June 23 / John 8:21-30

John 8:21-30

“Notice what you notice.” Yesterday I chatted about “the Father” and Jesus’ comments about His Father. And it was all very confusing to me, this talk of Jesus about His Father when the Jewish leaders knew that He had come from Galilee and that His father was the carpenter, Joseph of Nazareth. I regularly try to “put myself into the story”, to imagine what His listeners thought when they heard Him. That’s how I came up with yesterday’s comments.

Today, just now, I thought of a different approach. What if His listeners knew (or at least imagined) that Jesus was claiming that His Father was God? (Verse 30 says that “many came to believe in Him.”) That would make Jesus the Son of God (which He was) and the words that He was speaking would make a lot more sense to His listeners: …where I am going, you cannot come; You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world; …unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins (vv. 22b, 23a, 23b, 24b, all respectively). Once His listeners took that first step of faith, the rest of what Jesus said would simply reinforce what they were beginning to believe.

And that’s the way it is for us today – that first step of faith is typically the most difficult. Father David has a favorite line that He asks “seekers”: “Are you willing to be willing?” If Jesus’ listeners back then were willing to imagine that He was speaking as if His Father were God, then His statements would follow through more clearly. And today if someone is willing to take that first step and imagine that Jesus could be God and to read the Bible as if Jesus’ statements were true, faith can follow much more easily.

I just thought of an alternative phrasing for “Are you willing to be willing?”: “Is it possible for you to stop being stubborn?” Ouch!! I like David’s softer approach!

Slava Bohu!