Crumbs under the table

What draws you to Jesus? It may have been that in reading the account of Jesus’ life in the gospel stories, you find Jesus’s words and actions appeals to your life experience and you find in him what it is you were searching for. Or you may have not have encountered Jesus at first… perhaps you were in a place of confusion or distress, or in need of support and guidance and chanced upon Jesus through the course of life. However you met Jesus, the person he is enables us to relate to God, and in so doing, we are able to read through the four Gospel stories to discover the nature of God and his ambition for humanity.

When we come before Jesus, our understanding of who he is and who our father is, is brought into focus. Sometimes when the lens of our lives is refocused, our perceptions of who Jesus is can be altered but the truth remains. Our perceptions change because our understanding of who Jesus is grows deeper, and we are able to make connections between what we know to be true of Jesus and true of ourselves.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!

Your workmanship is marvellous—how well I know it.

(NLT Psalm 139:14)

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

(NIV Psalm 139:14)

As you can see from the reference, these two verses are of the same Hebrew text but translated by two different groups of scholars. They both give the same message, but use different interpretations to the meaning of each word in English from the original Hebrew script. Just as the scholars who interpreted this verse focused their lens on their understanding of the text from their own context, similarly there are areas of our own lives that we need to change or re-imagine  as we become true to ourselves and true to our belief in the one who rescues us from our sin.

Jesus isn't like some kind of International Rescue organisation or the Red Cross, being air-lifted into dangerous situations so that we can be rescued from imminent danger… “Until the next time folks!” Jesus is a constant companion that goes with us on the journey, sharing our experiences in both the good times and the bad times, until journeys end where we will find rest from our wandering.

Jesus doesn't rescue us ‘out’ of these situations so that we are protected, but rescues us ‘from’ these situations so that we might learn to trust in his guidance. Every day I wake up with sin in my thoughts and in the carelessness of my imagining. We are all troubled with this type of secret sin, where the enemy stokes the embers of the sin we have not lain-out before Jesus at the cross. It is always tempting in the loneliness of our minds to harbour secret sins that are a residual pattern of our former selves… it is the enemies best, but not only weapon.

As you have come to expect in these blogs, I am nothing if not candid. I have always sought to do what I have asked others to do, and only ask others to do things I know are achievable. In John 13: 1-17 we read about Jesus’ final actions towards the 12 disciples prior to sharing his final Passover meal and the events that led to his death. Within the intimacy of this story, Jesus strips off to his under-clothes and puts a towel around his waist. Knowing that it was the custom of hospitality and generosity to wash the feet of his guest’s, Jesus set’s about washing each disciple’s feet in turn.

There is much confusion amongst the disciples as they try to re-focus their lens of understanding on what their teacher and master, was now doing:

And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.

(John 13:14-15)

I wouldn't be writing about the need to become more righteous in our thoughts and words and deeds if I hadn't seen what Jesus taught his disciple’s to do. So taking this as my lead, I again revisit my secret sin as it is worked out in the various forms that I express it, as a result of the way the world and my own mind has shaped my understanding of it. I always look for a source for my secret battles. One lens that Jesus has illuminated in my understanding of the sin that is ever present in my life, reoccurs quite frequently in the Old Testament. This sin is termed as: the sins of the father.

This pattern of sin is described as generational sin, which is passed through the family using the philosophical perspective known as federal headship. Federal headship is a term that can be used to describe a group of independent states over which a central government is formed, as in a family where a man or father, is seen as the head of the household. Just as the President of the United States is the elected ‘head’ of America and is held responsible for its actions, and the captain of a ship is responsible in making sure that all of the passengers and crew get off a sinking ship before they do, we are responsible for acknowledging our sinful nature as descendants of Adam.

There are many references to this in: Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 5:9; Exodus 34:6-7. You may feel it unfair that we are held accountable for the wrongdoing of our father, but we do operate under his direction. It is for us to make a choice to turn from our sinful nature when we recognise it as present in our lives or to ignore, continue along that same pathway which we know leads to behaviours that are not pleasing to God. We all have a sense of moral law in knowing what is right and what is wrong. I know that there is a history of sin in my family line of which I can only testify to in my own struggles, yet I also know that I AM RESPONSIBLE for my own sin.

We know today that as descendants of Adam we have all sinned and haven fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We are in a covenant relationship with Jesus and need to choose to follow him. At the Passover meal, just after Jesus washed the disciple’s feet, Jesus broke bread and shared a cup of wine as the symbols of a new covenant where Jesus states that, 'whoever eats the bread and drinks from the cup, shall live in him and he in them' (John 6: 56). Our sin breaks this covenant and we are punished under the law when we step outside of this covenant relationship.

Remember too that at that Passover meal, Jesus knew that amongst the twelve, those who knew and understood Jesus intimately through their journey together, that there was one who would betray him. Jesus knew that in the heart of this one man, despite all that they had witnessed, and all that they had heard, this one man would reject God’s truth and betray Jesus’ trust: AND YET – Jesus, knowing this to be true, went along with the events that unfolded because it was his fathers will to do so and Jesus did what he saw his father doing.

I am convinced that Jesus knows all about this secret stuff that we do, no matter how we might want to internalise it or even rationalise it as part of our nature. Perhaps it is a reminder of our fallen nature so that we remain true to the one who rescues us? That we may learn to rely on the one we can trust to be faithful and just, until the time when Jesus returns to complete the work he has started within us. At that time we will receive new bodies and an eternal life where all that binds us here on earth is gloriously exonerated.

In the new covenant with Jesus, we enter into a relationship that is not dependent on the state that our heart is in, but is all about the one who saves. The Israelites in the wilderness were fed by Manna from heaven; sometimes called the bread of heaven (Exodus 16). This bread was daily and was not to be stored up, but gladly picked each day and the glory of it given back to God. If people got greedy and tried to store the manna, it would evaporate from the ground in the sun or soon grow maggots in the pots it was stored in.

In Jesus we find him referring back to this time in Exodus and turning it on its head: Jesus replied, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35) The people who heard this were following Jesus because of the miraculous things he was doing in healing the sick and standing up for the righteousness of the outcast against the backdrop of the Pharisees teaching. Jesus had previously fed these people on the mountain side, 5000 of them to be precise, with five loaves of bread and two fish. Yet when Jesus declares that he was the bread of life, these same people began to murmur, just as the Israelites murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

Their murmuring came about because of the focus of the peoples ‘life-lens’ or world view evident in verses 14 and 15: When the people saw him do this miraculous sign (feeding 5000 people), they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!” When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself. The people who had gathered to Jesus were following what they thought the Messiah would look like; they viewed Jesus through their interpretation of what the Pharisees taught them. 

Many believed the Pharisee’s teaching that the Messiah would come as a King to liberate the people from their Roman occupation, but when they were challenged by Jesus to demonstrate their faith by revealing his true purpose, the people stumble… “Isn't this Jesus, the son of Joseph? We know his father and mother. How can he say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”(v42).

The disciple’s faith in Jesus is also tested. First in feeding the 5000 people, Philip the disciple states that it would take months to earn enough money to feed them all! (v7) But Andrew… he had seen enough of the miracles that Jesus has performed to know that he could do something special with the five loaves and two fish. Later as the disciples are in the boat on the lake, after rowing to the middle, a ‘sudden’ storm erupted. Jesus walks out to them on the water in the midst of the storm and tells them not to be afraid; they gladly let Jesus into the boat and immediately they arrive at their destination! (v20)

So who is this man, the man from Nazareth whose parents they all knew, who could feed 5000 people and walk on water? Is he the real deal? Is he to be believed? At the point that Jesus states that he was the bread of life, many of the people rejected his testimony in spite of what they had seen and the food they had tasted. Later in John 6, even the disciples turn away from him. The trigger for this being what Jesus says in verse 47:

“I tell you the truth; anyone who believes has eternal life. Yes, I am the bread of life! Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”

(John 6: 47-51)

The test here is one of truth: Was this man, Jesus of Nazareth, the coming Messiah, or a prophet or a fraud? Was it too much for the people and even Jesus’ own disciples to accept that Jesus was who he says he is? The people got caught in their rationalisation of who Jesus was: he was the son of a carpenter – how on earth could eating his flesh bring us eternal life? – What a ridiculous idea – this is too hard for me to accept.

The people and some of Jesus’ disciples were unwilling to accept firstly that Jesus was the Son of Man with authority to forgive sin and grant eternal life, and secondly, they were unwilling to move beyond their limited rational thinking of what they knew in themselves to be true, to a wider faith based understanding of the truth of scripture. These truths were being fulfilled right before their very eyes, being illuminated by Jesus’ teaching and his actions, yet their lens was still out-of-focus.

In John 6:60 the disciples state that: “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?” To which there is only one answer – faith. We are not saved by what we have seen or experienced (witnessing the feeding of 5000 people or seeing Jesus walk on water), but in our understanding of who Jesus is and in our assurance of the truth. Our faith is demonstrated by what we choose to believe, and in our understanding of what Jesus had to do in order to redeem mankind. We do not just blindly accept this truth because we have been programmed to accept it, rather we enter into a deeper understanding of the purposes of God through our recognition of who Jesus is.

If we do not grasp who Jesus is, we will never understand his teaching, particularly when he speaks cryptically as in the following verses (62-65). Remember the disciples had not yet had it revealed to them that Jesus would be crucified on a cross as a curse (Galatians 3:13), and that he would become a ransom for the salvation of the world (Mark 10:45). Jesus demonstrates through his words and his action that he is more than qualified for the task.

The disciples are given a choice: Did they accept that the father works through Jesus and Jesus through the father? If you believe in this truth, are you prepared to move beyond the natural (Jesus born in Nazareth as a carpenter) to a position of acceptance in the promises of God (Jesus is the Son of God), evident in the life of Jesus, his death, and his resurrection?

God knows the condition of our hearts and the secrets that we hide away. How we respond to God when he shines his light into these parts of our lives to expose the darkness, is how we demonstrate our faith in what we know to be true. Jesus directly asks the closest of his disciples, the 12 whom he called, whether they believed in what he told them… Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” (v67). One of them, Simon Peter, speaks for all of them by confirming their faith in Jesus: “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.” (v68)

Do we truly believe…really? Even amongst the 12, Jesus knew that one of them harboured doubt: “I chose the twelve of you, but one is a devil.” (v70) As we each move closer to Jesus, more of our sin and doubt is exposed. We need to be assured of the truth of who Jesus truly is in order to endure the refining of our hearts through his grace. Can we as with Simon Peter say: "We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.” We believe (faith) and we know (truth).

We end with a more difficult part to this text. Jesus proclaims that God calls us to himself: “For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me…” (v44) - A kind of predestination. I mentioned earlier about Jesus talking cryptically in John 6:65; Then he said, “That is why I said that people can’t come to me unless the Father gives them to me.” I have always been a little uncomfortable with verses in scripture like this one. They seem to speak of some being chosen by God who accept the forgiveness of sin through his Son Jesus, and some that do not because God hadn't ordained it.

Our hearts have the capacity to show grace and mercy towards other people, while at the same time, it is capable of showing much malice and deceit. Similarly, we are each capable of accepting grace and mercy and equally capable of rejecting it. When we are challenged to choose life in Jesus, or accept the consequences of rejecting that new life in Jesus as shown in John 6, we each have to choose for ourselves what we want to believe. So where God calls us to his Son Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, we can still determine whether we are willing to accept that call or reject it – free will. We know the truth of Jesus but cannot accept it when it is right in front of our noses -Judas.

We cannot hide in the crowd as Judas did until the end, we have to be certain of the truth we have within us and be able to give an account like Simon Peter, of the hope that we have found in him. When Jesus asks you whether you choose to believe, what should be our response? The father who pleaded with Jesus to deliver his son from an evil spirit cried: “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

Sometimes I am like the boy’s father praying prayers like: “Lord take pity on me, if you can, take this sin from me.” - A prayer where it seems that I doubt what Jesus is even capable of or willing to deliver on... I have allowed my sin to rob me of the truth of my salvation and once again to re-examine my faith. Jesus seems exasperated in this expression: “You unbelieving generation” (v19), as though all that he has taught and all that he has shown through signs and wonders and ultimately, his death on the cross, were meaningless in revealing the authority of God over sin.

Will our unbelief in the one who saves us from our sin be like the seed that falls on stony ground where we have shallow roots and are overwhelmed in times of trouble, or will we be like the seed in the fertile soil? (Matthew 13:20-22)

When King David recognised his sin, as indeed with many of those who sought after God in the Old Testament, he would ‘rend’ or tear-off his clothes and pour on himself the dust from the earth as a symbol of the state at which he entered this world. He would seek the father’s heart trusting in his justice and laying prostrate before him in his remorse and grief.

So how do we approach Jesus? I know what I ought to do.