somehow and some way the Body of Christ has communicated Jesus and His eternal life to you – you did not encounter Jesus Christ in a vacuum. Shall you and I not continue to glorify the Father by giving (in the sense of sharing) eternal life with others?

 

It is also likely that, even beyond the glorious death and resurrection of Jesus, that somewhere along our spiritual genealogies others have suffered and possibly died that we might know Jesus. People have been paying a price that we might know Jesus in generation after generation, ought not we to be a people who also pay a price for others to know Jesus?

 

The Father glorifies the Son that the Son may glorify the Father. The Son which the Father glorifies is both the Firstborn, Jesus Christ, and also His Body.

 

Has the hour arrived in our lives in which we are glorifying the Father?

 

Are we living as the sons and daughters of the Living God?

 

Are we living in John Chapter 17?

 

NOTE: The Upper Room, and especially John 17, is so foreign to our thinking and religion and experience that it can be disorienting, after all, intimacy with God and with one another is not something we are accustomed to thinking about and living within. We are accustomed to being oriented to our great ongoing need, rather than God’s grand provision and call to live as His saints today, sharing the Life of the Trinity with others. The Gospel is truly “Good News,” if we will only believe it. I hope you will read and reread and reread the Upper Room (John chapters 13 – 17), and that you will especially meditate on John 17 and allow your Father to draw you into His Presence. As you learn to live within John 17, you will hopefully know the joy of inviting others to come along with you.

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (15)

 

 

As Bonhoeffer concludes his chapter on the Body of Christ, he tells us that the Body is the fulfillment of prophecy concerning the temple of God in the Old Testament. The promise that God gave to David, that David would have a son who would build God a house, was fulfilled only as shadow in Solomon, but truly fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The true temple is to be found in Jesus. “The temple which the Jewish people expect is the body of Christ. The temple of the Old Testament is merely a shadow of the body of Christ (Col. 2:17; Heb. 10:1; 8:5)” (page 204).

 

“In this house God truly dwells, as does the new humanity, the church-community of Christ” (page 204).

 

As always, Bonhoeffer looks to Scripture for his vision and teaching. On page 205 he cites 1 Peter 2:5ff, Ephesians 2:20 – 21; 1 Corinthians 3:11,16; 6:19; Revelation 21:22.

 

“In whom [Jesus Christ] the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:20 – 21; see also Eph. 4:16).

 

Note that leading up to Ephesians 2:20 – 21, Paul makes it clear that there is now “one new man” in Christ, that Jew and Gentile have been made one in Christ. One new man, one Body, one Temple. This theme is carried into chapters 3 and 4, and how we can miss it is a mystery to me. The idea that God wants to build again what He has brought to an end by establishing another physical temple not only has no basis in the Bible, it blinds us to the glorious reality of our One New Man in Christ, and of our calling to be God’s Presence in the earth today.

 

As Paul writes, “The Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother” (Gal. 4:26).

 

I have watched, more than once, people in Sunday school and small group studies read Ephesians 2:11 – 22 and it never occur to them what they are reading. They never question whether what they believe about a physical temple being rebuilt and even animal sacrifices being reinstituted might be terribly amiss. They never see the contradiction between the Bible and the idea that God somehow has two distinct people groups with two distinct purposes and destinies. They never see that God has made us all One in Christ, that Christ “broke down the barrier of the dividing wall” (Eph. 2:14).

 

This is a particularly American blind spot, with vestiges in the UK, but Americans can generally take credit for this distraction which diverts us from Jesus Christ and our calling and identity in Him.

 

While Bonhoeffer did not address this distraction, it is likely because it was not an issue in Germany, in Europe, or in the Anglo – American circles with which he was associated. It was not the full – blown religious industry it is today, raking in its millions of dollars.

 

I am bringing this to our attention because it is likely that many readers have never critically thought about what the Bible really teaches about the One People of God in Christ, the One Body of Christ. If we believe what Bonhoeffer writes, which is based on Jesus Christ and Scripture, then we ought to be honest enough to realize that most of what passes for “end times” teaching is without foundation in Christ and the Bible.

 

“You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pt. 2:5).

 

“The temple of God is the holy church-community in Jesus Christ. The body of Christ is the living temple of God and of the new humanity” (page 205).

 

As we conclude Chapter 10 of Discipleship, Part II, I hope we will review and ponder what Bonhoeffer has written, for it is far and above what most of us have encountered in our lives, and it is deeply grounded in Jesus Christ and in His Word. I hope it challenges you; it most certainly challenges me.

 

If you have not yet actually read Discipleship (traditionally known as The Cost of Discipleship), I hope that you will do so. I recommend the Fortress Press reader’s edition.

 

In our next reflection in this series we’ll turn to, the Lord willing, Chapter 11, The Visible Church-Community.

 

Much love,

 

Bob

The Already, Not Yet Hour

 

“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers” (John 4:23).

 

“Truly, truly I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (John 5:25).

 

Now we come to another way in which the word “hour” is used in John’s Gospel, another way in which we can understand the Divine clockwork. This way of understanding the working of our Father is vital to our participating in the Divine Nature and in His promises, for whatever is ours in eternity future, is also ours in Christ in eternity present. That is, we are called to participate now in that which we will fully experience when the fulness of time arrives. Another way to put it is that we don’t need to wait for heaven, we can experience heaven now – heaven is coming and already is.

 

In John 4, Jesus tells the woman at the well, “An hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father” (4:21). He follows it up with “An hour is coming and now is” (4:23).

 

At the time of Jesus’ encounter with the woman, Samaritan worship was still occurring in Mount Gerizim, and Jewish worship was till occurring in Jersualem, and while such worship would continue after Jesus’ death and resurrection and Pentecost, it would no longer constitute the Divine Order, as we see in Hebrews and elsewhere in the Bible. (Why, O why, do we seek to build again those things which were a shadow of the Perfect which was to come, and which is now here?)

 

Even though worship was still occurring in Jerusalem and Mount Gerizim as Jesus spoke to the woman, there was another order of worship also occurring, worship in spirit and truth, a higher worship, a more intimate worship, a heavenly koinonia – not oriented toward the external, but rather rooted in the internal and eternal.  Jesus invited the woman to experience a fountain of living water within her so that she would never thirst again.

 

An hour was coming, but the woman did not have to wait, for the coming hour had arrived for her, that which was “not yet” was “already” for her.  When we encounter Jesus Christ, eternity past and eternity future coming rushing into our lives in eternity now – we come into the fellowship of the Burning Bush, the I AM THAT I AM.

 

In John 5 Jesus focuses our attention on “the judgment” and future life and death. “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:21 – 22).

 

Notice how Jesus uses the present tense. While we normally think of judgment as future, Jesus speaks of it as present. While we think of raising the dead as future, Jesus speaks of it in the present. While this is not to deny the future element of resurrection and judgment, it is to bring that which is future into the present, it is to open the portal of the future and experience eternity future within eternity present, and to see how eternity present flows into eternity future.

 

Jesus continues, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes in Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24). Eternal life is a present reality for those who know the Father and the Son (John 17:3).

 

Then we have verse 25, “An hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Jesus continues to move our future orientation into the present, He continues to bring eternity into the “now.”

 

Even as Jesus speaks in John 5, some are hearing His Voice and others are not. Those who are hearing His voice are coming forth from the dead into eternal life, as Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68 – 69).

 

In John 5:28 – 29 Jesus directs His hearers’ attention to the “not yet”: “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” This “hour” is decidedly in the future, as we see in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15.

 

The woman at the well, and Jesus’ audience in John 5, were invited by Jesus into the “hour which is coming and already is.” Jesus invites you and me into that same hour.

 

There are those who see John 14:3 as an hour which is coming, and only as an hour which is coming.  “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

 

But then we have, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

 

Now then, just where is Jesus when He prays this? We could say that He is in the Upper Room. We could say that He is in Gethsemane. Wherever we think Jesus physically is when He prays this, is He asking the Father to pick us all up and place us physically with Himself so that we might be with Him where He is?

 

Of course not. Jesus is praying that we might be where He is in His relationship with the Father, He is praying that we might be in the koinonia of the Trinity. Now then, each one of us has a unique place in this fellowship, a “place that Jesus has prepared for us” as His Body, as His Temple. As we have seen in the Upper Room, Jesus comes and He goes, we see Him and then we don’t, and then we see Him again.

 

Jesus “comes again” to us, most especially after His resurrection, and He receives us to Himself in His Body, His Temple, His Church, His Bride.

 

This way of thinking and seeing and experiencing is found throughout Scripture. For example, in 1 Peter 1:1 – 9 we see elements of our salvation in eternity past, eternity present, and in eternity future. The same is true for Ephesians 1:1 – 12. As we worship the Father in spirit and in truth we can learn to live in the I AM THAT I AM, and what may seem strange or even uncomfortable to us now, may come to be our natural way of living.

 

I’ll close this reflection by suggesting that the overcomer passages in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 are an opportunity to experience the “already – not yet,” the “an hour is coming and now is.”

 

For example, in Revelation 2:7 Jesus says, “To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.” This is a wonderful promise and expectation for us in Christ, and we look forward to its full manifestation as seen in Revelation chapters 21 and 22.  Yet, we need not wait to eat from the Tree of Life, in fact, we overcome as we eat from the Tree of Life as our way of life, for Jesus Christ is the Tree of Life, He is our sole source of light and life.  Therefore, in the overcomer promises of Revelation we have a dynamic of “an hour is coming and now is.” How this works out in our lives is for us to learn as we worship God in spirit and in truth, as individuals and as His People.

 

 

The Hour Has Come

 

“Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You” (John 17:1).

 

The Upper Room begins with, “Jesus, knowing that His hour had come” (13:1). The first section of the Upper Room begins with “hour,” and the concluding section also begins with “hour.” The heavenly clockworks have a movement that resides in the depths of God, we may sense it at times, we may respond to it (and let us pray that we do), but only God knows how the hours will unfold and knows their timing.

 

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Matt. 24:36). (I consider “nor the Son” to be an Incarnational mystery and temporal in nature, in line with the kenosis of Philippians 2:6ff. However we understand this, Jesus and the Father are One and Jesus is fully God.)

 

The Scriptures give us patterns and trajectories, they are not written to satisfy our curiosity, they are written to reveal Jesus Christ and bring us into koinonia with the Trinity and with one another.

 

John introduces us to the theme of “hour” at the wedding in Cana, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4). This “hour” appears to be the hour in which Jesus is to begin working His signs of attestation and revelation which we see unfolding in John. Therefore John writes, “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him” (2:11).

 

In 7:30 we read, “So they were seeking to seize Him; and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.” This “hour” appears to refer to His betrayal, trial, and crucifixion. I write “appears” because there may be other facets and I want to leave room for them.

 

Similarly, John writes in 8:20, “No one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come.”

 

However, the hands of Divine time change when we arrive in Jerusalem for Holy Week, and in John 12 Jesus says:

 

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

 

“Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.”

 

“Then a voice came out of heaven: ‘I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.’” (John 12:23 – 28).

 

John 12:20 – 50 is a prelude, of course, to the Upper Room. As we ponder the above section (12:23 - 28) of this extended passage, we see a penumbra of the Upper Room.

 

Jesus speaks of His hour having come, He speaks of His death and resurrection, He says that we must lose our lives and follow Him, He tells us that we will be where He is and that if we serve Him that the Father will honor us. We see all of these elements in depth in the Upper Room. Following Him encompasses self-denial, obedience, loving as He loves, laying down our lives for others, suffering persecution, living in Divine oneness with our brothers and sisters; being where Jesus is (as I hope we are seeing and will continue to see) means being with the Father in Divine koinonia, both now and forever.  

 

We have seen these things in chapters 13 – 16, and we will continue to see them in the Holy of Holies of Chapter 17.

 

Our purpose in coming into the world is to glorify God. We fulfill this purpose only in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ we experience the Cross, suffering, rejection, and resurrection. As with Jesus, we must, in Him, learn what it is to fall into the ground and die, so that others may live (2 Cor. 4:12). Jesus extends the Father’s calling to Him to all of us. “As the Father sent me, I also send you” (John 20:21).

 

We may ponder the crucifixion hours upon hours, but we must move beyond pondering and into living it out in Christ – lip service must be translated into life, the Cross must be lived. We must live in the Cross and the Cross of Christ must live in us. As we have seen in the Upper Room, Jesus says that if we follow Him we will suffer – but we will also live, O my how we will live!

 

Jesus knew when the hour had come. He knew that He had come into the world for that hour. There was an hour for Jesus to begin showing His glory and teaching and doing His signs of attestation, then there was an hour for Him to fall into the earth and die, so that you and I might live in newness of life in Him.

 

In John’s Gospel, we have an hour that begins at 2:1, and another hour that begins at 12:23.

 

As we see in 12:28 and 17:1, the purpose of the “hour” is to glorify the Father and the Son. This, my friends, is the purpose of our lives, this is why we have come into the world, to glorify God and to enter into that glory with one another – the glory that Jesus bestows on us (John 17:22).

 

O that we would see who Christ is in us, and who we are in Christ!

 

What do the hours of God look like in your life?

 

Do you sense Divine clockwork in your life? Are you living in an awareness of Psalm 139?

 

Do we know the hours of our lives?

 

There is another dimension to “hour” in the Gospel of John, and we will return to that in the next reflection the Lord willing. Can you see what that dimension is? Can you locate it in John’s Gospel?