The loss of someone deeply loved awakens a profound anguish and grief within us. Even some time after a loved one has gone from us, we can unexpectedly find ourselves tearing up.

In the course of his last evening with his close followers Jesus told them he was going away and that they could not come with him (John 14:3). He knew what his going would mean for them and likened their state to orphaned children – destitute and alone. However, he didn’t offer glib platitudes about his going but promised them a Counselor – literally, a Comforter.

In chapter 14 verses 15 though 21, John the Gospel writer sets out the record of Jesus’s words of comfort and hope to his disciples.

“If you love me you will keep my commandments,” he said. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him…” (John 14:16-17).

When we first read these words and the reference to the Spirit we might think that Jesus is speaking about an impersonal power or force. Indeed, in Acts chapter 8 we learn that Simon Magus thought the Holy Spirit was a force he could purchase (Acts 8:18f).

However, the personal pronouns ‘him’ and ‘he’ in John chapter 14, verse 17 with reference to the Spirit indicate that Jesus is not speaking about some impersonal force or power, but a person. In the original language the word ‘spirit’ is a neuter noun, an ‘it’ word. But John breaks the rules of grammar. He refers to the Spirit as ‘he’: He dwells with you…

The moment we think of the Holy Spirit as an ‘it’, we miss the profundity of Jesus’s promise. He, Jesus, is going away. ‘He’ is to be replaced, not by an ‘it’, but a ‘he’, the ‘Helper’, the ‘Spirit’.

Helper translates two words in the original text – the preposition alongside and the verb, called. The fact that Jesus promises another Helper implies that He himself has been helping. Now in this time of the disciples’ deep need he promises the Holy Spirit – a Helper, a Comforter.

Furthermore, this Helper or Comforter doesn’t provide comfort like Linus’s blanket, nor is the Comforter simply a hot water bottle for cold, hard times. He comes to strengthen our hearts and minds – putting ‘backbone’ into our lives. Jesus has been helping for three years; now the Spirit of truth comes to help.

‘The Spirit of truth is not known by the world,’ Jesus says (verse 17), but ‘you know him – and he will be with us forever’.

We are living in the age of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is not physically in the world now, but he is through his Spirit. This is astonishing and something we don’t usually think about. The Lord Jesus Christ is present and at work in the world now, not in a physical way that we can see, but invisibly through his Spirit.

It’s something that was foreshadowed in the Old Testament. There we read that God’s people dearly wanted God to live with them. Even so, they found the whole idea hard to grasp. In his prayer at the beginning of his reign, King Solomon asked: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you;…” (I Kings 8:27). To which the answer was ‘yes’; the Temple in Jerusalem was not only a place of worship, it symbolized God’s dwelling with his people, God’s special relationship with his people.

Furthermore, Ezekiel chapter 37, verse 27 says: “My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people…” What Solomon thought God was far too big for, God himself said he would do. He would come amongst his people.

The amazing thing is that the Bible tells us that God notices us and cares for us in a way far beyond our imagination. Remember, back in chapter 1, verse 14, John records: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Now in John chapter 14 we begin to see the wonder of Jesus’s promise: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth…. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you…”

The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ will not just be with us but also in us. Jesus takes his promise to another level here. He is saying that he is personally present with us in our lives. This is why Paul the Apostle writes in First Corinthians, chapter 6: Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit?

Jesus promises his followers a powerful companion who would comfort them and strengthen them.

For many, Christianity is little more than a moral code they must struggle to observe. But Jesus is saying, ‘I want you to understand that the faith I am talking about is, in its deepest essence, about a relationship, a relationship with the one who is at the heart of the universe.’ It’s about knowing Jesus and having him live with us through his Spirit. ‘God in the soul of men and women,’ is how one ancient writer put it.

Sometimes we can feel cut off from God by a sense of failure or unworthiness, ignorance or unbelief, or abandonment. Jesus is saying to his first followers, and to you and me today, ‘Do not despair: you can experience me in your life.’ We are not alone in life.

In his Letters Paul the Apostle develops this astonishing work of the Spirit. For example, in Romans chapter 8, verses 15 through 17: … You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons and daughters, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we might be glorified with him.

CS Lewis picks up this theme in his Narnia books with the analogy that the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve are the kings and queens of Narnia. The Bible tells us that God’s Spirit awakens us to the privilege God’s people have of being joint heirs with Jesus Christ in his inheritance.

A prayer. Heavenly Father, the giver of all good things, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and grant that by your holy inspiration we may think those things that are good, and by your grace and guidance do them; through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Glen Scrivener’s book, The Air We Breathe (2022) compellingly explores ways Christianity has shaped the moral values of the West. It is a book for those who believe and those who don’t know what to believe. It alerts us afresh to the question of God and, if he exists, what he is like.

Of course, there are always those who tell us that there is no God – as did Nietzsche in the 19th century and scientists today like Richard Dawkins – although, interestingly, Dawkins says that he is a ‘cultural Christian’: he appreciates the heritage of Anglican Christianity.

History suggests that the idea of God is embedded in every culture that has existed for longer than three generations. It’s not surprising therefore that even in popular music, questions of God arise. Back in June 1996 the pop singer Joan Osborne came and went with a #1 single, ‘One of Us’. The lyrics asked some good questions: If God had a name, what would it be? If God had a face, what would it look like? In essence it asked the question, ‘What would God be like if he were flesh and blood?’

Hinduism tells us there are many different gods (Shiva, Vishna, and so on); Judaism insists that there is only one. Buddhism denies the notion of God and Islam insists that everything is directed by the will of Allah. So, who’s right?  Certainly not all of them. Perhaps none.

It’s this kind of question that makes Joan Osborne’s question so relevant. The only way we can really know what the creator God is like is if he lived as one of us. If he stepped into our shoes for a while we could see him from his birth to the grave. We might be able to find out where he was born and the school he attended. We’d hear of his interests and lifestyle, and perhaps what music he listened to and what social events and pubs he might check out. And we’d see the way he’d treat people – the politicians and the celebrities; the poor and the outcast; or just the average guy on the street like you and me. And if he had to die, we’d see how he would cope with it.

One of the striking things about Christianity is that it is grounded in history. The Gospel writers insist that Jesus of Nazareth not only lived but is unique. He was not just a prophet: he was more than a prophet. He was not just a man, he was God’s Messiah. He was not just an extraordinary man. He was both God and man.

In the hours before his arrest one of Jesus’ friends asked him a question that wasn’t very different from the one in Joan Osborne’s song. In John chapter 14, verse 9 we read Philip’s request: “Lord show us the Father. That’s all we need.”

Philip wanted to know what every religion has always wanted to know: What is God like? He wanted some tangible experience of God that would sweep his doubts away. Perhaps he was thinking of God’s special appearance to Moses in the burning bush. Or maybe he was influenced by the Greek mystery religions and had in mind some inner ecstasy, a spiritual trip that would lift him up to new levels of consciousness. Either way he wanted to see God.

Jesus’ response is electrifying: “He who has seen me has seen the Father…”

We would not have been surprised if Jesus had replied, ‘Don’t be silly Philip. You’re asking the impossible’. Rather he says, ‘Don’t you know me Philip, even after I’ve been among you for such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’.

Yet there are many who think of Jesus merely as the ultimate good guy or one of history’s great teachers. Both ideas are no doubt true, but neither comes near what he is saying. He is saying that he is not just God’s emissary or ambassador, but God himself. He is claiming to be God in our shoes.

Consider how Jesus continues: ‘Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves’ (John 14:11).

Think about it, Jesus is saying: ‘You’ve seen me turn water into first-class wine; you’ve heard that I cured a young boy at a distance; you’ve seen me heal a man paralysed for 38 years, provide food for thousands at a word, restore sight to a man blind from birth, as well as bring a man dead for four days out of a tomb. Doesn’t that tell you something about me?’

It would have made sense, explaining many extraordinary events over the last three years – how Jesus could out-teach the academics of his day: he knew what he spoke about because he is from God; how Jesus could raise people from the dead, because he is the source of life.

The cumulative impact of Jesus’s life – the signs he performed and his revelatory teaching – exemplifies the truth of the opening lines of John’s 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 were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men and women … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, … (John 1:1-4, 14).

Blaise Pascal, the 17th C French mathematician, philosopher and physicist, wrote in his Pensées‘: ‘People despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is just to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men and women wish it were true, and then show them that it is’.

In the opening lines of Psalm 98 – a psalm that bubbles throughout with praise and joy to the Lord – we are reminded of God’s supernatural intervention in human affairs:

Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things!

His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.

The Lord has made known his salvation…

To rephrase Glenn Scrivener’s words, ‘Is this the air you breathe’?

A prayer. Almighty God, you show to those who are in error the light of your truth so that they may return into the way of righteousness: grant to all who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s service that we may renounce those things that are contrary to our profession and follow all such things as are agreeable to it; through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

In 1966 Frederick Buechner, American pastor and theologian published, The Magnificent Defeat. He commented: “We all want to be certain, we all want proof, but the kind of proof we tend to want – scientifically and philosophically demonstrable proof that would silence all doubts once and for all – would not in the long run, I think, answer the fearful depths of our need at all. For what we need to know is not just that God exists, but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-to-day lives as we move around knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of this world. It is not objective proof of God’s existence we want, but the experience of God’s presence. That is the miracle we are really after – and that also, I think, is the miracle we really get”.

Words of Jesus consistently exemplify this. In John chapter 10 verse 11, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”.

Many today view shepherds through rose-tinted lenses, imagining them with their faithful dogs, caring for the sheep on grassy hillsides. The reality is that the shepherds of ancient Israel lived dangerous lives. And because sheep were today’s equivalent of money in the bank, shepherds had to contend, not only with marauding animals but also with thieves and armed robbers.

Every village had their ‘banks’ – sheepfolds – with their door and security guard. In John chapter 10 Jesus twins the images of Door (or Gate) and Good Shepherd when he says: ‘…He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out (John 10:2-3). And in verse 7 he says, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep’, and in verse 10, ‘I am the good shepherd’.

Shepherds. Usually poor and often treated as outcasts, shepherds played an essential part in the life of Israel. Israel’s kings were described as shepherds. King David, the greatest of the Old Testament kings had been brought from shepherding sheep to shepherding God’s people Israel. But it was not only the kings who were called shepherds but also the religious leaders. And in Ezekiel 34 we read that when they abused their position and failed their spiritual duty, God declared that he himself would shepherd his people. Ezekiel chapter 34, verses 1-31 echoes Psalm 23 as it speaks of God himself as the shepherd of his people.

A millennium after David, Jesus says that he is the door and the good shepherd. As the good shepherd he brings togethershepherd as a metaphor for the Messiah and the theme of death. False messiahs took the lives of men and women. The true Messiah gives life to men and women. And the life he gives, is life to the full (10:10). But it comes only at the cost of his own life ‘…Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep’, Jesus says (10:15).

We begin to see what Jesus means when he says he is the good shepherd. He is not a do-gooder, for they tend to be more interested in themselves and what others think of them. This good shepherd is willing to take our death from our shoulders and bear it himself. That is what he means when he says he is the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. He didn’t die just to prove how much he loved us. He died to save us from death itself.

Furthermore, eternal life in biblical terms is not an existence that goes on and on. Rather it is the expansion and intensification of life’s very best experiences we enjoy now. Jesus is not interested in the quantity of life but in the quality.

An underlying theme we often miss in John chapter 10 is the distinction that Jesus makes concerning his goal and his method compared with those who went before him and would come after him. He was not a political Messiah.

In John chapter 10 verse 8 Jesus says: ‘All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, they will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly’.

The thieves and robbers were the false messiahs, the political activists of Jesus’s day. In their endeavors to free Israel from Roman rule, they used violence in various forms. But Jesus charts a very different path in the cause of real life and true freedom.

As the door, he is the only one who has the right to open the gate of heaven and have the title Messiah. As the good shepherd he has given his life to open the way to the freedom and joy of God’s long-promised kingdom.

When we consider these words of Jesus, we discern their application in our 21st century world. The only real hope of freedom and life the progressive materialist has to offer is some kind of embodiment of Karl Marx’s classless society. According to Marx people could only find real happiness if they freed themselves from the imperialism of economic oppression and exploitation. Only then would the hostilities between races and nations be resolved and humanity be able to develop its full potential.

But don’t be misled, Jesus is saying. ‘These people have come to steal – they have no respect for personal property or enterprise. They have come to kill – they don’t value human life.’ Think of the millions who died under the 20th century revolutionary movements led by Lenin and Stalin, Hitler and Mao, Pol Pot and Idi Amin. And to what end? No perfect peaceful and just society emerged from these ideologies.

‘I am the good shepherd’, Jesus says.

Have you personally heard the voice of the Good Shepherd through the Scriptures? And having heard it, do you trust him with your life and follow him? That is what he calls us to – a life of discipleship; a life with the people who respond to his call.

I can’t tell you where that life may lead. I cannot say that life will be a bed of roses, or that all your problems will evaporate overnight. But one thing I can promise, because Jesus, the good shepherd promises it: you will find his leadership perfectly satisfies all your longings.

Only those who truly turn to him will find true life and liberty. They alone find true deliverance – they are saved. They alone find true fulfillment – they find satisfying pasture.

If we want to find true freedom, deep satisfaction and real life, we need to turn to Jesus Christ – who carried not a gun, but a cross.

A prayer. Almighty God, you alone can order the unruly wills and passions of sinful men and women.  Help us so to love what you command and desire what you promise, that among the many and varied changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys may be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

In God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? Dr. John Lennox, emeritus Professor of Mathematics Oxford University, writes, “To the majority of those who have reflected deeply and written about the origin and nature of the universe, it has seemed that it points beyond itself to a source which is non-physical and of great intelligence and power”.

Transcendent Power. Yet in today’s world where influential voices sometimes angrily dismiss such a possibility, it is easy to overlook the transcendent power that was at work on the first Easter Day when Jesus physically rose from the dead. When we consider the evidence, it becomes clear that Jesus’s resurrection didn’t occur because of some natural mechanism. It happened because the creator God chose to intervene (Romans 6:4b).

The four Gospel writers record that on the third day following his crucifixion and burial, Jesus’s tomb was empty. Altogether, as we read in First Corinthians, one of the earliest New Testament Letters, Jesus was seen physically alive by over five hundred witnesses.

In chapter 15, verses 4b-6a and verse 8, Paul the Apostle writes: … Christ was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and …he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at one time, most of whom are still living… Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Eyewitnesses. Paul is saying that Christianity didn’t start because a group of fanatics had invented a story about their hero, nor because a group of philosophers had come to an agreed conclusion about life. Nor was it because a group of mystics shared the same vision about God. It began with eyewitnesses – ordinary men and women who saw something very extraordinary. In fact, it began with the history of a man who had risen from the dead.

Greatest Design. Furthermore, there was a far-reaching purpose in the events of Jesus’s death and resurrection. In Luke chapter 24 – the ‘resurrection chapter’ – the dominant theme is his crucifixion: it had to happen.

In his conversation with the two on the road to Emmaus Jesus said: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter his glory?” (Luke 24:26). He also pointed out, ‘If you knew the Scriptures you would have known that for me the road to the crown was through the cross. That was the message of the prophets. I am the suffering servant of whom they spoke’ (for example, Isaiah 52:13-53:12).

And later, when Jesus met with his disciples, he spelled out God’s grand design. He showed them how the Scriptures pointed to the Messiah’s necessary suffering, death, and on the third day his resurrection (24:46). Jesus’s death and resurrection were an essential part of God’s greatest and completely unexpected design, a plan formed even before the universe came into existence and reaffirmed with the creation of men and women (Genesis 1:26a).

God’s great news. Luke tells us that Jesus went on to tell the disciples what now needs to happen: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his (Jesus’) name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (24:47). Jesus’s death and resurrection are tightly linked to the announcement of the forgiveness of sins.

Indeed, Paul identifies this when he writes earlier in First Corinthians 15: For I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and was raised on the third day … (15:3)

The story of Jesus’s death and resurrection is not merely that of a dead man who came back to life, nor that of a dying and rising god. Neither is it a romantic story that tells us that death is not the end. It is the record of the Messiah’s shameful death by crucifixion; he suffered the pains of God-forsakenness on our behalf because we have broken God’s holy law.

Simply to say that Christ died is insufficient. Historians agree that he died. But the New Testament explains that his death was a voluntary sacrifice with a purpose – to satisfy God’s perfect justice, once and for all, on behalf of guilty humanity. The Anglican Communion Liturgy puts it well: Christ’s death was ‘the one perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world’. Unless sin had first been defeated once and for all, Jesus’s resurrection would not point to forgiveness and new life.

To enjoy the benefits of Jesus’s death and resurrection we need to turn to him personally in a spirit of true repentance, humbly asking God to forgive us for following the devices and desires of our own hearts and so breaking his holy laws. A gospel presentation without the call for a personal, true and heartfelt repentance to God is not the gospel.

Jesus’s resurrection bears witness to God’s greatest design for men and women – a design that offers full and free forgiveness, and a life of meaning and hope, love and joy forever.

In his final Narnia story, The Last Battle, CS Lewis metaphorically opens our eyes to an ever-larger picture of God’s Greatest Design: “And as He (Aslan) spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.

“And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

A prayer. Almighty Father, you have given your only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification: grant that we may put away the old influences of corruption and evil, and always serve you in sincerity and truth; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Note: Material in today’s Word on Wednesday is adapted from my book, Luke – An Unexpected God, 2nd Edition, Aquila: 2019, in the Reading the Bible Today series.

In God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? Dr. John Lennox, emeritus Professor of Mathematics Oxford University, writes, “To the majority of those who have reflected deeply and written about the origin and nature of the universe, it has seemed that it points beyond itself to a source which is non-physical and of great intelligence and power”.

Transcendent Power. Yet in today’s world where influential voices sometimes angrily dismiss such a possibility, it is easy to overlook the transcendent power that was at work on the first Easter Day when Jesus physically rose from the dead. When we consider the evidence, it becomes clear that Jesus’s resurrection didn’t occur because of some natural mechanism. It happened because the creator God chose to intervene (Romans 6:4b).

The four Gospel writers record that on the third day following his crucifixion and burial, Jesus’s tomb was empty. Altogether, as we read in First Corinthians, one of the earliest New Testament Letters, Jesus was seen physically alive by over five hundred witnesses.

In chapter 15, verses 4b-6a and verse 8, Paul the Apostle writes: … Christ was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and …he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at one time, most of whom are still living… Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Eyewitnesses. Paul is saying that Christianity didn’t start because a group of fanatics had invented a story about their hero, nor because a group of philosophers had come to an agreed conclusion about life. Nor was it because a group of mystics shared the same vision about God. It began with eyewitnesses – ordinary men and women who saw something very extraordinary. In fact, it began with the history of a man who had risen from the dead.

Greatest Design. Furthermore, there was a far-reaching purpose in the events of Jesus’s death and resurrection. In Luke chapter 24 – the ‘resurrection chapter’ – the dominant theme is his crucifixion: it had to happen.

In his conversation with the two on the road to Emmaus Jesus said: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter his glory?” (Luke 24:26). He also pointed out, ‘If you knew the Scriptures you would have known that for me the road to the crown was through the cross. That was the message of the prophets. I am the suffering servant of whom they spoke’ (for example, Isaiah 52:13-53:12).

And later, when Jesus met with his disciples, he spelled out God’s grand design. He showed them how the Scriptures pointed to the Messiah’s necessary suffering, death, and on the third day his resurrection (24:46). Jesus’s death and resurrection were an essential part of God’s greatest and completely unexpected design, a plan formed even before the universe came into existence and reaffirmed with the creation of men and women (Genesis 1:26a).

God’s great news. Luke tells us that Jesus went on to tell the disciples what now needs to happen: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his (Jesus’) name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (24:47). Jesus’s death and resurrection are tightly linked to the announcement of the forgiveness of sins.

Indeed, Paul identifies this when he writes earlier in First Corinthians 15: For I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and was raised on the third day … (15:3)

The story of Jesus’s death and resurrection is not merely that of a dead man who came back to life, nor that of a dying and rising god. Neither is it a romantic story that tells us that death is not the end. It is the record of the Messiah’s shameful death by crucifixion; he suffered the pains of God-forsakenness on our behalf because we have broken God’s holy law.

Simply to say that Christ died is insufficient. Historians agree that he died. But the New Testament explains that his death was a voluntary sacrifice with a purpose – to satisfy God’s perfect justice, once and for all, on behalf of guilty humanity. The Anglican Communion Liturgy puts it well: Christ’s death was ‘the one perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world’. Unless sin had first been defeated once and for all, Jesus’s resurrection would not point to forgiveness and new life.

To enjoy the benefits of Jesus’s death and resurrection we need to turn to him personally in a spirit of true repentance, humbly asking God to forgive us for following the devices and desires of our own hearts and so breaking his holy laws. A gospel presentation without the call for a personal, true and heartfelt repentance to God is not the gospel.

Jesus’s resurrection bears witness to God’s greatest design for men and women – a design that offers full and free forgiveness, and a life of meaning and hope, love and joy forever.

In his final Narnia story, The Last Battle, CS Lewis metaphorically opens our eyes to an ever-larger picture of God’s Greatest Design: “And as He (Aslan) spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.

“And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

A prayer. Almighty Father, you have given your only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification: grant that we may put away the old influences of corruption and evil, and always serve you in sincerity and truth; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Note: Material in today’s Word on Wednesday is adapted from my book, Luke – An Unexpected God, 2nd Edition, Aquila: 2019, in the Reading the Bible Today series.