Category: Journeying with Jesus

John 11

Introduction

John follows his account of the murderous reaction of the Pharisees to Jesus’ claim to be God’s Son with a detailed record of possibly the most tender account of Jesus’ love he recorded while journeying with him.

This chapter is for anyone who finds themselves in an emotional or relationship death of any kind, suffering bereavement and needing to be lifted up into new life and hope. The love of Jesus recorded by John that was present in this situation, continues to be extended to all who reach out to be loved tenderly and securely by him in their crisis.

As I read this chapter, a tune arose automatically from my emotional memory bank that soothed me at a time of bereavement in my young life. Then some of its words surfaced in my consciousness as I hummed the tune:

There is no heart like the heart of Jesus,
Filled with a tender love;
No throb nor throw that our hearts can know,
But he feels it above.

Jesus’ love! precious love!
Boundless and pure and free!
Oh, turn to that love, weary wand’ring soul!
Jesus pleadeth for thee.[1]

In this account of journeying with Jesus, John describes in detail how Jesus gave tenderness and miraculous support to special friends grappling with the intense pain of bereavement. He records details of the empathy Jesus extended to the point of his tears, which he turned into positive steps to bring hope by creating life out of death.

This is a timeless account that has since brought millions out of their despair into the new hope of trustworthy acceptance and love by their Creator. John has recorded it to broaden and deepen our trust in the identity of Jesus. A core quality of that identity is a cherishing love that seeks to lift every wounded person out of their despair to renewed wholeness.

The situation

John introduces the situation recorded in Chapter 11 with an economy of words:

1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

In short,

  1. A man is sick.
  2. He has a sister Mary (known for performing a major act of love towards Jesus anointing him with perfumed oil equivalent to a year’s worth of earnings).
  3. Word is sent by the man’s sisters to Jesus that the one he loves is sick.

John does not go into details about the nature of the sickness of Lazarus other than choosing to use a word that indicated that he was in a feeble state (wasting away and without strength)[2]. Instead, John identifies Lazarus by his location and his sister. She subsequently carried out a sacrificial, public act of devotion to Jesus. Clearly her act of love had impacted John, because although it happened later in his journey with Jesus (John 12), he can’t resist referring to it when relating this earlier event. John even identifies Bethany in association with Mary. He then records the words of a message the sisters sent to Jesus about their brother Lazarus.

  1. They address Jesus with the highest respect[3].
  2. They experience a familial love with him. They describe their brother as being loved demonstrably by Jesus with the warm affection of intimate friendship[4]. They were like a family to Jesus, who went to Bethany at critical moments of his life, e.g., in the final week before his crucifixion that followed his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Thus, from the beginning of this account, John captures a scene of love that continues throughout.

Its higher purpose

John prefaces the rest of his account of the sickness of Lazarus with its higher purpose as immediately revealed by Jesus when informed of the situation.

4 When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it."

This statement is clear and forthright. Jesus re-framed Lazarus’ common human experience of sickness as having a divine purpose. This would not have been foreign for John and other disciples to hear from Jesus, because he had only recently heard Jesus restoring the dignity of the man blind from birth by assuring him that his blindness was not due to his or his parents’ sin but rather for the higher purpose of being used by Jesus to illustrate that he was the spiritual light of the world, e.g.,

"For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." (9:39)

In this case, the sickness of his friend Lazarus was occurring specifically so that Jesus may be glorified as God’s Son in the aftermath of the Pharisees’ recent rejection and extreme attack on his identity as the son of God. They had tried to stone him and later capture him. (10:31,39)

The chosen means of bringing glory to Jesus as God’s Son would need to be dramatic and measurable, so no doubts about his divine identity could remain in the mind of the objective observer. Consequently, Lazurus would need to live, and Jesus would need to be seen to intervene miraculously in his death.

Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death….

Jesus alerts his disciples that death at this stage would not be the ending of Lazarus’ story. Instead, Jesus would be glorified by showing his control over Lazarus’ death and life, thereby validating his claim to be God’s Son. The Pharisees would be silenced.

Preparation of the miracle

The love

John prefaces his account of how Jesus responded to the news about his friend Lazarus with another mention of Jesus’ love for this Bethany family.

5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

At this point, to describe the love of Jesus for Lazarus and his siblings, John moves beyond a social friendship love to a quality of love that is devoted, sacrificial, wholehearted, and unconditional. He uses the word for love used throughout the New Testament for God’s love for his Son, Jesus’ love for his Father, and their love for each of their redeemed family. It is the quality of love described by Jesus in his specification of the greatest of all commandments, viz., to love: 1) God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and 2) our neighbour as ourself.

Jesus loved the Bethany family with this quality of divine love existing between the Father and the Son that he later commanded his disciples to perpetuate, which John sought to do in this account of the resurrection of Lazarus.

The delay

Surprisingly, even though Jesus had a devoted love for Lazarus and his family, he did not immediately rush to their aid with his healing powers. He did not even immediately heal Lazarus from a distance, as he had previously demonstrated he could do by remotely healing a centurion’s paralysed servant (Matthew 8:13). Instead, he delayed.

6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days,

Why the delay? Various reasons could be given. The most likely answer, however, must be found in what Jesus had already signalled as the contextual reason for his delay.

"…it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it." (v. 4)

This ultimate reason to act for his Father’s glory would eclipse any other. Later in John’s record it becomes clear how the delay would be used to enhance God’s glory.

This explanation by Jesus highlights the need for me to test at the beginning of each day whether my goal for that day is to glorify God or myself in all I have planned to do. It only takes a little time to reflect and test what is in our heart driving choices in our planning for the day and execution of it. "Father, may I stay alert to glorifying you through every encounter and motivation today. Go with me in Spirit to glorify yourself and your Son. Convict me whenever I obviously or subtly seek to draw attention to myself."

Jesus was prepared to go and face danger with the timing that glorified both his Father and himself.

7 and then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea." 8 "But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?" 9 Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. 10 It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light."

Seeking glory

The constant frame of mind of Jesus governing his daily interactions was,

"I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge." (8:50)

Mankind’s history is full of the endless pain caused by seeking glory for oneself.

"If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me". (8:54)

The Father always has his timing to glorify his servant with his praise. Jesus listened for the timing.

He resisted the enthusiasm of his mother wanting him to do a miracle by stating, "my time has not yet come", because he followed his Father’s plan for revealing his divine identity. (John 2:4) He resisted his brothers’ pushy attempts to enhance his popularity by going to the Feast of Tabernacles to perform more miracles. Instead, he went in his Father’s timing rather than his earthly family’s timing. (John 7:10) For the sake of our salvation, he resisted the goading of the Pharisees to prove he was the Son of God and come down off his cross, before he had completed suffering the penalty for every sin of mankind. (Matthew 27:43)

19 Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. (John 5:19)

His Father always drove the timing in his life, and Jesus kept his eyes and his heart on it. Likewise, he wants to drive the timing of every life according to his plan for it. His productive disciples learn to keep their eyes and heart on it.

The lesson

11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."

12 His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

At this juncture, Jesus proceeds to explain clearly a second reason for his deliberate delay in responding to the cry for help from Mary and Martha. This reason is a purpose higher than an aging close friend’s terminal sickness. The reason is a lesson that is the Father’s heart for every seeker of truth.

14 So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

The Father’s and the Son’s heart for these learning disciples was for them to believe.

"Believe what?" – believe in the saving divine identity of Jesus. That was the goal of Jesus for his disciples that drove his delay set by his Father.

Many since have believed in the saving identity of Jesus. There is, however, a wide variety of beliefs in Jesus, all influenced by the footprints of relationships, successes and failures over a person’s lifetime. As a result, beliefs can be mystical, emotional responses to positive and negative family and social inputs, some based on various historical or contemporary studies, some on a belief in the Bible as divine revelation etc.

For each of us, what we believe will vary over a lifetime as our perspective of life changes under the influence of our relationships. Depending on our emotional condition, what we believe about God and Jesus may change. We can feel strong one day and distant the next. We may feel during one phase of our life close to God and seek spiritual interaction with others. Yet during a time of trial, feel that God has no interest in us and look to other sources for satisfaction. Those sources can vary and in turn bring changes to what we believe about the saving identity of Jesus.

"Believe how?" is therefore a more pertinent question to ask to understand the reason for Jesus delaying his journey to Bethany. How did he want them to believe? He needed them to believe without a doubt in his divine identity and power, in order to trust their whole life to him and embrace the need to expand his mission to the ends of the earth. At a future time, each one of them would be tasked to present his divine identity unequivocably in the face of the opposition they were already seeing mounted against him. In the future, they each would die for preaching the certainty of the deity of Jesus as the Son of God, his essential sacrifice for the sins of every individual, and his promise of the Spirit of God to live within any person who entrusts their life to his control. That is "how" Jesus needed them to believe.

Therefore, Jesus delayed rushing to the side of Lazarus so that his disciples’ faith in him would be deepened and broadened to the maturity needed to continue his mission after his departure, as witnesses of him and teachers of those who would also choose to become his disciples and continue his mission with no dilution of its message. As history shows, his disciples did not resile from obeying his command to witness faithfully to his identity and call to trust in him as their only Saviour in the face of all opposition and distractions. His delay to go to Lazarus had the desired effect in equipping them to spread the message of him throughout their world. As a consequence, today we are beneficiaries of the delay of Jesus to go to Lazarus. John recorded this event so that we might read it and join those who trust in Jesus without a doubt to receive his eternal life.

Hesitation?

16 Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

Was this a cynical comment of Thomas, or an expression of deeply felt commitment to follow Jesus to the point of death? Certainly, the later death of Jesus hit Thomas so hard that he could not believe in the news of his resurrection.

The arrival

The situation

17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.

Lazarus was certainly dead. The delay had stretched his time in the tomb before the arrival of Jesus to four days. Thought of any recovery from sickness had well and truly gone. His body was now in the phase of protein breakdown called putrefaction that releases pungent odours like hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide and natural gas found in sewers. Rigor mortis would also have begun to set in. Even the most antagonistic critic of Jesus could not deny with any credibility that a staggering miracle had occurred to reverse this stage of the decaying process and restore Lazarus back to full health. The Pharisees in particular could not deny such a miracle that was about to be witnessed by many devout Jews from Jerusalem.

18 Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother.

These visitors were not impartial. They were invested in the welfare of Mary and Martha to the point of walking two miles to comfort them. Their presence counteracted that of the Pharisees on the hunt for their next opportunity to incriminate and capture Jesus "the blasphemer". Their presence silenced the Pharisees, who could not deny with any authenticity a public miracle that instantly reversed the process of death.

Accordingly, the Pharisees’ resistance to Jesus would now have to move tactically from deny to destroy.

The meeting

20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. 21 "Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died".

The delay from Jesus was met by a delay from Mary. She must have had a good reason to stay at home given her love for Jesus. For example, Mary and Martha may have planned to meet their friend in that sequence and location according to their state of bereavement.

The faith of Martha

Martha’s greeting of Jesus has no initial pleasantries or expression of appreciation for coming at their time of bereavement. She makes a direct statement of faith, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died".

It could be transliterated,

"If you, the eternally-present I AM of our nation, had been PRESENT here, my brother would not have died off".

Is her leading statement a veiled complaint of Jesus taking his time to respond to their urgent message to him? Or does Martha seem to have the proximity of the I AM associated with the probability of a miracle? Had she not heard of the remote healing of the centurion’s son from a distance? Martha seems to be saying, "If you Jesus had been present, a miracle to prevent death would have been possible". Martha then seems to modify her statement with an afterthought of faith,

22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."

In other words, "Even though I know my brother is well and truly dead after four days, when I consider how you have demonstrated your relationship with God in past miracles, I believe that if you ask God for his life to be renewed, God will do it for you as his Son."

Martha certainly had no doubts about the identity of Jesus relative to the God of her Jewish faith, nor the many miraculous answers by God in the past to his kings and prophets. She had plenty of evidence to give her confidence for any miracle requested by Jesus to be done.

The response of Jesus

23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

Jesus’ response left room for interpretation, and Martha gave her interpretation as far as the understanding of her faith would take her as a product of her teaching since a child.

24 Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."[5]

Jesus takes Martha’s declared belief and gives it further content for her to understand the scope of his role as the Son of God and to expand her trust in him.

25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

Did she believe she would never die? What about her brother Lazarus? He trusted Jesus. He has undoubtedly died. What kind of death is Jesus talking about?

Her response is a clear statement of her belief in the identity of Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, but she makes no comment on Jesus being resurrection and life, regardless of how she understood what he was saying.

27 "Yes, Lord," she replied, "I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world."

However, that is not what Jesus asked from her.

"…whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

To believe that her brother Lazarus would never die, even though he trusted in his close friend Jesus, was certainly not true. He was dead. For Martha to test if she believed his promise for herself required a more thoughtful assessment of her faith in what Jesus promised, because it unearthed what she could believe from him about her personal destiny. This challenge of Jesus to Martha is timeless, because resurrection ushers in timelessness for any person who is resurrected. Because it is timeless, it stands today for every person to confront. Do I believe that I will never die because I put my trust in Jesus and his words? Do I certainly? Do I confidently?

How then is Jesus the resurrection? How is he the life? He is the initiator of my resurrection. His Spirit becomes my life, and because he does, I will never die. Do you believe this?

The faith of Mary

28 After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you." 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

Mary’s spontaneous words, as she fell at the feet of Jesus in front of the small number of comforters who had followed her, were identical to her sister’s. Was that a coincidence, or was it the result of them both hanging onto this hope every minute that their dying brother edged closer to his death, while waiting for Jesus to arrive? Had they been affirming this hope to each other repeatedly almost like a mantra to bolster their faith every minute as the minutes dragged by? The sisters certainly manifested the same belief. Jesus, however, was being confronted with more than a repeated belief in him. Now the tears of heightened emotions confronted him.

33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

The impact on Jesus of Mary’s sobbing and the wailing of her comforters was dramatic and easily seen by John[6]. He describes Jesus as having deep emotional agitation to the extent of audible groaning[7]. He was deeply moved, much more than offering the courteous sympathy often shown by mourners. His reaction could have been indignation at the attacks of Satan on his close friends. Whatever the case, Jesus was stirred to action by his troubled spirit.

34 "Where have you laid him?" he asked.

"Come and see, Lord," they replied.

The compassion of Jesus

35 Jesus wept.

The brevity of John’s statement magnifies the impact on him of seeing the tears of Jesus. Was he caught off guard? There would have been more than the odd tear for John to notice. He describes the reaction of Jesus to Mary’s grief as a silent flow of tears, in dramatic contrast to the tearless bemoaning or wailing that can overtake some mourners at a funeral.8 Nevertheless, Jesus identified with Mary fully. His silent tears joined hers and gave more comfort than any words could have. They pointed forward to a later vision given to John concerning God the Father motivated by compassion to raise his followers to full dignity from their earthly state.

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true". (Revelation 21:3-4)

The resurrection of Lazarus by Jesus validates that they are. We have each shed many tears since the first day of our life and continue to do so whenever the suffering of loved ones or strangers hits our hearts and compassion swells up. Tears are shed through life’s journey over regretful wrongs we have done and can’t reverse except to ask forgiveness. Fortunately, the compassion that leads us to forgiveness and restoration is a constant state of God the Father, even when having to discipline our wanderings into sin.

"For a brief moment I abandoned you,
but with deep compassion I will bring you back".
In a surge of anger
I hid my face from you for a moment,
but with everlasting kindness
I will have compassion on you,"
says the Lord your Redeemer.
(Isaiah 54:7)

The Father God of compassion is always ready to call the wanderer back to his heart and to the riches of the fullness of life to be found in his Presence. The tears of his Son Jesus that flowed for Mary, Martha and Lazarus in their sorrow still flow originating in the Father’s heart. They are evidence of the tender heart of God seeking to offer eternal life to all. Nevertheless, the response of many to the sacrificial death of his Son Jesus is to turn their faces in the opposite direction, despise him, not care, and continue with their destructive sin. This is not just a contemporary behaviour. It began in the Garden of Eden and was present at the crucifixion.

He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. (Isaiah 53:3)

A majority still do not.

The boundary of faith

36 Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"

It was not only John who saw the tears and took note. So too did the Jewish establishment.

37 But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"

Yes, he could have. There was no boundary to his power, but it was not his plan. Jesus was focused on something greater than preventing death, viz., he was looking forward to the higher purpose of giving life so that millions in the centuries that followed would trust in his desire and power to overcome any trial and gift us with eternal life.

The resurrection

38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

John must have been following Jesus closely as they walked to the tomb, because he observed again the depth of Jesus’ emotions describing them as a sighing with strong vexation or melancholy.[8]

Lazarus had been buried in a cave, which was a common practice in first-century Judea, sealing them with a disk-shaped stone, to convert the cave into a tomb.[9]

39 "Take away the stone," he said. "But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days."

Note the comment on verse 17 previously made on the state of the corpse of Lazarus. Putrefaction would have been well set in creating a strong odour. When physical realities are clear, the number of disciples who continue to believe in a miracles drops dramatically to just a few. The faith of Martha was at a tipping point.

40 Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?"

Our trust in the identity of Jesus wavers depending on how we assess the possibility or impossibility him being able to perform a miracle we need. As we have noted, Martha was well aware of the likely state of her brother’s corpse after four days of death. Jesus expressed the likelihood of her believing in him bringing Lazarus back to life by using a subjunctive future tense,

"…if you should happen to believe…"

He recognised that Martha’s trust in him to bring her brother back to life was not guaranteed. He did not impose any expectation upon her to meet the benchmark of believing without a doubt that he had both the desire and capability to bring her brother back to life. He did, however, state the certainty of God revealing his glory for the person who does believe in him.

"…if you should happen to believe, you will see the glory of God."

This is the cause and effect operation of God’s love. We believe in him. He responds with the best loving action always.

With confidence in the love of Jesus restored, they obeyed his request.

41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."

Jesus responds with a physically demonstrated purposeful prayer. Firstly, he looks upward. Then he addresses his Father. His upwards orientation could have been demonstrating his submission to his Father or the Father’s location being in the heavens. Either way, John noticed.

Jesus begins by thanking his Father for hearing his prayer. We often hear a person listening to another say, "I hear you" to assure them that they empathise with them in their situation.

"Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me…"

The relationship between the Father and the Son was strongly empathetic. The Son loved the Father and listened for his instructions and timing in fulfilling his commands. He had already described that dynamic between them. (John 5:19; 8:29)

The Father loved his Son and listened closely to his expressed desires. Jesus knew this relationship reality from his experience of the oneness with the Father from eternity past into this present moment.

42 I knew[10] that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here…"

The purpose of his prayer of gratitude to the Father is not for personal benefit but public.

…that they may believe that you sent me.

Every miraculous work of Jesus before and since has been intended as evidence of his eternally divine identity. Every miraculous work we can observe in the created order has been done by him so that we might believe (trust) in him. That is why any rejection of him in the face of his amazing works of creation is without excuse[11]. Those who die in that state will not have a leg to stand on when they stand before him in judgement.

On this occasion, Jesus is about to perform a miracle of control over nature that only God could perform. In the face of the Pharisees’ declared objection to his claim to be the Son of God, which had set them on their justified path of seeking to kill him, Jesus needed to make clear that he and his Father God worked in unity in the control of life and death. With this public prayer, Jesus opened a window into his relationship with the Father for us to look through. Now was the time to demonstrate the power of that eternal relationship! All the details provided by John were intended to build to this moment. With the Jerusalem mourners’ anticipation running high, any religious leaders present ready to pounce, Mary and Martha in deep grief, yet still trusting in the power and comfort of Jesus, he yells out in a booming voice,

43 "Lazarus, come out!"

44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."

Jesus completes the resurrection with a command to those in attendance, who had sufficient love for Lazarus and his sisters to take time off to comfort them in their grief.

Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."

This last step was critical. Jesus brought Lazarus back to life. Others had to set him free. Symbolically, this is the final task to complete every spiritual resurrection.

Many come to Jesus bound and have been isolated in their self-made cave for a significant time. In that state, we can lose sight of any balanced view of who we are. Negative emotions bind us up and attack our sense of worth. All confidence in any self-worth slowly drains away. Then we hear the voice of Jesus calling us with his love. We reach out and trust him with our life. Then he comes to us physically in those who love him and embraces us with his love in tangible ways. We join in their gatherings to love Jesus and one another. We become renewed in community with all our grave clothes gone. We are free to connect with confidence to live again as the unique creation intended by God.

Split impact

Belief

This undeniable and dramatic resurrection with many observers caused two different responses, as has always been the case with any work of God throughout history. In some, God’s work leads to belief (trust) in him.

45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

Hostility

In others, God’s work, even when presented in the context of love, builds defensiveness of varying degrees, which often targets the message bearer with some expression of hostility ranging from avoidance to scheming how to denigrate and silence them. In others, the demonstration of God’s power leads to the intent to kill. Behind all resistance to the work of God is a self-centred pride that will not let go of the control of its environment and will attack any attempt to reduce it. The very public resurrection of Lazarus flushed out this degree of pride in the religious hierarchy.

46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

The resurrection of Lazarus brought to a head the religious hierarchy’s fear of losing its control over their nation. It created a major turning point in their determination to kill Jesus.

Fear

"What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation."

John does not record the rationale they used to make that conclusion, but it is clearly fear- driven, even if it is an exaggeration. The miracles of Jesus were not centred in the Temple. Removing it would not stop his miracles, which would have been immediately evident to any Roman suggesting they should demolish the Temple. Removing it would, however, immediately dispense with the need for the Pharisees. Losing their income and identity would cause them to justify whatever was needed to protect it. That is why Caiaphas had an instantly receptive audience willing to contemplate murder, even though they were appointed to be guardians of the whole Law that forbade murder.

Expediency

49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better[12] for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."

Caiaphas overrides the Law with expediency. He is the controlling pragmatist at heart and mocks his colleagues for being so slow coming to the conclusion of the need to remove Jesus by any means, even if that is murder, which collides with the Law they are supposed to teach, guard and demonstrate.

…it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."

Prophecy

Caiaphas was focused on expediency and shaming his colleagues into action to get rid of Jesus once and for all. The word used by him for expedient action, however, also has the meaning "to bring together." Based on these variations of use, John inserts an editorial comment to interpret the rebuke by Caiaphas,

51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.

He interprets that, unbeknown to Caiaphas, he was advocating more than expediency. He was simultaneously heralding more than the death of Jesus. He was also prophesying the beginning a new era of people drawn together by the Spirit of God from all nations as his children to into one fellowship.

Death plan

53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

54 Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.

Again, Jesus makes himself scarce because his time had not yet come in his Father’s plan for him to give his life for the sins of the world.

55 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. 56 They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple courts they asked one another, "What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the festival at all?"

57 But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was should report it so that they might arrest him.

  1. Theodore Perkins (1831-1912) ↩︎

  2. John describes the condition of sickness as astheneó which is to be feeble in any sense. He gives no more details. ↩︎

  3. They greeted Jesus as kurios to denote supreme authority. Kurios is derived from kuros (supremacy). The sisters did not see Jesus as an ordinary man but as a controller of life.. ↩︎

  4. The sisters use the term phileó denoting personal attachment with sentiment and feeling rather than the term agapao used for expressions of love that operate from the will as a matter of principle. ↩︎

  5. Martha was likely raised by Lazarus in the Jewish faith of the time, which was influenced by apocalyptic literature pointing to end times of the age, e.g., Daniel 7-12, Isaiah 25:6-8; 26:19; 35:8-10 ↩︎

  6. To describe the weeping John chooses to use the word κλαίω (klaó) meaning to sob, i.e., wail aloud ↩︎

  7. John describes the reaction of Jesus with the powerful word ἐμβριμάομαι (embrimaomai), which originated from brimaomai meaning to snort with anger and indignation, groan audibly with melancholy and vexation. John couples it with ταράσσω (tarassó), which means to agitate back-and-forth, and therefore figuratively to become stirred up inside from emotional agitation. ↩︎

  8. Embrimaomai meaning to sigh with chagrin. ↩︎

  9. Jesus later had a similar burial in the cave provided by Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy member of the Sanhedrin ruling Israel at the time. ↩︎

  10. Jesus signals that experiential knowledge from the long past by using the pluperfect tense ↩︎

  11. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20) ↩︎

  12. Συμφέρω (sum-pher-o) to bring together, be expedient for, be profitable for ↩︎

John 10

Introduction

In this chapter, John continues his interaction between Jesus and the authoritarian Pharisees recorded in Chapter 9. Now he records the shift in Jesus becoming direct and emphatic with them. Now was the time for Jesus to do so in his journey to the Cross.

1 Very truly I tell you Pharisees…

"In other words, pay special attention to what I am about to tell you because it is authentic truth… "

Jesus is about to use a lengthy metaphor to frame the truth about their intentions as religious leaders, who had just disenfranchised the healed blind man with their self-righteous bullying. Their goal of control was more precious to them than Jesus’ goal of healing love. The metaphor contrasts the behaviour of a shepherd caring for his vulnerable flock of sheep with that of others who would do them harm. Jesus introduced it at a time that the Pharisees were split in their assessment of Jesus.

16 Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath." But others asked, "How can a sinner perform such signs?"

So they were divided. (9:16)

Just as the interaction of the Pharisees with Jesus had reached a crisis point, ours does also. We all come to a time of life development when Jesus confronts us head-on with the truth about the life affections we are choosing that are dividing, diminishing and displacing his desires for our life built on his truth and not deceptions. To whose "truths" am I submitted?

The timed confrontation of us by Jesus is a critical moment, after which we can never be the same again. When we hear Jesus confront us with his call to trust and follow him, this becomes a life turning point. However and whenever that comes, we face the most important decision we will ever face for our life on earth and forever.

Hence, we need to be honest with our self-assessment, "Have I heard that call, and how did I respond?" I urge you to stop and think about it. His call can never be distorted, minimised or trivialised without effecting our eternal destiny. That is a bold statement to make. Is it true? Where can one turn in the last moments of life after rejecting the Creator Jesus throughout one’s, through whom all things were made that have been made? (1:3) Calling out to our Creator expecting his favourable response immediately to address our need is equivalent to hailing a taxi expecting instant service on our terms. The created cannot control their Creator and make him jump to their agenda of what they want and when.

Jesus had not confronted the Pharisees’ behaviour at the Feast of Tabernacles until now, even though they had aggressively shut down freedom of expression at the holiday event with threats of banishment for any Jew who interacted with him, should he come. Their plan was to kill him. They blanketed the Feast with fear of having any perceived association with Jesus as they searched for him among the attendees. Their strategy was to maintain their popularity and authority, and squash his threatening claim of deity by removing Jesus from the populace, just as they had John the Baptist.

Jesus, however, caught them off-guard with an ‘attention-grabber’ for the Festival crowds that the Pharisees could not have predicted. He healed the sight of a vocal, middle aged man, who had been blind from birth. Who could ignore or upstage that? The Festival attendees could not ignore it, and the Pharisees could not upstage it. Furthermore, the healed man was not going to let them brush him aside. His response was vocal, public and irrepressible. Yes, Jesus had arrived unmistakably at the Festival, and in miraculous style!

How did the Pharisees handle this critical moment? What do we learn observing them?

The treatment of the healed blind man by the Pharisees and later by Jesus stood in stark contrast. The Pharisees threw the healed man out of the Temple to disenfranchise him as a Jew. They had to sever any and every association of Judaism with Jesus, the "Messianic imposter", and with his spectacular healing miracles. They attempted to strip the healed man’s identity as a Jew. Other Jews present in the Temple at the time would have known it and spread the word. The Pharisees considered the healed blind man no longer qualified for religious association with the God of Moses. A bizarre and unsustainable rejection!

Whereas in contrast, Jesus sought out the healed blind man, in order to bring him to self-awareness of his full acceptance as a child of God. The Pharisees showed they were driven by their own self-interests and would use their power to strengthen their authority by robbing the status of anyone. Jesus, on the other hand, demonstrated that his love for the healed man went beyond his spectacular physical healing to the affirmation and full acceptance of the healed man’s whole identity by God. Jesus assured him that His blindness was not caused by the sin of his parents or himself.

3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

Jesus affirmed that the man was born blind to demonstrate the higher purpose of God’s plan for humanity only to be seen in him. He is the light that enlightens our world. Jesus seeks out every individual for the same reasons as he did the healed man:

  1. to help us discover our full identity conceived by God before creation, and
  2. to understand that God created us for an exalted purpose chosen by him to be carried out during our lifetime.

Jesus sought out the healed blind man to complete such an understanding of the fullness of the love of God for him. He gave the healed man a whole new understanding of his pre-planned exalted identity. He was to become a living simile of Jesus’ claim to be the light of the world.

The healing of this middle-aged blind man centuries ago continues to beckon each person today to seek Jesus to enlighten their life by shining his light into their every situation and relationship. There is no greater need for the world today than for each person to see Jesus as the light for their world and have their plans and affections enlightened by him and aligned with him. The question is, "How will our ego handle our emotional reactions and consequential choices in life when confronted by Jesus shining his light into our whole person?" His light is pure light! It cannot mix with darkness clothed in moral compromise of any kind or with any other fraudulent fabricated god.

What a stark contrast for the healed blind man having just been discarded by the Pharisees as conniving thieves and robbers of what remained of his life in Jewish society! With no sign of a conscience, they plundered the defenceless healed man of his newly found dignity. All sizes and shapes of religious and community leaders ever since have plundered countless thousands of seekers of a higher life. Jesus came looking for him as his sheep to secure him in his sheep pen with his other sheep. That is where each of us belong.

John followed, listened and watched this restoration journey of the healed blind man with Jesus and recorded it as he had done so with previous encounters.

The Shepherd and his sheep metaphor

Jesus used an extended metaphor to restore the dignity of the healed blind man built around the role of a shepherd with his sheep. The metaphor compares the role of Jesus, as a good shepherd, with the behaviour of the Pharisees as robbers of life, and how true followers of God recognise him and follow him wherever he journeys by listening to his voice, just like John was doing and the healed blind man could.

1 "Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the hep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

This is the beginning of a touching and highly relational lengthy metaphor of a shepherd’s care for his sheep in a hostile environment. It presents timeless truth. John hints at a potential reason Jesus used it to expand his confrontation of the Pharisees, viz., they were blind to the symbolism behind its main identities and their behaviours. Understanding it was beyond the realm of their spiritual capability as official teachers of their religion. Tragically, they did not have a clue what Jesus was talking about! They did not see themselves, the healed blind man, nor Jesus in the metaphor of a sheep pen with sheep, thieves, robbers, a shepherd, gatekeeper, gate, and voice. It probably sounded like jibberish and having nothing to do with their attempts to clarify how a blind man could now see. Nevertheless, most likely Jesus did not want to place before the Pharisees a clear presentation of the path to healing and salvation, because they would twist and demean it for their own ends.

Why so? Because their plan to capture and crucify Jesus was still very active. They were on an adversarial path with their power ambitions and not a welcoming and serving path. They could not allow his demonstrations of deity, or any claims of it, to reach, distract and diminish their power-base of devout adherents. They were not ready in any way to entertain the possibility of Jesus being divine and submit to him. They had wilfully positioned themselves as the enemy. That continues to be the chosen position of many opposed to any involvement with Jesus. He would not open up to such rigid wills and scheming minds his priceless way of salvation, which he would establish one day at great personal cost on a Roman Cross, while his enemies stood by mocking in their ignorance, assuming they had achieved their goal of his annihilation. These were intelligent leaders who had become fools. They had no answer to his resurrection and ascension 40 days later.

The path of salvation still remains unseen to those who place their ego interests above those of God, and criticize his works, and therefore his identity, privately in their mind or publicly. If we can’t see the path of salvation clearly provided by Jesus, we need to examine our ego. Such persons commonly consider that God’s plans are not good enough for them and reject Him. That is a dangerous place to be. It is the stance of a fool.

Therefore, it is life-critical for each one of us to reflect honestly on our current attitudes when standing figuratively with a meditative posture before the Cross. Otherwise, we will never see the spiritual collision that occurred there for us between good and evil, God and Satan. This collision continues in our present as we choose our personal orientation to what happened there, but now the collision continues within us on our journey in life.

The Sheep Pen

1 "Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.

This was country speaking to city in Jerusalem. Jesus was from country Galilee. He knew about the domestication of sheep across the Middle East and how shepherds fed and protected them to gain income from their sale for food, textiles, sacrifices, and more. Sheep had become so central to daily life that both gods and kings were often referred to as shepherds.

The Festival crowd could relate instantly to the image of a sheep pen with walls built of rocks and a narrow gate access where the shepherd would lie down for his night’s sleep to protect his investment in the flock he nurtured. Because the shepherd slept at the entrance of the pen to protect his sheep, thieves and robbers had to climb in another way.

Some flocks were large enough to support a gatekeeper. In this case, the gatekeeper controlled who had access to the pen. He kept the gate closed to anyone he suspected as wanting to harm or steal the sheep. When the shepherd arrived, he gave him direct access to his flock.

2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice

The Voice

Jesus used this metaphor to enable the devout Jews to understand the listening relationship he wanted with them and compare it with the current status of the relationship they had with the Pharisees.

The central measure of our relationship with Jesus is our response to his voice. It is not how consistently we carry out religious rituals led by religious leaders, while our will is closed tight to any challenge of love and honesty that his Voice is beckoning us to address. A closed will cannot hear the beckoning Voice of love and is not listening for it, e.g., a closed will that refuses to extend forgiveness to another person. What is the posture of my will towards the Voice of Jesus? Openness or closedness?

"He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice."

Myriads of voices run continually through our minds like a river, or like a boisterous parade that drowns out any gentle voice. Therefore we each have to learn how to stop and observe the voices constantly vying for our attention and obedience.

What voices in your head are drowning out the voice of the Good Shepherd? Have you ever heard the Voice of Jesus pierce to the depth of your being and interrupt the continual flow of other voices? It does not come through a megaphone on a high place reaching as many as possible. It usually does not come through our ears. Instead we hear it come clearly from deep within. We instantly know it is not the voice of our conscience, which we may have suppressed too often to become distorted, or weak and ineffective. The Voice of the Spirit of Jesus is stronger and more certain than that. When we hear it, we immediately know it is him calling us to change our direction and follow him into making him known to those persons he knows are also open to hear his Voice, trust him and follow.

…and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

We embark on listening for his Voice speaking through meditation in our circumstances, through his words in the Bible, a hymn, or a teaching from a chosen teacher of his. The more we follow this Voice, the quicker we recognise Satan’s voice in its many forms beckoning us to try out an alternative appealing path, just like he lured Eve with promised rewards. If we have disciplined our time to listen regularly to the Voice of Jesus, we quickly recognise Satan’s luring voice, and quickly dismiss it. Jesus states it this way,

5 "But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice."

The Pharisees were listening to a competing voice with its objective to kill Jesus. They could not recognise his Voice, while they clasped their objective to kill him. Consequently, the metaphor of the Shepherd was meaningless to them.

6 The Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

They could not see themselves as the thieves and robbers in the metaphor seeking to capture for their own sake the devotion of as many of their race as possible.

The Gate

Jesus now expands on his metaphor from a different perspective. In his first iteration of the metaphor, he is the shepherd who has a gate keeper controlling who can enter the pen of the sheep. In this second iteration, Jesus describes himself as the gate providing a secure two-way access for the sheep to find safety in the pen when needed, and food in the pastures outside of the pen for timely sustenance when needed.

7 Therefore Jesus said again, "Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them.

9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Jesus now makes his purpose clear. He has come not merely to give spiritual life to us who are incapacitated in sin from birth. He has come to give us the full measure of his life, which we can live to the full. Incredible!

The person who hears the Voice of Jesus, and who welcomes, trusts and obeys it, lives a life filled with the qualities of life which Jesus displayed continuously in the face of great opposition. Those qualities as observed by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in their biographies of Jesus are: love, joy, peace, patience, forgiveness, meekness, gentleness and self-control. Because these qualities of life are the very life of Jesus, they are dynamic and not static. They collectively describe the quality of life displayed by Jesus. They are destined to enrich us forever. No amount of money can buy them, but Jesus offers them freely to the person who hears his Voice and follows him with full trust and obedience.

For our own sake, therefore, it is imperative that we stop and consider the honest answer to the question, "Have I heard this Voice of Jesus and now have his life energising me and directing me to the full? Have I entered into salvation through Jesus the gate? Or is my life governed by a myriad of other voices and my own that have crowded out any capacity to hear the Voice of Jesus? What certainty are those voices giving me for my future in this life and the nature of my future ever-lasting destiny?"

The Good Shepherd

Now Jesus moves into a third iteration of his metaphor focusing on how he protects those who follow him as their Shepherd.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

Jesus presents himself as a shepherd who will go to maximum limits to protect his flock of sheep. He wants every sheep to know that, from the strongest to the weakest. Accordingly, Jesus states clearly the extent to which he is prepared to go as a shepherd to protect the sheep in his flock.

11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

How would the Pharisees and other listeners understood this statement? They would have been familiar with the everyday use of the word Jesus used for laying down.[1] It was used to describe intentional acts of placing or laying down an object in a precise position, such as:

  • in home decoration, e.g., placing a lamp on a stand for visibility and not under a bed (Luke 8:16);
  • for comfort e.g., Jesus placing children in his arms and blessing them (Mark 10:16);
  • placing prisoners in detention to protect the general public (Acts 12:4);
  • placing the sick on cots in strategic places hoping Peter’s shadow would touch and heal them as he passed by (Acts 5:15);
  • laying aside the dead until buried (Mark 15:47);
  • permanently laying the dead to rest (Matthew 27:60).

There are many ways a person can choose to lay down their life for another as an act of serving them. The Daily News coverage provides a range of examples from the actions of various government servants doing their job such as family carers. police, firefighters, and young people choosing to place themself in the dangers of war to protect the masses at home and be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice of their own life for the sake of another.

Was Jesus foreshadowing the ultimate sacrifice he later made on the Cross for his sheep? He may have been. Was he signalling to the Pharisees how far he was prepared to go in challenging their status quo to bring salvation to many, just as prophesied in their scriptures? Did any of them consider that he was staring down their plan to kill him?

Ownership

Jesus further clarifies his use of "laying down his life" by illustrating with the vivid example of a wolf attacking the flock and the shepherd not running away like a hired hand would. He identifies ownership as the defining motivation for care and protection.

12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

The aim of Jesus for every life created by his Father is his ownership. Without it, there are no guarantees of God’s care and protection of our life in this life and the one to come. John later records how Jesus won the ownership of his flock by paying the price of his physical life at the Cross. All sheep in his flock have been bought for a price using his own blood poured out on the Cross. They no longer belong to Satan but him. They have been set free by Jesus as their new owner, in order to listen to his Voice and follow. Those who choose not to follow remain scattered.

Would some of the Pharisees have seen themselves anywhere in this metaphor of the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep?

Their pressure on Pilate and mocking at the Cross shows they had learned nothing as a group, even though some individuals were in the process.

The Ultimate Knowledge

Jesus now describes the eternal reality on which his relationship with any of his sheep is built. The eternal reality upon which our relationship with the shepherd is built is the same indivisible unity of the Father and the Son of God that has continuously empowered and informed their relationship from eternity past. Jesus establishes his relationship with his sheep on the same footing. Just as the Father and the Son know each other intimately, based on their sacrificial love for each other, so also God has designed the functioning characteristics of the relationship he builds with any person prepared to trust him and obey his every request. With this statement Jesus made it clear that he did not come to earth to create the religion of Christianity but a living unified flock of sheep, who recognise his Voice as their shepherd, who lays down his life for them and desires to know them to the same extent of intimacy that he knows his Father.

14 "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me — 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father — and I lay down my life for the sheep.

This is coming to know spirit empowered love by living in it and it living in self. It is the knowing that comes from experience and not solely from text books. It is the knowing of relationship and not the result of academic qualifications. Jesus said that most reject it preferring their will over his.

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

(Matthew 7:14)

The tragedy of lives lost forever continues to this day!

The United Flock

16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

Jesus heralds the expansion of his flock beyond Jewish nationhood to the inclusion of an undefined and unified number of foreigners. Every practicing devotee of Jesus, who is not Jewish by birth, will be brought into the original Jewish flock by the same means as them, i.e., by listening to the Voice of Jesus and fully entrusting their life to what he promises and claims about his identity and purposes. They become empowered by the same unifying Spirit of God. The resulting global network of relationships, with Jesus at its core, is not nationally, organisationally or theologically defined. It is spiritually enlivened by the Holy Spirit of Jesus in cleansing, teaching, strengthening, empowering with his life until he returns for his 1,000 year rule and the judgement of every human.

They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

The Ultimate Authority

Jesus now elaborates on what might possibly be the most significant command that he ever received from his Father. Had this command not been given, Jesus would not have been able to lay down his life for my sin. He would not have been able to take my judgement.

Without the Father’s intention behind his command to sacrifice his sinless Son for sinful me, the death of Jesus would have had no salvation effects for me. The Father’s desire, however, was to provide a universal sacrifice for every sin of every human in every age. From his heart of love came this command to his Son to lay down his life for every human. Without the Father’s expansive heart of love, there would not have been the command. There would not have been the uniting of the Spirit of Jesus with a human egg cell. Jesus would not have come as an embryo developing through the stages of pregnancy in Mary of Nazareth, or been born in a manger. Nevertheless, the command did come from the Father to the Son, paraphrased as, "Lay down your life and then take it up again. Do it on your own accord. I will love you for it!"

17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life — only to take it up again 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

The scene of this command was heaven. Jesus explains that the Father loves the Son for fulfilling his command completely on earth including his resurrection and ascension both witnessed by his followers as the culmination of the purpose for his death. He laid down his life and took it up again. That is where his gift of eternal life originated for each of us. The essential question it leaves each reader is, "Has the command in heaven, faithfully executed by Jesus on earth, brought any eternal heavenly effects for me? Or has it been wasted?"

Jerusalem crisis point

It was wasted on the right-wing members of the Pharisees and their followers.

19 The Jews who heard these words were again divided.20 Many of them said, "He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?"

The confrontation of the Pharisees by Jesus resulted in a split group. Some became dismissive of Jesus to the extreme by labelling him as a raving maniac[2]. Similar dodges are used today in order to avoid giving any claim of authority to Jesus.

21 But others said, "These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?"

Others sought to modify crowd opinion by questioning the logic of the extreme right-wing categorisation of Jesus as a maniac.

In the face of so many miracles by Jesus of various kinds confronting the right-wing Pharisees, were they not in fact the ones who were acting mad? Is the denial of provable and measurable evidence madness, no matter how intellectually or emotionally the denial is framed?

Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?"

Are the biographies of the life of Jesus written by those who lived with him for three years fictitious? Would any one of these followers have been prepared to be executed for promoting what they knew was a lie? John’s friends journeying with Jesus chose to be.

The winter festival

Who are you?

John progresses his account of Jesus journeying from summer to winter, from the ‘Feast of Tabernacles’, full of the celebrations of bountiful agricultural harvests, to the eight-day ‘Festival of Lights’ that had originated over a century before to celebrate the restoration of Jewish control of Solomon’s Temple.

22 Then came the Festival of Dedication (i.e., Hanukkah) at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade.

24 The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly."

The devout Jews who had previously sought him out were wanting resolution to his identity. John describes these Jews as surrounding or encircling Jesus. This aggressive picture could imply that in this case he is using the term  "Jew" (Ioudaia) to represent the Pharisees. At a minimum, they would have been devout Jews in the Temple pushing for resolution to the identity of the posturing "prophet" who was challenging their current leadership.

It is not uncommon for devout seekers of truth to want to arrive at conclusions to their search quickly, particularly if they sense their status quo is under threat. In their speed, they miss the truth. Often Jesus is superficially dismissed by conveniently linking him to obvious examples of religious malpractice. How often have you heard an example of hypocrisy or maltreatment by a church official quoted as a reason to dismiss what Jesus represented? The history of the visible Church throughout the world across many ages is full of such examples of human frailty that is easy to criticize. However, worthy research of a topic like Jesus requires patience, particularly when the research of him must reach out beyond time as we know it.

Frustration and impatience can push for short-cuts. However, there is no short-cut to understanding the unique identity of an individual, particularly one who claims to have existed eternally. The intricate identity of any person is more than a label of judgement quickly stuck to their name like the label on a bottle. Taking short-cuts to make snap judgement of what is driving a person’s behaviour leads to false conclusions and distrust. How do they perceive themselves and others? What prior experiences have led to this position? In sharp contrast, the constant focus of the verbal and demonstrated teaching of Jesus to his disciples was to extend love to all, to the least and even to our enemies.

His commandment to love God was based on trust, i.e., belief. I cannot love God without trusting him fully as seen in Jesus.

Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes (trusts) him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. (5:24)

Is that why Jesus came? To see my Creator more clearly and trust him with my destiny? To enjoy the confidence now that I have already crossed over from death to life? More specifically, is that why Jesus was sent by the Father as he claimed? Who is this Father Jesus instructs me to trust, and does that make Jesus an eternal Son? How can there be a Father and a Son, if there is only one God and Creator of all?

One with the Father

Jesus instantly put the responsibility for their lack of understanding where it belongs. Their problem was not in his telling but in their believing. Why would they not believe? Every unbeliever needs to examine for themselves the reasons for their unbelief. Admittedly, it would be difficult for any human familiar with observing and acting in a four dimensional space-time environment to comprehend a Creator, who is comprised of an unseen eternal Father and a visible Son with a human mother, and who is not one without the other. That task is above and beyond the smartest philosopher. So is there any avenue we can take in order to comprehend these claims of Jesus?

25 Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me…"

Jesus points to his works as the visible endorsement on earth of his claims. Each genuine enquirer about Jesus has to make an objective assessment of the behaviours and miracles of Jesus, in order to arrive at an authentic acceptance or rejection of his claims. When the assessment is not objective then the enquirer is not genuine. Jesus confronted the Pharisees with the reason their relationship with him was ingenuine,

26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.

These religious enquirers pressuring Jesus would never follow, while seeking to maintain the grip of control on their life and the lives of the devout adherents to their laws. They could not afford to listen to his spiritual instructions and follow him when at the same time they were vying with him for followers to control and expand their power. Their enquiries about his Messianic identity were therefore ingenuine and leading nowhere but to opposition. Consequently, Jesus proceeded to make the relationship between himself and his sheep clear in terms that are eternal and applicable to every seeker today.

One with the sheep

27 "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one."

The sheep of Jesus listen and follow. In other words, they are open and attentive to him. On his part, Jesus claims to know them, and consequently knows imposters who do not receive what he gives to his sheep. They receive the gift of eternal life, which is permanent once given, and protected by the power of the Creator of all in unity with Jesus. I am guaranteed eternal life within the dual clasped hands of the Father and the Son. It is in fact their life from eternity with no division. They were Spirit before created physical distinctions existed.

…no one will snatch them out of my hand… no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand (who is greater than all)

30 I and the Father are one."

Blasphemy needing eradication

At this point, the confrontation of Jesus with those surrounding him in the Temple reached its zenith. His claim to be one with the Father was intolerable to a devout monotheist, who exalted the Laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai by the God who governed all his creation and miraculously set their forefathers free from slavery in Egypt. Such blasphemy needed instant eradication.

Blinded by their religious status and its feeding of their pride and pocket, these Pharisees ignored the prophecy of Isaiah, which heralded a divine Son as the Mighty God, who would be sent by human birth by his everlasting Father, yet himself be called Everlasting Father.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

(Isaiah 9:6)

Blasphemy by Isaiah?

31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"

33 "We are not stoning you for any good work," they replied, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."

Their pride could not entertain the thought that the God they claimed to serve was standing before them. They sought to kill him. John listened and learned until he saw. He later wrote,

We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

(1 John 5:20)

The corollary to this claim is that in rejecting Jesus and remaining outside of him, there is no eternal life. There is no everlasting love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, meekness and self-control. The absence of these is everlasting hell. This is so critical that Jesus urged those doubting his identity to at least look at the multiple works he did as evidence of his identity.

Believe the works!

34 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are gods"? 35 If he called them ‘gods’, to whom the word of God came — and Scripture cannot be set aside — 36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? 37 Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."

To cut through the deception of self-interest founded solidly on pride and its fear of loss, Jesus throws out the ultimate challenge. It cuts through every excuse given today that attempts to dismiss him as the Son of God. "Believe my works. Who else do you know has walked on water, multiplied a small boy’s lunch to feed 5,000, raised the dead, and healed the deaf, blind and crippled multiple times? Who?" This requires an honest answer by the person seeking to understand his identity with integrity. We can now add, "Who has, returned from the dead, showed the marks of his crucifixion, then spent 40 days in person teaching his followers about his identity recorded in prior history, ascended visibly through the clouds with angelic testimony that he would return again in the same manner? Who?" Believe these physical actions of Jesus, witnessed by many, to gain certainty. What other spiritual leader or mystic has such physical miracles as evidence to back up their claims?

The fisherman, Peter, gained his certainty after watching the many works of Jesus over three years. In his appeal to listeners of his first sermon to follow Jesus, he points out that God’s method of accrediting Jesus as his Son was his miracles, wonders and signs. They were well known. They move our personal conclusion of the identity of Jesus from the trap of the flawed subjective attributes of our personality and knowledge formation to an assessment based on easily observed physical facts. Therefore, Peter began his first sermon to a gathering crowd by referencing the undeniable physical works of Jesus.

22 "Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.

(Acts 2:22-24)

Peter was clearly continuing to challenge the Pharisees with the identity of Jesus as accredited by his witnessed supernatural physical works driven by love, yet they crucified him. The response to this challenge was entirely different. For Jesus, the subjectively driven response of the Pharisees was,

37 Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.

This reaction made clear their unyielding motivation to control and silence Jesus.

To Peter, the response of the Pentecost crowd was vastly different, however, when he pointed to the public reality of the crucifixion they had demanded. Now the response of the attending crowd came from open hearts rather than frozen wills,

37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"

40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Sav yourselves from this corrupt generation." 42  Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

Save yourself! No one else can make your choice. At the very least, believe in the works and follow where that takes your mind and heart. Belief in the works will save you from the blindness of subjective responses and take you forward with certainty to baptism.

Departure

There comes a time when Jesus chooses to move on to a more productive use of his presence. In this case he moved from hostile resistance to welcoming belief. He moved back across the Jordon. The result? Luke is clear – many believed.

40 Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had beenbptizing in theeary days. There he stayed, 40 and many people came to him. They said, "Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true." 42 And in that place many believed in Jesus.

Many have continued to believe since then. Nevertheless, the ratio given by Jesus of those saved from destruction to those who are not, tragically remains.

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

(Matthew 7:14)

Even with hundreds of miracles witnessed in the lifetime of Jesus, they would be wasted on the majority. Each person chooses how they will treat each miracle recorded by John as he journeyed with Jesus to his ascension via his crucifixion and resurrection. The next miracle witnessed and recorded by John is raising Lazarus from the dead four days after his burial. The miracle had many witnesses and sparked a groundswell of support for Jesus that caused the ruling class to put national political wheels in motion to remove him.

47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

Dispossession

"What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation."

Each person has to confront for themselves whether or not their fear of dispossession of their future comfort, material possessions and social relationships will finally cause Jesus’ departure from them.

  1. Τιθέω was used to set, put, place, lay carefully an idea, plan, article or person. ↩︎

  2. Mainomai, from which English derives "maniac" ↩︎

John 9

Introduction

This account of Jesus giving sight to a man blind from birth shows that the religious authorities had learned nothing since condemning the crowd and temple guards earlier at the Feast of Tabernacles. On that occasion, they resorted to arrogant posturing and accusation when their plan to use the temple guards failed to capture Jesus.

1. Arrogant posturing and accusation

Towards the temple guards:

48 "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them."

(John 7)

(Comment: What is the most important? To know the Law, or believe in one displaying the God who gave it?)

2. Ignorantly showing their own ignorance

52 "Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee."

(Comment: Look into it, and what do we find? The prophet Jonah came out of Galilee.[1])

Now, in the case of an undeniable miracle of Jesus restoring sight to a blind man, when the Pharisees were left with no justifiable pathway for denying the miracle, their method to discount the blind man’s testimony was to fall into their same arrogant, and ignorant posturing and accusation,

28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, "You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses!

"You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!"

And they threw him out.

Were they not also steeped in sin at birth? These elites considered not, and consequently controlled others by denigration, fear and force.

The practice of any religion, including the religion we create for ourself, surfaces similar judgemental behaviour in every person who has not faced their own flawed humanity, e.g., every religious adherent practicing rituals they believe have potential spiritual power for them; every archbishop, bishop, priest, pastor, elder, imam, cult leader, group leader, ministry leader, social leader, congregational participant etc. Fickle, dismissive judgement is the common story of religions that continue today. Religion in any cloak easily becomes the hiding place of moral failure and simultaneously a weapon of corrupted pride dragging a long trail of justified personal attacks behind it, sometimes materialising in military force.

These forces were present driving the desire of the religious authorities to kill Jesus so such an extent that their objective to destroy him became widely known and blanketed the Feast of Tabernacles with fear of demonstrating any association or sympathy with him.

A miracle in motion

1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.

Jesus was often in motion from the time he began his ministry. Miracles happened when he was on the move carrying out the mission given to him by his Father[2].

The disability

In this incident, as Jesus walks along a road with his disciples, he sees this man blind from birth. His disciples are more interested in defining the causative boundary of judgement impinging on this man’s physical state rather than questioning if Jesus could heal him, as they had watched him do previously for many. Their instant focus is judgemental, "Who is responsible for this affliction? Who needs to be held responsible?" Who sinned causing this tragedy? This is the average response of viewers of evening news reports on national TV. I have to catch myself often flipping into similar instant judgements of prime suspects in sensational news reports. John no doubt listened in to the concerns of his fellow-disciples about the man born blind.

2 "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

Engrained self-righteousness instantly and automatically looks for judgement rather than opportunities for grace.

Instant judgement is usually found to be nonsensical when given a second thought. The disciples’ nonsensical question in essence was, "Where is the causative sin for this blindness from birth? Is it in the child born blind or in his parents?" It does not take much thought to realise that any hint of an embryo being capable of committing a sin that warranted punishment by God is nonsensical, let alone punishment due to a parent’s previous sin inflicting the embryo for life with such an isolating condition. Nevertheless, the disciples asked the question impulsively seeking to identify the sinner who caused the blindness from birth.

"Judgemental searchlights" seeking a target always point away from those holding them, in order to divert light being shone on their own sins. Consider how frequently you catch yourself doing the same. Visual inputs stream endlessly to our brains when awake. The moment we leave our residence to go to work or shopping, the visual inputs of people within sight come like a flood. Some instantly grab my attention, such as a person with an obvious, visible handicap. My unguarded mind immediately jumps in with its interpretation of the multiple visual inputs. Suddenly I wake up to the fact that I have made a quick assessment of each person against my subconscious databank of past cause-and-effect emotional, intellectual and physical experiences that predispose my instant uniformed and wild assumptions or conclusions about the person to arise. In short, those assessments often have uninformed cause-and-effect judgements attached to them with no prior knowledge of the person.

Jesus elevated the explanation for the man’s handicap above the disciples’ limited "cause-and-effect" thinking to an infinitely higher cause-and-effect.

3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him".

The cause for the man’s handicap came from God, and not from his family, to fulfill the purpose of God to demonstrate his works. How much affliction do we encounter in society, or among friends, that has this higher purpose as its cause? What about any current personal affliction in your family or social network? How is it effecting those in its gambit of relationships? Consider how it may be fulfilling a higher purpose before casting judgement.

The higher purpose

Afflictions make possible the works of God to be displayed in multiple ways. They present opportunity for any disciple of Jesus associated with the afflicted person to work. These works of God go beyond the affliction itself. They also are seen in the growth of tested faith in those associated with the suffering before the healing occurs (and after). Only the few who walk with the Spirit of God can spot this possibility and seek to discern from the Spirit the way God wants his works to be displayed through them or someone else. How does God want to display his works in the specific persons who currently interface with the afflicted? Whose faith in him is he wanting to expand? What spiritual gift is he wanting to strengthen to use in the situation, (e.g., encouragement, discernment, counsel etc.)? Whose faith does he want to strengthen to claim for the sufferer physical, mental, emotional, relational or spiritual healing? Can you see the higher purpose?

What is definite and clear for each disciple of Jesus is the focus he placed on the time available to them to carry out work for God’s rule:

4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.

Jesus did not see the works of God commissioned to be done solely by him. He saw the disciples that he was training to be with him also doing those works, i.e., "…we must do the works … The night is coming for each disciple of Jesus when they will no longer be able to work. We do not control when the night will come for us, but it will come. Time is limited." That certainty sharpens the daily focus of every "would be" disciple of Jesus wanting to engage in his works. Jesus said that relatively few would choose that focus.

Jesus immediately concluded this initial correction of the disciples’ misplaced judgements with an all-encompassing and definitive statement,

5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

In other words,

"This man may have been born blind, but don’t focus on that limitation. Look at me and the work the Father is about to do through me as the light of the world for this long-suffering blind man. This is the work of God that the Father has chosen for you to do also as lights to the world, just as he chose me to do his works".

The miracle

John then saw a new miracle on his journey with Jesus. He kept his record simple for maximum effect.

…I am the Light of the world. 6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.

7 "Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means "Sent"). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

The blind man: 1) went, 2) washed, 3) came home seeing. Three actions. John gives no more details. He doesn’t add any that would take the focus off Jesus demonstrating through the healed blind man that he was the Light of the world.

The power of the miracle was in the action of Jesus, his faith-testing command to the man, and the man’s unquestioning obedience.

Post-miracle interactions

The neighbours

8 His neighbours and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, "Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?" 9 Some claimed that he was.

Others said, "No, he only looks like him."

Eye witness accounts are never uniform and are often contradictory on key matters. Every legal trial specialist knows that well. This is a classic example. Sound law court processes are established for the jury and trial judge to sift out inaccurate and unqualified witnesses in order to arrive at the truth. Who is this now-seeing man? How reliable is his input?

The man

When the debate is about a person’s identity, significant weight must be given to the testimony of the person in question. Defence lawyers time the introduction of a crucial witnesses to bring the most influence to bear in defining the certain innocent identity of their charged client. Similarly, the healed blind man forcefully inserted himself into the debate to assert his true identity rather than leave it to a variety of opinions.

But he himself insisted[3], "I am the man!"

With the man’s identity clarified, the mystified neighbours switched to wanting more explanation of this astounding miracle.

10 "How then were your eyes opened?" they asked.

11 He replied, "The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see."

The healed man gives a simple description of what happened leading up to the miracle. He speaks somewhat impartially about Jesus simply identifying him as "the man they call Jesus". Who is "they"? Had he heard the gossip about Jesus among strangers at the annual event and whispers of fear in the crowds warning not to be seen endorsing the man Jesus in any way? The policing Pharisees certainly would have arrested anyone calling Jesus any more than a man.

12 "Where is this man?" they asked him.

"I don’t know," he said.

He had apparently not gone looking. He was possibly as perplexed as his neighbours but had not gone looking for Jesus. He would have been personally overwhelmed. How would you absorb a miracle like that? There would be no thinking space left to be wondering where your healer had gone.

Imagine the rapid processing in his mind seeking to connect the reality now coming through his combined physical senses …

"I have never seen what things look like. Now a voice has a face, and it changes shape around its mouth and eyes to match its familiar sound. Astounding!

I can see shapes I could only feel before, and colour is amazing! I want to see more!

I have no idea where the man is who put mud on my eyes. Keeping in touch with his movements is not my focus right now. My sight is too overwhelming and thrilling".

The neighbours were not satisfied. They wanted more explanation. The next most logical place to get answers was the religious experts. They hoped the study of the experts may have some answers.

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind.

The Pharisees

Framework of operation

John’s opening comment about the interaction between the Pharisees and the man who had been blind has a sense of déjà vu to it. He prefaces the subsequent interaction with the Pharisees with the qualifying comment,

14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath.

John had been here before in his journey with Jesus. When on the Sabbath, Jesus healed the invalid, who had not walked for 38 years, the Pharisees showed no compassion to the invalid. They were quick to discount the miraculous healing as a work of God, because it was the result of Sabbath work. The lifelong physical trial of the invalid was of no consequence to them. Their driving motivation was their public control as guardians of the Laws of Moses. After that healing on the Sabbath, they began their attack on Jesus seeking to gather evidence to kill him, which had continued unabated up to the Festival of Tabernacles. Their response to this new healing was totally predictable. They instantly probed if any Sabbath work had been done to enable the miracle.

15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. "He put mud on my eyes," the man replied, "and I washed, and now I see."

16 Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath."

These quick-to-judge Pharisees could be seen as the one-dimensional, one-directional hardliners of the group. They were not servants ministering with compassion but rigid, hasty judges administering a rule book. From their one-dimensional framework of self-importance, they were blind to the grace of God being extended to alleviate a life-time of suffering. The rule book was quick and easy to apply from cold hearts.

"This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath."

Other Pharisees in the group, however, had sufficient life balance to be able to entertain a viable question,

"How can a sinner perform such signs?" So they were divided.

How could a sinner heal the sight of a person blind from birth? The answer to this question could not reside in a human domain of reality. The healed man was more advanced than these self-promoted religious experts in recognising that the dimension of his healing was beyond our familiar human domain of physical reality. He had already moved to a super-natural framework of reality for his personal explanation.

The blind man

Framework of understanding

Interrogation 1

17 Then they turned again to the blind man, "What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened."

The man replied, "He is a prophet."

In Jewish history and their scriptures, the Holy Spirit resided on prophets, priests and kings to be supernatural channels of God’s grace acting in the nation. The healed man knew this and had concluded that Jesus was not confined to physical dimensions and had to possess supernatural power. While he had moved to a supernatural framework of understanding in which the prophets operated, the Pharisees remained stuck in their physical world of unbelief not prepared to let go of their legal authority. Their method to control investigation of the truth to their satisfaction was interrogation of physical facts for as long as needed to detect and define any violations of their laws. Stuck in this physical framework of religious authority, they were ego-driven, power-hungry, insecure analyticals.

18 They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. 19 "Is this your son?" they asked. "Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?"

The man’s physical explanation of gaining sight was insufficient for them. His parents would certainly confirm the presence and extent of any birth defects they had to manage in raising him. Nevertheless, how did the Pharisees expect that his parents would have any idea how a blind son could suddenly and miraculously see? They were clutching for anything that would discount this act of Jesus being miraculous, because it would thwart their objective to kill him, if it became widely known. The Pharisees had to discredit the healing swiftly. They were anti-ophthalmologists!

20 "We know he is our son," the parents answered, "and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself."

They quickly flicked the focus of the Pharisees back to their son. John adds his interpretation of their reason for doing so. Fear!

22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23 That was why his parents said, "He is of age[4]; ask him."

The Pharisees had certainly been effective in their campaign to prevent the popularity of Jesus spreading using fear of rejection and isolation.

Interrogation 2

24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind.

They began by placing a religious straight-jacket on the man as a ground rule for their meeting. It was comprised of: 1) a sound spiritual principle, joined with 2) a false claim.

  1. "Give glory to God by telling the truth," they said.

  2. "We know this man is a sinner."

The now-seeing man had no concern about the first component of their ground rule. The second he dismissed as a fabricated claim and turned it into a challenge.

25 He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"

No one could take that reality from him – no academic, opthalmological or theological argument could stand against it without sounding foolish. They had to find a flaw in his claim to discredit his belief that he was healed the moment he washed in the Pool of Siloam. So they questioned again.

26 Then they asked him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"

Where zero faith confronts the miraculous, it only has analytical argument to fall back on. It has to search for conflicting facts and then discredit the witness. Therefore, the healed man went on the offensive now aware that he held all the cards in this interrogation game.

27 He answered, "I have told you already and you did not listen.

The healed blind man gave a forceful assessment of the Pharisees behaviour and switched to their method of interrogation of not waiting for an answer before attacking their motivation rhetorically. He now adopted a dominant stance with them.

Why do you want to hear it again?

Do you want to become his disciples too?[5]

The healed man, possibly with a tone of sarcasm, used a grammatical construction that signalled the expectation of a negative answer, e.g., "You don’t wish to become his disciples also do you?" (In no way did they!) His comment hit at the heart of what drove the Pharisees’ aggression towards Jesus and his followers, i.e.,

  1. refusal to surrender full control of their choices to Jesus, who consistently put this either/or choice before his listeners at all levels of society, and still does;
  2. refusal to let go of pride and admit one’s need of forgiveness and cleansing from sin (this would be an inconceivable ‘coming out’ for these supposed examples of religious virtue and knowledge.)

The power of these two drivers under the Pharisees questioning of the blind man was instantly apparent in their excessive, uncontrolled, self-justifying reaction:

28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, "You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from."

They became instant revilers spuing scorn upon the blind man to silence and humiliate him. They mocked the man for becoming a disciple of an unknown stranger and placarded their pedigree in contrast by boasting to be disciples of Moses. Disciple of Jesus or Moses? Disciple of Jesus or another guru? Disciple of Jesus or your own belief system? Ruled by Jesus or your pride? Jesus is the decision point for every person, that will never go away.

The man did not cower to their attack because his healing was dramatic, authentic and undeniable to him. He was living his miracle. He knew its source had to be divine. He turned the attack on their flawed boast.

30 The man answered, "Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes!"

We could add, "You are in hypocritical denial of what you have studied about the works of God." The healed man now added how he had been taught God works, which he would have learned from their prior teaching:

31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."

Yes, nothing!

34 To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.

When pride-constructed, physically-based belief systems encounter any definitive spiritual cause and its effects, they have nowhere to go except to aggressive closures, e.g., slander, isolation, imprisonment, and death. The history of the spiritual followers of Jesus is full of martyrs, who have set aside their social standing and comforts to be made an outcast.

The care of Jesus

John does not end his record of the healing of the blind man at the crisis point of him being cast out of the synagogue. He had experienced and witnessed multiple expressions of the compassion of Jesus early in journeying with him. He had listened to Jesus consistently focus his message to individuals and groups on his gift of eternal life. Accordingly, John chose to complete his record of this dramatic physical miracle with a pericope of Jesus looking for the man, in order to ignite a trusting relationship with him.

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

36 "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him."

37 Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you."

38 Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshipped him.

This is a touching pericope showing the care of Jesus for the healed man, who had chosen, under the pressure of interrogation, to take the stance of a disciple of Jesus by putting his social acceptance at risk to defend the authentic character of Jesus. John does not say where Jesus found him but indicates that Jesus made a concerted effort to do so when told of the Pharisees’ judgemental actions against him.

It is instructive how Jesus related to the rejected healed man. He did not take an empathetic approach to sooth the man’s hurt. He took a faith path to restoration.

…he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

Jesus demonstrated the stance his disciple should take to restore the hurting, confused and rejected in our society. Seek to guide them to hope-filled belief found only in Jesus. The greatest obstacle to a belief in Jesus that can restore purpose in life is ignorance.

36 "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him."

The blind man was a classic example of being sought out by Jesus, yet potentially being ignorant of him nearby. This is true for many today.

Jesus initiated deliberate contact with the man. He was destined to be used by Jesus as an example and confirmation that he is the light of the world. The miracle of healing the blind man’s sight was seen by the disciples, his neighbours and then the Pharisees.

Jesus more than touched him. He put mud on the man’s eyes using his own spittle. Contact with the man could not have been closer touching the most critical part of his disabled body. Yet the man still did not comprehend the full identity of Jesus. He did not see him. He reasoned that he must be a prophet from God but had not comprehended his full identity as the Son of Man.

Jesus wanted to do more that bring physical sight to the man to enable his eyes to process physical light. His aim was to bring the light of his spirit to the man to enlighten his dead spirit to process life. The man, although healed physically, was still blind spiritually. Jesus was near him but not seen by him. The healed man still needed to see the full identity of Jesus, in order to believe in him and receive the sight that sees God and his workings. That is true for every person.

Many brush by Jesus today and still do not see him clearly. Childhood boredom with drab religious rituals continue to mask the identity of the Jesus of history and the eternal love that he offers. When he is not seen, he cannot give sight and his all-embracing, renewing life of love.

36 "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him."

Jesus the Son of Man and Son of God had been in full view and up close reaching out to the healed man. Yet he remained unknown and unseen by the man. Now was the time to reveal his identity to him. Now the man was ready to believe the impossible. The Creator of all had come looking for him and was standing before him. Staggering!

37 Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you."

This would no doubt have been a seminal moment for the man, a moment that stunned, a moment far greater than mere disability relief and beyond both expectation and comprehension. Imagine right now having the Creator of the Universe standing before you offering his love and free gift of an eternal life with him in a way that he opens your eyes to see Him. He has come looking for you. What would you do?

38 Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshipped him.

The lesson

For the man

The man immediately adopted a worshipping spirit of full belief, which has the ability to discern the boundary between spiritual and physical reality, truth and deception.

39 Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."

He knew, when he declared his trust in Jesus as the Son of Man, that he had suddenly been ushered by Jesus into both physical and spiritual sight. He could see all that was around him physically and now the identity of the Son of Man spiritually. His spirit leaped into life. He saw the heart of Jesus, who reached out to heal him, and the hearts of the Pharisees, who threw him out of the synagogue with a burst of religious anger and defensiveness. Suddenly, he could see that he had gained spiritual sight, and they had become blind. They could not see the undeniable miraculous work of God by Jesus in the healing of his physical sight. The healed man could see that the stated purpose of Jesus coming into the world was now happening, and he was privileged to be included in it.

39 Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."

Losing sight of spiritual realities operating now that will extend forever is possibly the greatest of all human tragedies. It is critical for each person to ask, "Have I lost sight?" This is so critical that we should not leave the assessment with ourselves but also shared with a wise person in our circle of acquaintances, who claims to see Jesus.

For the Pharisees

40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?"

41 Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

Jesus completed his explanation of the cause of the man being blind from birth with a warning to every religious person feeling secure in their self-developed or borrowed religion.

…now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

Our proud-full efforts of being a good person, family member, community member, or even church member can never remove our sin and future judgement by Jesus as the Son of Man. We may engage in work and social activities that build a reputation of someone who sees, but remain in the blindness of hidden guilt. The moment we claim that we can see how to live our life honourably according to our ‘religion’, and how others should, our guilt remains. Our ‘religion’ can never remove it. Only Jesus can declare us as "Not guilty" the moment he forgives our sin, when we place our trust in him for having personally paid the full penalty for it by remaining on the Roman Cross until completed. "It is finished!"

Every person needs his declaration of "forgiven" over their entire life, both the hidden and the seen, not just parts. Then his light enlightens our spiritual sight forever. Every person needs Jesus! The man was born blind from birth for this message to continue to give spiritual sight to those who hear it today. Do you see?

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

(John 8:12)

  1. Today the site, at latitude 32° 44′ 30" N and longitude 35° 19′ 30" E in the Galilee, is a small set of ruins on a hilltop near the Arab village of Mashhad five kilometres north of Nazareth and one kilometre from Kafr Kanna. The supposed tomb of Jonah is still pointed out by locals. ↩︎

  2. He was in motion after healing a paralytic when he called Matthew to leave his work and follow (Matthew 9:9). Shortly after, he moved on to resurrect the synagogue leader’s daughter and on the way healed a woman with an issue of blood (9:18-26). Later leaving Jericho he healed two blind men who called out to him as he passed by (20:30-34). Post-resurrection he did the same on a lakeside beach miraculously filling a fishing net with a school of fish, and in the case of chatting with two men leaving their time in Jerusalem as they walked along the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-34). ↩︎

  3. John uses εἶπεν (eipen) which occurs over 1,000 times in the NT, often in the case where the authority of the speaker and importance of his words is emphasized, e.g., it is often used to introduce the teachings and sayings of Jesus. Its use here by John seeks to convey the assertiveness and clarity of the blind man’s interjection in the comments of the public. ↩︎

  4. ἡλικία ((hay-lik-ee’-ah) meaning maturity in years, which was obvious from his statement to be blind 38 years ↩︎

  5. μὴ καὶ ὑμεῖς θέλετε αὐτοῦ μαθηταὶ γενέσθαι? You don’t wish to become his disciples also do you?" ↩︎