Daily Readings, Day 9

John 3:22-36 (NRSV)

22 After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he spent some time there with them and baptized. 23 John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because water was abundant there; and people kept coming and were being baptized 24 —John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison.

25 Now a discussion about purification arose between John’s disciples and a Jew. 26 They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” 27 John answered, “No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. 28 You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.’ 29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. 33 Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. 34 He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.

So I’m irritated with John’s language today. The same writer who says so many profound and beautiful things about God and life keeps up this “Jew/the Jews” language here. Reminder: John’s disciples are all Jewish, so is the baptizer John (different than the disciple/alleged author John); in fact, here they call him rabbi, a Jewish teacher. These conversations and encounters are being written down decades later from the perspective of inter-Jewish disputes, and those labelled “the Jews” by John are the ones who didn’t follow Jesus – part of the “no one (who) accepts his testimony.”

What is the testimony?

That Jesus has the goods. He’s better than John. He has all God’s stuff. Spirit-wind has blown on him, and Spirit-wind flows from him to us. He is the source of life.

Walk with me for a minute.

I listened today for the first time to John Legend’s live cover of “Like a Bridge over Troubled Waters.”

If you want to listen, I’ll wait.

If you don’t think Legend has the goods, we don’t have a conversation we can have. I mean, that man plays the keys so perfectly, he sings like a god, and he looks like one too. How can you not be moved? That’s my testimony. Believe me, and you’ll have life. Don’t believe me, and… well, I’m sad for you. You’re left to a soulless, musically impoverished, sad existence.

Many theologians think “life” and “wrath” on John’s terms means something like this.

Jesus has the goods – what we need to find God and all that God has to give, in this life and the next. Turn toward him, and get the goods. Turn away, and miss out on the goods. That soul impoverishment is captured by the metaphor of wrath.

Is anything testifying to you about the goodness of God? Any voice that you trust? What would listening to that voice look like today?

 

Daily Readings, Day Eight

John 3:11-21  (NRSV)

11 “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 “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.

17 “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. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

There’s that Jacob’s ladder image again that has been so important so far to John, with Jesus ascending into and descending from heaven.

And there’s our obscure but strangely powerful snake reference of the day. It’s from the old book of Numbers, the non-counting-lists section. The tribes have an infestation of poisonous snakes, Moses begs God for help, and God tells Moses to take the source of their problems, hold it up high, and those who look will live.

So in John’s garden of metaphors, Jesus is also the snake. This human who is God’s word and is light and life and moves in and our of heaven is also death. He becomes the executed by the state. He is the mob-mentality scapegoat mechanism present in the darkness of all societies. He is the Lamb to end all lamb-slaughter sacrifice, the agent of our healing.

Jesus will be lifted up on a cross so that we can look at him – embodying the source of all our grief and pain – and draw life.

This is God’s utterly strange and beautiful love-gift to the world.

 

It is an old spiritual practice to picture in our mind’s eye, or in a piece of artwork, Jesus at his time of death. Picture Jesus there yourself and ask how it is Jesus could be an agent of your healing or the healing of others today. Sit with what comes to mind for a moment.

Daily Readings, Day Seven

John 3:1-10 (NRSV)

3 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

Likely these two men are talking late into the evening, sitting out under the stars. Even though the party of the Pharisees was anti-establishment in some ways, perhaps this is a friendship that Nicodemus wants to keep secret. A whip-wielding, temple-clearing Jesus might have been a little much for Nicodemus’ social and career aspirations.

 

Jesus says: I am born of the sky. Jesus is from flesh, a son of a mother, just like anyone else. But he is also given additional life by God. God’s wind blows on him, and that is what makes him what he is.

Our English translations don’t want to sound too hippy-mystical, so they clarify their sense of what things mean now and then. Mainly, that’s a gift, but here we lose something. The words used here for Spirit and wind are the same word. The wind is a picture on earth of the presence of God, and the unseen God moves to us and in us and through and around us like wind.

And Jesus implies that God’s accessibility to us, even though unseen, is Religion 101. Nicodemus should know this by now. Jesus says this how the Kingdom of God works. What it means to be connected to God – to come from God and be with God and so to be able to say the words and do the things God says and does – is to welcome God’s wind blowing on you, to see how God is moving.

And it’s clear that Jesus doesn’t plan on being alone in this experience. It’s the inheritance of children of God. Nicodemus thinks that no one can do what Jesus does without being with God, and Jesus says: that is true, so everyone should be with God.

What character or power or peace have you seen in someone else before that you would like God to grow in you? Talk to God today about how the wind/Spirit of God can blow your way and connect you more deeply to the Source of what you’re looking for.

Daily Readings, Day Six

John 2:13-25 (NRSV)

13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

23 When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.

The other biographies of Jesus place this event near his death. In their stories, small town Jesus goes to the big city for the big holiday, steps into the temple and is shocked by what he sees. He clears it out, causes a scene, and hastens his own arrest.

John sends Jesus to Jerusalem far earlier in the story, in fact, right at the beginning. It’s almost as if this might be thematically important to the ideas John wants us to notice. Which I think it is. Signs, testifying to the truth, God as Jesus’ father, and temple – these are all important ideas and motifs in how John tells the story.

The Jerusalem temple was the most important building, by far, in 1st century Palestine. As far as Jesus’ culture went, maybe the only important building. It was a center of culture, commerce, religion, and more.

But all of this doesn’t fill Jesus’ Jewish heart with pride. Instead, he sees all this activity and makes a whip.

For Jesus, this is family property. He calls the temple his father’s house. And he wants people to enjoy it on those terms. He wants people to have a window to heaven, a way to see and experience God on earth.

Subtly, John has been telling us that Jesus is becoming this temple. He’s told us in the first chapter that God has dwelt (or “tabernacled”, sort of like “templed”) among us and Jesus said that if you stick around him, you’ll see him become the ladder to heaven. This was recalling a dream the patriarch Jacob had, allegedly on the site of the future temple, where God opened up a ladder to heaven.

And now John says it less subtly. Jesus’ body is the temple. Around this person, we’ll have a window to the transcendent, a way to experience and see the light and beauty and love and power of God.

Could it be possible that everywhere Jesus is remembered and talked about and even present by his Spirit today, people could see God? In boardrooms and lunchrooms and bedrooms and morgues and churches and hospitals and museums and farms and schools? Is there anything in your mind and life that Jesus might need to drive out for you to experience God today?

 

Daily Readings, Day Five

John 2:1-12 (NRSV)

2 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there a few days.

Once upon a time, there was a god named Dionysus. Child of a human mother and born again of a god-father, he leads a procession of mad, dancing females, followed by hungry, bearded satyrs with erect phalluses. Should life prove too violent or discouraging or merely too mundane, he represents the wine and the sex and the religious rituals that can give you a few moments of ecstasy to escape for a spell.

Into this Dinosyian world, John says there is another god-man who talks about being born again. He too it seems can be present in moments associated with fertility – in this case a wedding – and he too can make the best of wine. Jesus, though, is modest in his entry. He doesn’t thrill, but serves; in fact, he lays down his life for his friends.

The wine of Jesus also goes down smooth, without the usual day-after regret. In fact, Jesus is stirred to action to remove and prevent the shame this family would have experienced had they run out of wine at such an important family event.

And the world that Jesus inhabits isn’t mundane or ordinary in the least. In fact, this world is becoming something new entirely. This moment at the wedding is just the first signpost. More and more, with Jesus around, we will see the light and beauty and renewal that will make us say, “Glory!”

Have you run out of wine in any space in your life? What does that lack feel like? Invite Jesus to bring the very best there.

Daily Readings, Day Four

John 1:29-51 (NRSV)

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). 42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 49 Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Jesus hits the ground in John. There’s been a formal philosophical introduction but no regular backstory. Who is this man? Where did he grow up? Where has he come from? John eschews regular biographical function and answers those questions like this. He is the Lamb of God. He grew up in the stars. He comes from God.

These three days begin with John’s highly religious, mystical introduction. There is priestly imagery – Spirit descending, baptism which has its roots in Jewish cleansing ritual, and this symbol of Lamb – which could reference the temple sacrifices, the scapegoat that takes blame into the wilderness, or the Passover meal.

And the days end with a nod to an ancient story from these men’s cultural and religious founding fathers. Before Jacob knew God for himself, he had a dream, and in that dream there was a ladder to heaven, and Jacob woke up and said, “God is here and I didn’t know it.”

God is here, and I didn’t know it.

That’s more or less what is happening all around Jesus, as people walk around with him, listen to his little cryptic stories and comments, and come and see what he’s about for himself.

God is here, and I didn’t know it.

Ask Jesus, if you like, to help you come and see today where God is in or around you.

Daily Readings, Day 3

John 1:19-28 (NRSV)

19 This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” 21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” 22 Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 23 He said,

“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’”

as the prophet Isaiah said.

24 Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, 27 the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” 28 This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

Today, we go for a minute from the sublime to the arcane. From mystical poetry on God-with-us new creation to an old argument about names and John.

All the names here – Isaiah, Elijah, Messiah, Pharisees, John, priests, Levites, Bethany, and the Jordan River. We’re in a real time and place that is really far from us. And we’re watching a set of real arguments play out. I’ll write more another day about this unfortunate phrase “The Jews” in John. Later, it will be one of many things that makes it easier for Christians to be anti-Semites, to devastating effect. Almost every single person in John is a first-century Jew, Jesus included, but John often uses this phrase – long before it turned toxic – as code for Jewish leaders or as code for the majority of Jews who don’t follow Jesus. In the first century, the intra-Jewish debates and tensions stirred up by Jesus and the Romans and so many other things were fierce.

Of all the names and jobs, the most important here is one nobody will claim for themselves and everyone’s talking about – Messiah, Christ, “the oily one”, or more formally, “the anointed one.” God’s person, set aside for great and special things.

John says, “Not me.” I’m just an old Bible verse. I’m a road-builder, a way-maker. And he goes back to baptizing, performing this Jewish rite called “mikveh” – the body doused in water for cleansing, for purity, for conversion. No matter how much he is inspected or misunderstood, John will keep preparing people for God-with-us, cleaning them, re-converting them for the big thing his gut tells him is coming.

Ask yourself today, “What am I preparing for?” What am I anticipating in the future, perhaps excited for, perhaps dreading? How do you feel about that?

If you are up for talking to Jesus, ask Jesus if he is doing anything new in or around you? Is there anything else Jesus is inviting you to be ready for?

John 1:10-18

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

This is the second half of John’s opening prologue. It’s linked to the first half by a literary device called chiasm, where words fold and unfold like an accordion – with the beginning and ending having something in common, the second part and second to last part having something in common, and so on, drawing attention the the center.

We won’t talk about this again and again, even though some people think every single episode in John is written in this form. Perhaps it’s enough to know that all through this book, John is essentially writing poetry. Perhaps it helps to know that he’s stating and restating phrases and ideas, helping them lodge in our memories. Perhaps it helps to know that he’s often drawing our attention to the middle of things.

At the center of this prologue is a shocking thought – that God is speaking God’s word into the world through a God-person living with us, full of grace and truth, and most people missed it. Generally, we don’t recognize God.

Does that match your experience of the world? That we often miss what’s clear before our eyes, what’s most important and most full of light? John thinks this is so, that God can be living with us and speaking to us and we can miss it still.

Take just a single phrase from today, perhaps one of these:

-the world did not know him

-the power to become children of God

-the Word became flesh and lived among us

-full of grace and truth

-From his fullness we have all received

Meditate on it. Let it sit in your mind for a few minutes, continue to look at it, repeat it. Where does it take you? Open yourself to the possibility of God speaking to you through it. What do you “hear”? What would God love for you to not miss but to see today?

John 1:1-8

John 1:1-8 (NRSV)

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

Light, Word, Life, the Grounds of all Being, the Beginning.

All that ultimately is, the Source of all that is… John calls that God.

The opening of John calls back to the first line of the whole Bible…. that first verse of Genesis, with its “In the beginning.” John is writing what the rabbis call midrash. This is improvisational riffing on an ancient scripture, interrogating it, examining it, elucidating it, doing what the poet Billy Collins calls “holding it up to the light,” in his great poem on reading and poetry.

When John holds Genesis and creation and God up to the light, he sees Jesus. Or maybe it’s the other way around, the second paragraph says. John looks at Jesus and he sees light, life… everything.

We dive from the mysteries of the divine to a particular man, this second John. He’s nothing special – a witness, a dude who offers testimony for a moment. He’s not the light – that’s about to come. But I can’t help but think he’s a little bit aflame.

What does it mean for you to see all this – to, in that sense, be a witness?

How can you stop and “see the light” today?