Over the last twenty years or so God’s people have been increasingly put on the defensive about their faith. In a climate where people of faith are dismissed as intellectually inept and even as ‘terrorists’, many are fearful of speaking up about what they believe.

Come with me to a significant scene that occurred on the day of Jesus’ resurrection. It’s recorded in John chapter 20, verses 19 through 23. That Sunday evening, the first day of the week, Jesus suddenly stood in the midst of his disciples. John doesn’t say how Jesus came to be there: he simply records, Jesus stood.

Last time the disciples had seen him, he was wounded and bleeding, wracked with pain, dying on a cross. When they had seen a spear thrust in his side and the fluid that had flowed, they knew he was truly dead. Yet here he was, not weak and limp but standing tall, speaking the very words he had uttered at the Passover meal: ‘Peace be with you’. And to show he was physically alive and not a ghost, he showed them his hands and his side.

Terrified and overjoyed they doubtless were, they knew, extraordinary miracle though it was, Jesus was truly alive again. ‘Peace be with you’, he repeated. On the night of his arrest he had said, ‘My peace I leave with you… Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in me’ (John 14:27).

In a world of turmoil and injustice, the peace he held out to his followers was not meaningless comfort. His resurrection was now proof of that. Yet it was surreal. But then, as GK Chesterton observed, Truth is stranger than fiction.

The Commission: ‘As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you…’, he continued (20:21). More than once they had heard Jesus say, ‘As the Father has sent me…’ But now he was drawing them into this work as well.

Jesus had been sent to speak God’s words in person to the world. Supremely he had been sent to be lifted up on a cross at Calvary to rescue humanity (John 12:32). Now, he was sending his disciples and in turn, his people, to announce his life-giving news to the world.

And significantly they would not be alone: they need not be fearful. The peace of Christ would be with them at every twist and turn along the way. Consider what follows.

The Gift. Jesus breathed and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven, if they are retained they are retained’ (20:22).

Let’s think about this: Jesus’ words bring together the announcement of God’s gospel and the work of the Spirit. Neither God’s Word nor his Spirit work in a vacuum. They are necessarily interlinked.

We should notice that Thomas wasn’t present, and that John’s Gospel doesn’t record separately the events of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the verb breathed doesn’t have an object – despite some English translations.

Jesus’ words peace be with you speak of his warm, personal relationship with them, even though they all had failed him. This is reinforced with his gift of his Spirit whom he had promised on the night of his arrest (14:16-24). As Paul the Apostle later says, the Spirit would assure them of their rich inheritance with Christ (Romans 8:14-17; Ephesians 1:13-14).

The Spirit’s presence was not only for the benefit of the disciples. As Jesus had promised, the Spirit would enable the disciples to remember and to interpret accurately all he had said and done (14:25-26). But he would also awaken the world to a spiritual awareness and convict it of its failure to honor the great high king who so loved us that he gave his life for us (16:8-11; 3:16).

Jesus’ reference to the retaining and forgiveness of sins is significant. Being in the passive voice, the two verbs indicate that it is not humanity, but God, who retains or forgives sin. When people fail to believe they remain isolated from the Lord. But when they turn in repentance to the Lord, they receive his forgiveness.

Bringing together the threads of Jesus’ words in the context of John’s Gospel as a whole, it is not our human prerogative to retain or forgive sins. Rather it is the outcome of the ministry of God’s Word, the gospel, and the work of his Spirit.

The ministry Jesus gave the disciples laid the foundation for our gospel ministry, namely the verbal announcement of God’s gospel that the Spirit uses to transform lives. This stands behind the Anglican Connection vision and mission: ‘Connecting for Gospel Led Regeneration’. Our work is not tied one denomination but to like-minded, gospel-focussed ministers and churches.

It is the kind of gospel vision that Timothy Keller who was gathered into the presence of the Lord last Friday, exemplified throughout his ministry. I experienced this personally when he, a Presbyterian in New York City unexpectedly invited me, an Anglican minister from Sydney, Australia, to talk with him about setting up a new church in Manhattan. Under God I was involved in setting up Christ Church NYC and what is now Emmanuel Anglican NYC. We thank the Lord for gospel-focussed leaders such as Tim Keller and pray the Lord will raise up many more.

Yet how often do we overlook Jesus’ words to his disciples in John chapter 20 and elsewhere in the New Testament. All God’s people have the wonderful privilege of being sent by Jesus to play our part in announcing his good news. Yet many today are fearful. Let me encourage you to pray that the Spirit will make real your experience of the peace of the Lord within you. Pray also that that God’s Spirit will awaken you to the riches of your inheritance with Christ, and open your eyes to opportunities to introduce family and friends to the Jesus of the Gospels.

Let me also encourage you to check out TheWord121 – an annotated version of John’s Gospel – that anyone, no matter how young in the faith, can use to introduce others to God’s good news. Find out more at: www.TheWord121.com.

Prayer. O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: do not leave us desolate, but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to where our Savior Christ has gone before, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for evermore.  Amen.

Almighty God, who taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending them the light of your Holy Spirit: so enable us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and always to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

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You might like to listen to, Holy Spirit Living Breath of God from Keith and Kristyn Getty and Stuart Townend.

Why don’t we pray more often than we do? And how often when we do pray, do we look to the model prayers we find in the Bible – and not least from the lips of Jesus?

Dr. JI Packer once commented, ‘I believe that prayer is the measure of God’s people, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face’.

Come with me to the prayer that Jesus’ prayed on the night of his arrest. We find it in John chapter 17. In verse 1 we read: After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,…’

Glory. Knowing he was about to die, Jesus prayed that he would be honored in carrying out God’s previously hidden plan. His impending death was now a certainty, for John tells us that Judas had gone out into the night to do his dark work of betrayal. And now, as Jesus looked into the darkness of this evil, he prayed that he would not only remain faithful to his mission, but would also be glorified.

The meaning of glory often eludes us for we tend to think of it more in terms of the splendor of fame or beauty. But the meaning of glory here is more subtle. It refers to the outward splendor of hidden, inner nature and qualities.

In praying, Father… glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, Jesus was asking God to clothe him with glory because his cross would reveal for all time the nature and cost of God’s love.

Furthermore, he prays that as he himself is glorified, in carrying out this supreme mission, men and women will see the splendor of the extraordinary love of the Father for men and women, even though they choose to divorce him.

Ashley Null has observed that for Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, ‘The glory of God, is God’s love for the unworthy’.

The theme of glory through his crucifixion continues in verse 4: ‘I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do’.

Jesus is saying that he has completed the work God had given him to do. In his teaching he brought further revelation of God and in his miracles (signs) he revealed God’s compassion and power. One great work – his greatest work – remained. When he was lifted up on the cross at Calvary, he would bear in himself the sin of the whole world (John 3:14-15 and 16).

In John 19: 28 & 30 we read Jesus’ final words on the cross: “It is finished”. With his death, Jesus had completed his mission. He had offered the one perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world, once and for all time. To try and repeat it, is to diminish and dishonor his work.

Jesus’ prayer continues: ‘So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed’ (John 17:5).

The words of John Stainer’s Crucifixion capture something of John’s record: ‘Far more awful in Thy weakness, more than kingly in Thy meekness, Thou Son of God… Here in abasement; crownless, poor, disrobed, and bleeding: There in glory interceding; Thou art the King!’

Prayer for the Disciples: ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word’ (17:6).

The greater part of Jesus’ prayer is for his disciples. This tells us of their importance. They are to be the bridge between himself and the rest of humanity. Much will depend on their understanding of Jesus as the Christ – the Messiah – and their courage and loyalty.

So he prays that the Father will give them eternal life. In verse 11, he prays that the Father will protect them; in verse 15, that the Father will keep them from the powers of evil; in verse 17, that the Father will make them holy in the truth; and in verse 16, that the love God the Father has for the Son, will be true for them as well.

Jesus knows that the road ahead for the disciples will not be easy. Yet he doesn’t pray that they will be taken out of the world, but that they will be kept faithful and guarded from the powers of the evil one.

Prayer for his people: ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.’ (17:20-22).

In praying for his people through the ages, Jesus alerts us to the heart of his disciples’ mission. Their ministry is to be a declaratory (Word) mission. The content of their preaching and teaching will be that Jesus is God’s king who has come for us – to restore God’s friendship with us. Furthermore, Christ has come so that he might be in us – the oneness of God’s people (not denominational structures) will draw others to faith in Christ. In turn all his people through the ages will share with him as heirs in the glory to come.

Which brings me back to prayer and the theme of God’s glory. How often do we pray that God will be glorified? After all, Jesus taught us to pray, ‘Father, hallowed, glorified be your name’ (Luke 11:2). In this era of God’s mercy shouldn’t we be praying that God will glorify his name in the changing lives of his people – in you and me? Shouldn’t we also be praying that God will honor his name in drawing the lost to faith, turning hearts to their true home in Jesus Christ?

A prayer. Lord Christ, eternal Word and Light of the Father’s glory: send your light and your truth so that we may both know and proclaim your word of life, to the glory of God the Father; for you now live and reign, God for all eternity. Amen.

© John G. Mason

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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. Significantly, he didn’t offer glib platitudes about his going but promised them a Counselor – literally, a Comforter.

In chapter 14:15-21 John the Gospel writer sets out the record of Jesus’ words of comfort and hope to his disciples. He was not going to leave them bereft. Rather, he promised them another companion to comfort and strengthen them.

‘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. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you…’ (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 14:17 with reference to the Spirit indicate that Jesus is not speaking about some impersonal force or a 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’ 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 you 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 far beyond anything we can begin to imagine. 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’ promise: ‘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. 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?

What does this mean in reality? Think of it like this. If someone put a powerful explosive in our apartment what would we do? We’d call in the explosive experts and keep clear. But if the newly crowned Charles III came to our place, what would we do? We’d surely welcome him and take the opportunity to get to know him.

Jesus promises his followers a powerful person, a counselor, a companion. 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

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Glen Scrivener’s recent book, The Air We Breathe (2022) compellingly explores the way that 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 especially awakens those of us who believe, to why we need God’s strength to honor him in our lives as well as promote him afresh. Yet how often are we silenced through our fears, forgetting what the Bible reveals about Jesus Christ.

For example, at the opening of John chapter 14 a dark cloud was hanging over Jesus’ disciples. For three years they had been with him and were increasingly confident he was God’s promised king. But at the Passover meal he had told them he was going away. ‘Don’t be troubled,’ he said. ‘Believe in God, believe also in me… I go to prepare a place for you’ (John 14:1, 2b).

Frustration and Doubts. Thomas’s response to Jesus’ words expresses a frustration we can all feel: ‘Lord, we do not know where you’re going…’ For him, knowledge is based on concrete realities not abstract metaphors. ‘Where is this Father’s house you’re talking about Jesus? How can we know the way?’ Thomas was frustrated and doubted.

Jesus’ reply is breath-taking, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6). Significantly, he didn’t say, ‘I’ll show you the way’ but rather, ‘I am the way’; he didn’t say, ‘I’ll tell you the truth’ but, ‘I am the truth’; he didn’t say, ‘I’ll give you eternal life’ but, ‘I am the life’.

He is saying that at the heart of the universe is not a mathematical or scientific equation, but a person. This news is ‘the air we have come to breathe’.

Now many dismiss the existence of God and a supernatural realm – especially the idea that the supernatural can enter the material world. Maybe Thomas thought this too. Perhaps this is why later on, he couldn’t accept that Jesus had risen from the dead (John 20:25).

Let’s think about this. You may attend church but never admit your doubts, silently going along with the church crowd. It would have been easy for Thomas to have pretended to believe what Jesus was saying. At least he was prepared to admit his doubts. And, helpfully for us, Jesus doesn’t cut him down. When, a week after his resurrection Jesus saw Thomas he said, ‘Put your finger here Thomas. Don’t be faithless but believing’.

In the midst of cynical voices today, it’s also encouraging to know that there are eminent mathematicians who testify to the trustworthiness of the Bible’s record and the existence of the supernatural. For example, Dr. John Lennox, professor emeritus of mathematics at Oxford University, has said, ‘The rational intelligibility of the universe,… points to the existence of the Mind that was responsible both for the universe and our minds. It is for this reason that we are able to do science and to discover the beautiful mathematical structures that underlie the phenomena we can observe’ (cited in Barnett, Gospel Truth, p.21).

Jesus is saying that the only way we’re to make sense of our existence is by recognising that he is the complex person who is the Mind behind the universe. People who can hardly recall their two times tables can be closer to the truth than many high-level scientists or mathematicians – because they have a relationship with him.

Questions. Phillip, another of Jesus’s disciples, had a follow up question: ‘Lord show us the Father. That’s all we need’ (John 14:9).

Philip wanted some tangible experience of God that would assure him of Jesus’ words. He may have wanted a special appearance of God such as Moses experienced at the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6). Or maybe he was influenced by the Greek mystery religions and had in mind some kind of inner ecstasy, a spiritual trip that would lift him to new levels of consciousness. Either way he wanted to see God.

Jesus’ response is astonishing: ‘He who has seen me has seen the Father’ (John 14:9).

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’.

Many who read history still regard Jesus as one of the world’s great teachers. But this doesn’t come near to what he is saying: he isn’t just an emissary from God, but God himself.

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’ 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’.

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

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Elections and the resulting political discourse remind us how much most people long for a leader who will bring us justice and peace, protection and prosperity. However, on every occasion our aspirations are dashed as leaders reveal their flaws and failures and self-interest. No one proves to be the ideal leader.

Let me suggest one exception: Jesus who said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11).

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 the equivalent of money in the bank today, 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 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 shepherd God’s people Israel. But it was not only the kings who were called shepherds, but also the religious leaders. 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 34:1-31 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 together shepherd 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 the very best experiences we enjoy in life 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. Jesus was not a political Messiah.

In John 10:8 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’ 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 here, 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 has emerged.

‘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

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

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In his book 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’ 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’ tomb was empty. He was seen physically alive by his close followers and many others.

Eyewitnesses. In First Corinthians – one of the earliest New Testament Letters – 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.

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, and not even because a group of mystics shared the same vision about God. It began with eyewitnesses – ordinary men and women who saw something very extra-ordinary happen. In fact, it began with the history of a man who had risen from the dead.

Grand Design. Furthermore, there was a far-reaching purpose in the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In Luke chapter 24 – the ‘resurrection chapter’ – the dominant theme is Jesus’ 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?” (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 he met with the disciples, he spelled out God’s grand design. He showed them how the Scriptures pointed to the Messiah’s necessary suffering, death, and resurrection on the third day (24:46). Jesus’ death and resurrection were an essential part of God’s grand design, a plan formed even before creation came into existence and reaffirmed with the creation of men and women (Genesis 1:26a).

God’s good 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’ death and resurrection are tightly linked to the announcement of the forgiveness of sins.

Indeed, Paul identifies this when he writes: 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 … (1 Corinthians 15:3)

The story of Jesus’ 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 Messiah’s shameful death by crucifixion, suffering 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. Unless sin had first been dealt with, Jesus’ resurrection would not point to forgiveness and new life.

To enjoy the benefits of Jesus’ death and resurrection we need to turn to him in a spirit of 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 to true heartfelt repentance is not the gospel.

Jesus’ resurrection bears witness to God’s grand 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 Grand 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

You may like to listen to Christ Is Risen, He Is Risen Indeed from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

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

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