“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Lord Acton wrote in his correspondence with Bishop Creighton in England in 1887. Reflecting on the moral issues in writing a history of the Inquisition, Lord Acton considered that all people, including political and spiritual leaders, should be held to the same moral standard.

The problem, as Lord Acton observed, is that leaders are inclined to use their powers corruptly. Especially is this true of despotic rulers who are not held accountable. How we need to thank the Lord for good leaders while also praying for them – for they are not perfect. Indeed, as Paul the Apostle urges us in First Timothy chapter 2, we need to pray for the leaders of all nations.

Significantly, the wrongs that leaders can perpetrate contrast sharply with the story of Jesus of Nazareth.

Come back with me in time some two and a half millennia, when the little kingdom of Judah in the Middle-East was facing the rise of great powers. In the 8th century BC the Assyrian imperial army rampaged through the Middle East and sacked the northern kingdom of Israel. A century later the Babylonian armies were on the rise, and it was only a matter of time before Judah received the unwelcome attention of those powerful forces.

How would Judah survive? She had no army to speak of, no money and no allies. Greater nations had already been cut down. Political obliteration seemed inevitable. Yet despite the odds, Judah’s morale was not destroyed. A glimmer of hope was on the horizon.

It was Isaiah, one of the prophets who had spoken of doom and despair, who wrote about a special leader who would be raised up. In Isaiah chapter 11, features of God’s promised king unfold.

A leader after God’s own heart. Isaiah was disappointed by the politicians of his day. They were corrupt: they took bribes, ignored the poor, and turned a blind eye to justice. King Ahaz, for example, had broken every trust given to him. He had even used the gold of the Temple to try to bribe Assyria and prevent her march on Jerusalem. He’d failed. He was another ruler who’d let his people down.

Time and time again, rulers and governments do that. In most western democracies today election promises are constantly consigned to the trash.

In chapter 11, verse 1, Isaiah offers hope: A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

Jesse was the father of King David, the great king in the Old Testament. Just as David himself had come out of obscurity, Isaiah is saying, so too a new king would emerge, and he would be greater than David and his son Solomon.

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, Isaiah says, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:2-3).

Wisdom, understanding and knowledge would characterize this king’s rule. But fundamental would be his willingness to learn from God. There would be no political blunders in his rule. Furthermore, corruption would not plague his government; the media wouldn’t be able to destroy him – either over his personal integrity or his policies. No one would be living in poverty or without a home.

A leader who would use his power for peace. The metaphors in verse 6 are vivid: The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. Peace would be the mark of this leader’s rule.

Periods of world peace are fleeting. The war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle-East today have expunged the view that the world had at last entered a time of safety, security and prosperity. Yet Isaiah insists that under God’s ruler there will be no incompetence, no corruption, no violence – only justice and peace. Could it be true?

A leader who draws his people from the nations. Isaiah doesn’t stop there, for in verses 10 though 16 he portrays people coming from all parts of the world, like a scattered army, to rally around this ruler. It will be a victorious, redeemed community, he says (11:15). People will come from the East and the West. Highways will be built to God’s City so that people from every nation can come. It’s a vivid and poetic picture.

Understandably we ask, ‘Could it happen?’ ‘Who is this root of Jesse, this ruler to whom the people rally, who will restore creation to its pristine harmony?’ Jesus.

Some eight hundred years before Jesus came, Isaiah predicted the first coming of God’s king as well as his return. This is one of the amazing things about the Bible that convinces me that it is what it claims to be – namely, God’s deliberate, progressive, self-revelation.

Centuries before Jesus came, Isaiah opened a window on Jesus’ life and work. Wise men did come from the Far East to pay him homage at his birth. And people from around the world have been coming to him ever since his death and resurrection.

The Gospel writers reveal that Jesus not only taught but backed up his words with action that showed God’s compassion for a sick and sorry world. He fed the hungry, healed the sick, and dealt with the powers of evil.

As the New Testament unfolds, we learn that the coming of God’s king is in two parts. His first coming was a rescue operation; his return will reveal the king in all his might, majesty dominion and power. He will bring his perfect justice to bear and, with the unveiling of his own glory, will reveal the glory of all who have truly turned to him.

His first coming we celebrate at Christmas. In this season of Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, we focus on the reality of his return.

Our hope is bound up in God’s king. For the death of the king on the cross comes between God’s good creation, ruined by human sin with which the Bible begins, and the promise of a restored creation with which the Bible ends. God will wipe away every tear from our eyes… there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away (Revelation 21:4).

A prayer. Blessed Lord, you have caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning, grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, so that, encouraged and supported by your holy Word, we may embrace and always hold fast the joyful hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

You may want to listen to Christ Our Hope in Life and Death from Keith and Kristyn Getty and Matt Papa.

The Advent Word on Wednesday series is adapted from my 2022 Advent series.

© John G. Mason

‘Thanksgiving’ in America is one of the delights Judith and I experienced when we moved to New York in 2001. Despite the evil events of September 11, 2001 people at our first Thanksgiving Dinner expressed their thanks for the way the Lord had used the events of 9/11 to build their trust in him.

When we think about it, thanksgiving is a theme that permeates the Bible – especially the Psalms. And while we do live in an uncertain world, there is still much for which to be thankful.

Come with me to Paul the Apostle’s Letter to the Philippians, chapter 4, verses 4 through 9.

An exhortation: Rejoice in the Lord always, Paul exhorts. And, as he doesn’t want us to skim over this, he says it a second time: Again, I say, Rejoice.

Paul was in prison when he wrote these words. He is repeating an earlier exhortation that we read in chapter 3, verse 1: Rejoice in the Lord. God wants us to so value our relationship with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, that we long for the smile of his approval in all we do. Nothing else matters. He is our joy.

Paul is encouraging us to rejoice in the Lord because we can be assured that the Lord has his hand on the helm of the world’s events and our personal affairs. Come what may in life, he is working out his good purposes for his people. This challenges us to ask if we trust him in every situation – be it the loss of a job, disappointments, or sobering medical news.

Furthermore, in exhorting us to rejoice, he is not speaking about our being happy, always having a smile on our face. The joy he speaks of is the deep inner peace and contentment that spring from a personal trust in Jesus.

For this reason, he urges us to pray with thankfulness in our hearts: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

What remarkable and encouraging words: Don’t be anxious about anything … A timeless remedy for anxiety.

So Paul urges us to pray about our concerns in life, petitioning the Lord with our particular needs, and yet with thankfulness in our hearts for his goodness and mercy.

Here is the antidote to anxiety and the prelude to the experience of peace. Such prayer and thanksgiving express trust in God in every situation.

Let me ask, can you honestly say you are assured that Jesus is not only in control but that he truly loves and cares for you?

The promise of peace. In verse 7 we read: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, and in verse 9: …And the God of peace will be with you.

Peace, Shalom is a word of security. Paul was in prison for his faith when he wrote these words. He knew what it was to be anxious, even fearful about life’s injustices and disappointments. He knew the barbs that can hurt, especially false accusations and unjust persecution.

Encouragingly he speaks about God’s peace guarding our hearts and minds. Guard in this context conveys the positive idea of protection. As a Roman citizen, he may have had in mind the Praetorian Guard. It’s a great thought: God’s ‘Praetorian Guard’ providing security for our hearts and minds, and so giving us peace.

Furthermore, heart is the Bible’s way of speaking of what is deep within us – the desires that are at the very center of our soul. And mind refers to our decisions and thoughts that spring from our inner longings.

Now, if we remove God’s promise of peace from its biblical context, the idea of peace may be a great idea, but it is without substance. Peace in the Bible is profound because it is grounded in righteousness and truth. It is only meaningful because its foundation is the objective reality of the God whose very nature is holy and just. We enjoy peace only because God, whose very nature is to be merciful, has himself opened the way for peace between himself and us.

On the day of his resurrection, when Christ met with his disciples in a locked upper room, his first words were the conventional Jewish greeting: ‘Peace be with you’ (John 20:19). After showing them his hands and his side, revealing that he was truly physically alive he repeated the greeting: “Peace be with you” (20:21). In doing this, he was reminding the disciples of his words on the night of his arrest: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you … Do not let your hearts be troubled” (14:27).

The God of peace has stepped into our world in person and, in his righteousness and love, has provided once and for all time the means whereby his just requirements of us are perfectly satisfied. The resurrection of Jesus Christ assures us of the peace God has secured and now holds out to us. Nothing, not even death, can stand against it.

How much there is for which we can be thankful to the Lord from the bottom of our hearts. Is this real for you? How often do you express your thankfulness to the Lord – just at Thanksgiving, or every day?

A General Thanksgiving.  Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give humble and hearty thanks for all your goodness and loving kindness to us and to all people. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your amazing love in the redemption of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace and for the hope of glory.

And, we pray, give us that due sense of all your mercies, that our hearts may be truly thankful, and that we may declare your praise not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

You may want to listen to the song, May the Peoples Praise You from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

May you enjoy afresh the riches of God’s love this Thanksgiving!

A Gift at Thanksgiving

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Donations in the US are tax deductible. Gifts can be made here.

© John G. Mason

Jesus’s physical resurrection from the dead is fundamental to the Christian faith. Without it, as Paul the Apostle says in First Corinthians, chapter 15, our faith is meaningless: we would have no assurance of our broken relationship with God being restored and no hope of eternal life that God holds out to us.

Some years ago, Ken Handley, a retired Justice of the Court of Appeal in New South Wales, Australia, wrote: “Most people who reject the resurrection do so with a closed mind without looking at the evidence. This is irrational and foolish. Jesus, the Son of God, who died to make us right with God, is calling each of us into a relationship with him which will involve faith, repentance, forgiveness and obedience. The Christian answers to those nagging personal questions make sense of the Cosmos and our place and purpose in it…”

In the opening segment of John 21 we learn that seven of Jesus’s disciples, including Simon Peter, went fishing on the Sea of Tiberias (Sea of Galilee) in the aftermath of Jesus’s resurrection. However, as they were returning to shore a voice called out asking if they had caught anything. Receiving a negative answer, the voice encouraged them to cast their nets on the right-hand side of the boat. Even though they didn’t know who it was, they followed the advice and quickly found that the nets were overfull with fish. ‘It is the Lord!’ John quietly said to Peter (21:7). Keen to see Jesus once again, Peter threw himself into the water.

As an eyewitness John the Gospel writer provides precise details: the boat was in shallow water, being only 100 yards offshore, and the catch of large fish numbered 153 (21:11). Fabricated accounts would not give such unexpected detail. The disciples found Jesus by a charcoal fire with fish laid out, as well as some bread. ‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught’, Jesus said … ‘Come and have breakfast’ (21:12). Jesus not only turned out to be their provider that morning but cooked and served them breakfast – something apparitions cannot do (21:13).

John records: it was the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead (21:14).

And as we read on, we find that Jesus had a special word for Peter that day.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ When Peter had first encountered the power of Jesus’s words, he had said, ‘Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord’ (Luke 5:8). And on the night of the Last Supper Peter had said, ‘Lord I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death’ only then to deny Jesus three times, as Jesus had predicted (Luke 22:33f).

Like us, Peter was a sinner, in need of forgiveness. He sorely wanted Jesus’s assurance. He knew that without Jesus’s forgiveness their relationship would be broken; it would also mean that he could never be doing what Jesus had said he would do: “… from now on you will be catching men and women (Luke 5:10).

‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ Jesus asked him. Three times Jesus asked the question. Three times Peter had denied the Lord, and now, three times Peter responded, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you’. Humbled and grieved for his failures, Peter felt the force of Jesus’s questioning. So much so that his third response reveals the depth of his contrition, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you’ (21:17). The thrice repeated questions and Peter’s answers, assured him, in front of the other disciples, that the Lord had fully and freely pardoned and forgiven him. It was a special word for Peter – and for us all.

Furthermore, Jesus now had work for him to do. For with his response to Jesus’s three questions, he is commissioned with, ‘Feed my lambs’, ‘feed my sheep’ – God’s people, the children and the adults, the young in the faith as well as those who are mature in their faith.

The imagery of shepherd and sheep bubbles throughout the Bible. In Psalm 23 David speaks of the Lord as his shepherd and John chapter 10 records Jesus’s words, ‘I am the Good Shepherd (10:11, 14). Psalm 100 says, Know the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 11 tells us, He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

Verse 6 of Isaiah chapter 53 begins with a sobering note about everyone of us, All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to our own way; and then foreshadows what God will do, And the Lord has laid on him(the suffering servant – the Son of God) the iniquity of us all. It is a prophetic word about the significance of the death of Jesus: Christ died in our place (Romans 5:6, 8).

Jeremiah chapter 3, verse 15 sets out another facet of God’s plans for his people, ‘I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding’.

These words stand behind Jesus’s charge to Peter as well as Paul the Apostle’s words in his Letter to the Ephesians when he speaks of God giving various ministries to his people – some as apostles (the foundational ministries), some as prophets, some as evangelists, and others as pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11f).

The ministry of God’s Word is the key to the effective growth and pastoral care of God’s people. Without the announcing of God’s good news how will people be rescued? (Romans 10:14f) Unless God’s people are taught God’s truth how will they grow in their love for him? (Colossians 3:16f). How will we know and understand the true meaning of the equality of all men and women – that we are all equal in God’s eyes, designed to know and love him, and enjoy him forever? How will we know what true compassion and justice are?

Without God’s speaking into our world through his unique, written self-revelation, how will understand that our reasoning and decisions are so often flawed? God alone can teach us the wisdom we need for life in a self-centered world until the day of Jesus’s return. How easy it is in the world of change pressing in on us to lose sight of the primary task of true ministry.

In his First Letter, Peter says, shepherd the flock of God among you … And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory (1 Peter 5:2, 4).

Do you love me? the risen Jesus asks. Feed my sheep – children and teenagers, unmarried and married, and the elderly.

A prayer. Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us both a sacrifice for sin and also an example of godly living; give us grace so that we may always thankfully receive the immeasurable benefit of his sacrifice, and also daily endeavor to follow in the blessed steps of his most holy life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for evermore. Amen.

You may like to listen to Facing the Task Unfinished from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© John G. Mason

Back in 1995 Joan Osborne came and went with the hit, What if God Was One of Us? On the surface it asked the seemingly impossible question about seeing God face to face in human form. What would we do if we knew his name, saw his face, and his glory?

It’s a song that challenges us to think about our own worldview. It’s asking how we would respond if we were personally confronted with the seemingly impossible – seeing God face to face, as one of us. It’s a question that the Jesus Story we read in John’s record prompts us to ask.

In John chapter 14 a dark cloud was hanging over Jesus’s close followers. For three years they had been with him and were increasingly confident he was God’s promised king. But on the night of his arrest, Jesus 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).

However Thomas, one of Jesus’s close followers, found this frustrating: “Lord, we do not know where you’re going…” For him, knowledge was based on concrete evidence and logic, not abstract ideas: ‘Where is this Father’s house? How can we know the way?’

Jesus’s 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 doesn’t say, ‘I’ll show you the way’ but rather, “I am the way”; he doesn’t say, ‘I’ll tell you the truth’ but, “I am the truth”; he doesn’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 – a transcendental person who has come amongst us, as John records.

Many today dismiss the existence of God and a supernatural realm – and especially the idea that should it exist, that it can enter the material world. Maybe Thomas thought this too.

Indeed, John later candidly reports that Thomas didn’t believe the other disciples when they said they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. But when, a week later Thomas saw him, Jesus said to him, “Put your finger here, and see my hands, and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve but believe” (20:27).

Experiencing first-hand an unexpected joy and without touching Jesus, Thomas responded, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). With these heartfelt words Thomas not only acknowledged the reality that Jesus had risen from the dead, but also revealed his genuine repentance for having doubted the testimony of the others.

His contrite confession, “My Lord and my God!” underlines the veracity of John’s witness to Jesus: 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 (John 1:14).

The challenge that Jesus put to Thomas that day, he puts to you and me today: “Do not disbelieve but believe” (20:27). Unbelief that Jesus is God is how Jesus defines sin. This is the question we all need to address.

Consider also how Jesus responded to a request from Phillip, another of his close followers. Philip said: “Lord show us the Father. That’s all we need” (John 14:9).

Philip wanted to know what every religion, and Joan Osborne, wants 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 appearances to people in the past – such as Abraham, Jacob, Moses. Or maybe he was influenced by a Jewish mysticism of the day, known as Merkabah or chariot mysticism, that taught of angels taking true believers by chariot into the very presence of God. Philip wanted to see God.

Again, Jesus’s response is breath-taking: “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 some years? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’.

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

And so, he 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 (or signs) themselves” (John 14:11).

Think about it, Jesus is saying: ‘You’ve seen my miracles, signs that point to my divinity. Don’t they tell you something about me?’

It would make sense, explaining many extraordinary events over the last three years – especially how Jesus could even 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 – exemplify 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).

The impossible has happened. God has come amongst us in person. As the Joan Osborne song suggests, he has a name and a face, he wants us to know him and one day share his glory.

Indeed, the signs of Jesus’s transcendent nature and his tender compassion for those in need, help us understand the significance of the words of chapter 3, verse 16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

We all have a decision to make – not believe that Jesus is God in the flesh (which is what sin is) or believe that Jesus is truly God who came to us as one of us, to rescue us and restore our relationship with God. He alone is our hope. Does your heartfelt response to Jesus echo the repentance and faith of Thomas: ‘My Lord and my God’.

Do you want to find out more? You will find it helpful to speak with a believing friend, perhaps over coffee. They may suggest one or more options. One that comes to mind is, ‘TheWord121’ (www.theword121.com). It is an accessible introduction to the bigger picture of the Jesus Story in the Gospel of John and is available in booklet form or online.

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: open our eyes to know Jesus as our only Lord and Savior, prompting us to renounce all things that are contrary to your will and stirring us to  live for you, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

In his Pensées Blaise Pascal, the 17th century French mathematician and philosopher wrote, “Everyone seeks happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end…”

John the Gospel writer tells us of a woman at a well in Samaria two thousand years ago who would have agreed. Like us, she longed for happiness, but it had eluded her. Five failed marriages testified to that.

Thinking that love, sex and marriage would give her life meaning and happiness, she thought that each new man would be the answer. But each time she made the same mistake. Her life was a mess. Lonely and insecure, dissatisfied and empty, she was having to draw water from the well by herself at the heat of the day.

But there came a time when her life was transformed through an unexpected conversation with a Jewish man. Ignoring social, cultural and political taboos, Jesus made a simple request for water from the well. He didn’t talk about her life or matters of faith – at least to begin with. Rather he spoke then, as he speaks to us today, with concern and respect.

However, it wasn’t long before he took the conversation to another level by speaking to her about living water. This provided a natural opportunity for her to open up about her hopes.

It happened this way. Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:12-14).

On a really hot day a glass of crystal clear, cold water is so refreshing. Jesus was offering water of a very different nature – not the reinvigorating physical water we enjoy, but water of such vitality that satisfies our deep inner spiritual thirst. He was saying he is the answer to the regrets and to the emptiness that gnaws at our souls. His words point to the reality that we are much more than the sum of our parts: we have souls – a spiritual dimension to our lives that needs to be nourished. Life with Jesus can be a cascade of fulfillment and joy.

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water” (John 4: 15). There’s a wistfulness in her words. It’s as if she was saying, ‘It would be great if you could do it, stranger. If only you could free me from this life of loneliness and regret’.

Her response opened a door of opportunity for Jesus to talk about her life. Most of us aren’t willing to be honest about how we’re really doing and the woman that day was no exception. We pretend we’re doing well but the reality is that we often have a sense of hopelessness about life that we won’t admit to. So, we endeavor to offset our sense of emptiness by filling our social calendar, making money, being a success, pursuing sexual adventure. But it never works.

No matter how successful we are or how intense the emotional experiences we might have, nothing can be a substitute for the relationship with God for which we are made. But if we’re going to find Jesus’s answer to our longing for happiness, we first have to admit our need.

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet…” (4:16-19)

Suddenly the woman realized that the man with whom she was speaking was nothing less than a prophet who was aware of her life and lifestyle. And deep down, she knew that her selfish, self-centered, indulgent life was going nowhere. She was also aware that Jesus was challenging her to sort out her relationship with God. The big question was where to do this – the temple in Jerusalem, or in Samaria?

Jesus’s response is unexpected: “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (4:22-24).

He isn’t saying that it doesn’t matter what you believe so long as you’re sincere. Spirit and truth are not just synonyms for sincerity. When Jesus speaks of truth, he is talking about the inner reality of God’s being which becomes visible to us through him, Jesus.

True worship involves relating to Jesus – who he is and what he has done for us. Later he says, “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

The woman responded, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us”. Jesus’s response is breath-taking, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you” – literally, ‘I who am speaking to you, I am’ (4:26).

In the lead up to the exodus from Egypt, God had revealed his name to Moses in Exodus, chapter 3: “I am that I am that is my name”. Jesus was not just claiming to be the Messiah but to be one with God.

The water that Jesus promised the woman that day would bring her into a deep, satisfying and eternal friendship with God. Four centuries later, Augustine, Bishop of North Africa wrote, ‘Our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee’.

The eternal life that Jesus talks about, the water that will truly satisfy us, isn’t found in some new sexual experience or the acquisition of the latest phone. Indeed, because we were made first and foremost for relationship with God, the answer to our cry for happiness isn’t even a new religious experience. It involves a personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus is God in the flesh. He gives us life by giving us himself.

Just look at what the woman did: Leaving her water jar… John records (4:28). The symbol of her emptiness now lay discarded at Jesus’s feet.

She had found the living water, for she had found someone who knew her and yet had compassion for her, someone who pointed to the existence of a transcendent, caring God. Things would never be the same again.

“Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did” she said to people in her village. “Can this be the Christ?” (4:29). John records that many Samaritans responded by coming and listening to Jesus teach. And many believed him to be the Savior of the world (4:42).

There are tens of thousands of people with regrets and empty lives like this woman. Many are dismissive of finding hope in churches because they feel betrayed: God’s Word is not faithfully taught with compassion. How important it is we turn afresh to the real Jesus story and learn of the compassion and care he showed towards women and to everyone.

Prayer: Almighty God, we confess that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves: open our eyes to know that you not only exist but that in your great love you care for us. We ask this in and through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

© John G. Mason

‘Do you want to live forever?’ was the question leading into an article, ‘From Here to Eternity’ in The Weekend Australian magazine (May 27-28, 2023). ‘Coming back from the dead, then living as an immortal?’ the article began. ‘It sounds like science fiction, but the pioneers behind this wild venture are true believers’.

The article took up personal stories of a small number who believe in the science of freezing their body at death and holding it in ‘cryonic suspension’ until a future time when science and medicine will have addressed the issues of aging, disease, and death – a day when they will be resurrected.

While almost all scientists reject such a development, two features stand out: only a very tiny number would benefit; second, given the world’s history of conflict and war, there is little hope that anyone ‘waking’ in fifty or three hundred years will find a world of just and lasting peace. Would we really want to live forever in such a world?

In the penultimate chapter of John’s record of the Jesus Story, we read of an eighth sign – Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead.

It was most likely at Passover time in either 30 or 33AD that Jesus was put to death by crucifixion. Tacitus, the Roman historian reported in his Annals of Imperial Rome: ‘Christ, … had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate …’

Yet John, together with the other three ‘Gospel’ writers, records the most significant event in human history: following his crucifixion, Jesus was seen alive, physically risen from the dead.

The first witnesses. John, chapter 19 concludes with the record that two highly positioned wealthy men, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, had buried Jesus’ body according to Jewish custom, wrapping it in linen cloths spiced with a mixture of myrrh and aloes. It was a new tomb and fulfilled what Isaiah prophesied eight hundred years before, his tomb was with the rich (Isaiah 53:9).

In the opening lines of chapter 20, the Apostle John relates his experience on the morning of the third day following Jesus’ crucifixion. Mary of Magdala, one of the women who went to the tomb, ran back to tell Peter and John it was empty. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,” she said, “and we do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:2).

Despite the testimony of women being treated as unreliable and insignificant in first century Judaism, women were the first witnesses of the empty tomb. No Jewish writer would have written this if the account were fiction.

Furthermore, John the Apostle’s own testimony has the ring of an eyewitness. He tells us that being younger he outran Peter, but he didn’t enter the tomb first: Peter did. Both saw the linen wrappings lying there and the linen cloth that had been around Jesus’ head… rolled up in another place. It was as though Jesus’ body had passed through the shroud which included some one hundred pounds weight of expensive myrrh and aloes (John 19:39) and the head covering had been discarded. It seemed that human hands had not removed the body. What did it mean?

John reports that he saw and believed (20:8). But in the next sentence he tells us that neither he nor Peter understood it. Like Martha who had told Jesus she knew her brother Lazarus would rise from the dead on the last day (John 11:24), John seems to have believed that Jesus had gone to be with God the Father, as he had said (John 14:2-4).

Neither he nor Peter understood what Jesus meant when he said they would see him again, physically risen from the dead. We need to grasp this, for it emphasises the unexpectedness and authenticity of what happened.

Despair. We need to appreciate how Jesus’ first friends felt when they saw him strung up on a cross. For three years they’d been with him. They’d seen him turn water into wine, heal a dying boy from afar, feed a crowd of five thousand from a lunch-box of five barley loaves and two pickled fish, and restore sight to a man born blind. They’d even watched when, standing at the entrance of a tomb, he called out to a man who had been dead for four days: “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:43).

Then to their horror, they’d watched him die! And they’d heard his shout of victory, “It is finished” – my work is done (John 19:30) – as he died.

Their minds were numb with the shock that such an innocent man who had used his powers to serve others, should die a common criminal. No wonder they hid behind locked doors, fearing for their own lives.

John records that on that Sunday evening, Jesus suddenly stood in the midst of his disciples. His words, Jesus stood, contrast with the time they had last seen him – hanging on a cross, wounded and bleeding, wracked with pain, dying. And when they had seen the spear thrust in his side, they knew he was dead.

Yet here Jesus was, not weak and limp, but standing, tall and erect, in command, repeating words he had spoken when he was last with them: “Peace be with you”. And to prove he was real and not a ghost, he showed them his hands and his side (20:19f).

Bewildered and confused though they were, they nevertheless knew that Jesus was alive. “Peace be with you!” he said again. At their last meal he had promised, “My peace I leave with you… Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in me” (John 14:27).

They were overjoyed, but their minds couldn’t fully grasp what was happening. It was like a dream.

The words of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus are apt: ‘Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find truth, for it is hard to discover and hard to attain’. And last century G.K. Chesterton remarked, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.’

As I have mentioned previously, Jesus’ resurrection is not the result of a natural law that can be tested. Rather, as the New Testament tells us, it happened because God chose to over-rule, using his awesome, supernatural power (Romans 6:4b). No-one has been able to prove conclusively that it didn’t happen.

Given that life and death matters are at stake, it’s imperative we ask whether the account of Jesus’ resurrection is an invention. I say this because the resurrection is foundational for Christianity. If it’s false, let’s eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. If it’s true, it’s life-changing.

John sets out the purpose of his writing in chapter 20, verses 30 and 31: Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Prayer: Almighty God, you have conquered death through your dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ and have opened to us the gate of everlasting life: grant us by your grace to set our mind on things above, so that by your continual help our whole life may be transformed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit in everlasting glory. Amen.

© John G. Mason