Blog

Looking for Jesus

Posted on by korgrocker

“It was now almost time for the Jewish Passover celebration, and many people from all over the country arrived in Jerusalem several days early so they could go through the purification ceremony before Passover began. They kept looking for Jesus, but as they stood around in the Temple, they said to each other, “What do you think? He won’t come for Passover, will he?” Meanwhile, the leading priests and Pharisees had publicly ordered that anyone seeing Jesus must report it immediately so they could arrest him.”
John 11:55-57 NLT

The Jewish Passover feast occurs in the Spring, but looking back over the previous months of Jesus’ ministry, we find that He was in Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles in the Autumn (Fall) (John 7) and there again for the Feast of Dedication (John 10). But a lot had happened in those six months or so. Jesus did amazing miracles to support His claim to be the Son of God and spoke often that the only way to receive eternal life was through Him. We remember the man healed of his blindness from birth. And the crescendo that resulted from the raising of Lazarus from the grave. Many people came to believe in Jesus and the Pharisees and other religious leaders were becoming alarmed, to say the least. So Jesus was a marked man and the Jewish equivalent of “wanted” posters were everywhere.

John recorded that “many people from all over the country“ were in Jerusalem for the Passover Festival and they were looking for Jesus. “They kept looking” but Jesus was not yet to be found. So the people’s anticipation was building but their expectations were dampened by the arrest warrant issued by the religious authorities. But a new act was about to open up on the stage of Jesus’ ministry, as we will find out when we turn the page to John 12.

In the meantime, do we share in the anticipation about Jesus? We know that He will be returning again one day, but that seems a long way off, although we don’t know when. But we mustn’t forget that Jesus is alive and well, and through the Holy Spirit He is with us today. We don’t have to stand around in the Temple, or in any other church building, looking for Him. Many people have in the past, and some even today, undertake a pilgrimage to a holy site somewhere. For example, the Pilgrim’s Way in England is a route followed by many people from Winchester Cathedral all the way to Canterbury Cathedral, where the martyred archbishop St Thomas Beckett was buried. We too are pilgrims but not on an earthly pilgrimage. We are on a journey through life, disciples of Jesus. And we will not end up in a cathedral somewhere viewing a tomb containing a human being’s bones, but instead we will find ourselves in Heaven enjoying eternal life with Jesus.

There are those around us who are searching for fulfilment. But in our secular world, they will fail to find it, although hedonistic methods are employed in the process. Earthly tools and processes come to nothing, and many a person goes to their grave feeling disappointed. But when we turn to Psalm 23, we find that there is only one place where God can be found. We read through the Psalm and find all the encouraging and supportive helps the we need in our journey, and then we finally arrive at the last verse, “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6). We pilgrims will one day truly find Jesus in the real “Temple”, in Heaven. 

Dear God. To know that Your love pursues me through every day of my life is truly amazing. I wonder how You could ever love imperfect beings like me, but I know that You did indeed, when You sent Jesus to die for me at Calvary. I am so grateful. Amen.

Recharging Batteries

Posted on by korgrocker

“So from that time on, the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus’ death. As a result, Jesus stopped his public ministry among the people and left Jerusalem. He went to a place near the wilderness, to the village of Ephraim, and stayed there with his disciples.”
John 11:53-54 NLT

The village of Ephraim wasn’t far from Jerusalem – just thirteen miles. But in those days that was far enough for Jesus to allow things to calm down in Jerusalem and get some peace from the threats of the religious leaders. His public ministry had divided the people into those who believed in Him, and those who didn’t, and it was the latter group that had decided to look for a way to kill Him. Such a course of action, by the religious leaders and their followers, men and women who claimed to follow the Law of Moses, people who knew that murder was on the list of the Ten Commandments, was extraordinary. But such was the anger being stirred up by the devil. He knew that Jesus was a real threat to him and he was going to do anything he could to close Jesus down, and allow him to get on with his devilish business of interfering with the lives of men and women, by introducing more and more evil and wickedness into the world. 

Jesus stayed in the village with His disciples. A useful time for bonding and teaching. A time for a de-briefing to allow all that His followers had seen to be discussed. Learning opportunities and a time of rest to enable Jesus to prepare for what was about to come next. 

We pilgrims sometimes need to take an example from Jesus, in that He spent time with His Father, resting in Him and recharging His spiritual batteries. And by so doing He was always ready and prepared for what was to come next in His life. By spending time with God we pilgrims will find answers to our questions, refreshment for our souls and resources for the day ahead. Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need“. In our time spent with God we mustn’t neglect reading the Bible. Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path“. And of course we mustn’t neglect John 15:4, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.”

Just as we can never survive for long in a natural lives without food, we cannot survive for long spiritually without spiritual food. Jesus went to Ephraim to receive His father’s wisdom for what was to come next. We pilgrims must often head for our spiritual Ephraims to recharge our batteries, and receive a new infilling of the Holy Spirit to resource our day ahead.

Dear Father God. We ask today for a fresh infilling of Your Holy Spirit so that rivers of living water will flow from us to those around us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

One Man Should Die

Posted on by korgrocker

“Caiaphas, who was high priest at that time, said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about! You don’t realise that it’s better for you that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.” He did not say this on his own; as high priest at that time he was led to prophesy that Jesus would die for the entire nation. And not only for that nation, but to bring together and unite all the children of God scattered around the world.”
John 11:49-52 NLT

The Pharisees and other Jewish leaders in the Sanhedrin were severely rattled and gripped with fear. They genuinely, but mistakenly, believed that Jesus was a threat to the stability of the Jewish state of Israel. They knew that if a revolution or an uprising started and was unsuccessful, which recent ones had been, then the Romans would brutally suppress the people, with no respect for status, age or gender. The Israelite history was full of horror stories of atrocities by occupying forces, and exiling the Jews to a foreign land was not out of the question again. 

The High Priest, the senior man in the assembly, was called Caiaphas and he made what was to become a prophetic statement, though not for the reason he expected. His thinking was that if they arranged for the death of Jesus then the threat of rebellion and Roman reprisals would go away. But little did he know that his words would come true and would not only lead to the salvation of Israel and the Jews, but also to the whole world. As in all good political and religious assemblies, there was a cross section of opinion, and Caiaphas was a Sadducee, of the group that held the majority of seats in the Sanhedrin. They went out of their way to appease the Roman occupiers, caring more for their business interests then they did for anything else. Jesus was constantly at loggerheads with them, because the Sadducees didn’t believe in Heaven and anything like life after death. How they explained away the miracles that Jesus performed in the name of His Father in Heaven would have been interesting to hear. But they really were sad people because they had no hope for the future after death.

John, the writer of the Gospel with his name, added a few words concluding that Jesus would indeed die for the nation of Israel, and consequently for people everywhere, bringing those who believed in Jesus together in unity of faith. He obviously had the benefit of hindsight. 

We pilgrims are indeed a part of a huge number of people scattered all over the world, and who share the common faith that Jesus was, and is, the Son of God, and that He came to this world to redeem mankind from their sins. Instead of leaving us to face the punishment one day for the consequences of our sins, Jesus Himself took them on, and in return He gave us His righteousness, so that we could stand before God, forgiven and accepted. Sadly, there are those in the world who claim to be Christians, as the Sadducees claimed to be Jews, but who reject the message of their faith. There are also those who claim to be “Post-Christians”, those who claim those parts of the principles of Christianity that they like, but who reject the Source of them. To those people we echo Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:20-21, “So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ”. 

With or without Caiaphas’ prophecy, Jesus died for our sins and for mankind in general, past, present and future. What an amazing Saviour!

Dear Father God. How can we express our gratitude? We worship You today. Amen.

“What Shall We Do?”

Posted on by korgrocker

“Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, “What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.””
John 11:47-48 NKJV

Rightly or wrongly, the Pharisees brought stability to the Jewish nation of Israel and they were genuinely concerned that if they lost their authority to do that, then the Romans would once again come in to suppress what the occupying forces perceived as an uprising or rebellion. But there was also a personal fear amongst them if they lost their religious place in their society because they were a proud and arrogant bunch. What would happen to them if the people shifted their allegiance to Jesus way from them? Not all Pharisees were bad of course (remember Nicodemus?) but the majority seemed to be locked into rigid religious behaviour, riddled with pride and arrogance. Jesus had little good to say about the Pharisees. He said, “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:27-28). 

We worship a God who desires the best for His creation and for us human beings. He loves us all, regardless of how we see or relate to Him. A person who denies the existence of God is loved just as much as one who embraces Him wholeheartedly. In fact, “ … God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). But God also created mankind with free will, enabling people to make choices. So how people respond to God is up to them. Jesus demonstrated the love of God every moment that He was here on Planet Earth. He healed the sick and fed large numbers of people. As we have seen He even raised a dead man from the grave. But the main thrust of Jesus’ ministry was to bring joy and glory to God by granting eternal life to all those who chose to believe in Him.

But even today, God takes a personal interest in His children. The invitation to believe in Jesus is still there, waiting for people to respond. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees were locked into a religious system based on their interpretation of the Law of Moses, a belief system that had no room for change. They thought that Jesus’ offer of eternal life was irrelevant for them because they were convinced that they would inherit eternal life anyway through their obedience to the Law. So they could not see any solution to their dilemma over Jesus. The Jewish people were abandoning them in droves and following Jesus, who they therefore considered to be in danger of being seen as a revolutionary by the Romans, particularly if that was how they presented Him, with devastating consequences. But they lacked understanding about Jesus’ mission because they refused to accept that He was the Son of God, their long-awaited Messiah. Jesus said, “ … for I have come to save the world and not to judge it” (John 12:47b). Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost”. Jesus was no revolutionary seeking to overthrow the Roman occupation. That was to come soon enough through a zealot-driven Jewish rebellion in AD70, just a few years later. 

What do we pilgrims do today, when God brings a revival, a new move of God, to our spiritual shores? I was fortunate enough to be in a church that experienced the move of the Holy Spirit that started in Toronto in the 1990’s. But it wasn’t welcomed by every church fellowship, and many looked on from the outside, despising the excesses and in the process missing out on a tremendous blessing of God. God is always willing to bless His people, as we can see from many revivals that have taken place over the years. We must always seek God for His will and purposes for us. We must always ask Him what He wants to do through us every day. He delights in answering that question. 

The Psalmist who wrote Psalm 85 said, “Won’t you revive us again, so your people can rejoice in you?” (Psalm 85:6). We pilgrims have the opportunity of being revived every day, as we read in John 7:37b-38, “ … Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart’”. 

The answer to the Pharisees’ dilemma was staring them right in their faces, but they chose to reject, rather than accept, Jesus. They could not accept a new move of God. But we must always be on the look out for what God is doing in our day, in case He is doing something new. God said to the Jewish people, “For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland” (Isaiah 43:19). So we pilgrims must look up, always attentive to our Heavenly Father’s next move.

Dear Father God. We don’t want to miss what You are doing in our time here on Planet Earth. Please give us ears to hear and eyes to see Your wonderful ways. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Many Believed

Posted on by korgrocker

“Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen. But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together. “What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “This man certainly performs many miraculous signs.”
John 11:45-47 NLT

Why did John record that many of the people who were with Mary came to believe in Jesus? Why not those with Martha? Perhaps Mary was the sister who was popular in the community, while Martha was the stay-at-home introvert who enjoyed nothing else than the house keeping. But regardless, both the sisters had faith in their friend Jesus, and enjoyed His presence in their home. However, the important message was that many “believed in Jesus” because of the miracle that had taken place. Jesus had restored to life a man who was graveyard dead, something unheard of in that age or any other, come to that.

John recorded that many believed, but obviously not all did. Faced with such a miraculous event, why did some people not believe in Jesus? What would it take for these people to believe? What was stopping them? Worse, when the religious leaders were told what had happened they didn’t believe in Jesus either. In fact, they were so disturbed by what had happened that they called a meeting of the High Council, the Sanhedrin. This was serious stuff, because this assembly of leaders was the ultimate Jewish court. To many of the people, and collectively by the leading priests and the Pharisees, to change their religious system to instead follow a Man who called Himself the Son of God and who even proved it by performing amazing miracles, was just not going to happen. 

So what was stopping a universal belief in Jesus? In Matthew 22:14 we read that Jesus said, “For many are called, but few are chosen”. The sad thing is that in every age since Jesus died for our sins, the clarion call of salvation has rung out but only those with hearing ears have responded. In Jesus’ day, the devil had blinded the eyes and ears of those who stubbornly refused to accept the evidence before them, instead deciding to maintain the status quo. People were spiritually deaf and such deafness continues today. God said to Isaiah, “ ... Yes, go, and say to this people, ‘Listen carefully, but do not understand. Watch closely, but learn nothing.’ Harden the hearts of these people. Plug their ears and shut their eyes. That way, they will not see with their eyes, nor hear with their ears, nor understand with their hearts and turn to me for healing” (Isaiah 6:9-10). Hardened hearts are still the default state of mankind today. Hearts resistant to anything that will lead to spiritual understanding are all around us. But God will warm and soften those whom He has called.

Today, we pilgrims are believers in Jesus. We have heard the call and responded wholeheartedly to the One who has the words of eternal life. 

Dear Father God. There was a time when, like Wesley, our hearts were “strangely warmed”. Thank You for the call through Your Son Jesus. Amen.

Calling His Name

Posted on by korgrocker

“So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!””
John 11:41-44 NLT

After the people removed the stone that sealed the entrance to Lazarus’ tomb, there was a pause while Jesus spoke publicly with His Father in Heaven. Jesus looked up to heaven as He did this, removing all doubts about who He was conversing with, and from the content of the prayer enabling the people who were standing around the tomb to have an opportunity to finally understand that Jesus had been sent by God. Then perhaps there was another pause before Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out”. How could a body dead and buried for four days hear the call of Jesus? But there came a shuffling noise and at last a body wrapped in grave clothes appeared at the entrance of the tomb. Even the cloth wrapped around his head was still there. What did the people think? Shock? Fear? Wonder? Elation? They froze, not knowing what was going on and what they should do, so Jesus had to tell them to release Lazarus from the strips of cloth. What about the signs of decomposition? What about the smell that Martha was so afraid would be there? Someone would have had to find a robe to cover Lazarus’ nakedness. Did his sisters explode in floods of emotion, their grief replaced by wonder and elation? All the professional mourners suddenly found themselves out of a job. There would have been absolute chaos there for a time, but John’s account in his Gospel dispassionately just gave the facts of what happened.

We can’t even start to imagine the impact that event would have had on the people. We pilgrims read the account factually, though of course still realising that an amazing miracle had taken place. But how would we have felt about the situation had we stood there in the sandals of one of the people standing at the tomb? Often a Biblical message or account is notable not so much by what it said but what it doesn’t say. In a sense, Lazarus and his sisters, dear friends of Jesus, were caught up in an amazing miracle that has touched countless people, then and ever since. Jesus used the opportunity of Lazarus’ illness and subsequent death as a once and for all time demonstration of the power and glory of God. His sisters had the opportunity to turn their faith and belief in Jesus into something even stronger. 

God doesn’t have favourites amongst His children. We are all treated the same by our loving Heavenly Father. Lazarus had died and was buried, and his spirit was in Heaven. He had left his human life, and his earthly body, behind and he was now in a place of no more sickness, tears and death, in the presence of God. But the next thing he heard was Jesus calling his name, and his spirit was returned to his body, a body released from death, a body miraculously just as it was before his illness, warts and all. Extrapolating this to all believers who have died, is the next thing they hear when they find themselves in Heaven, the voice of Jesus calling their name? In a timeless eternity, will this be followed by the believer’s spirit being reunited with their resurrected body? A body just like the one Jesus had?  

The down side for Lazarus was that he had to die again. But any feelings of resentment that he might have felt would have been replaced by the comfort that through his whole experience, many, perhaps countless, souls had come to know Jesus and believe in Him.

Dear God. You constantly amaze us and we thank You for the faithful men who wrote down what Your Spirit told them to. On our knees today we worship You. Amen.

God Hears Us

Posted on by korgrocker

“So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!””
John 11:41-44 NLT

What happened next in the account of Lazarus was amazingly unequivocal. Jesus prayed out loud about His Father in Heaven hearing Him, not because it was necessary for what was about to happen, but so that the people around Him would make the connection between an amazing miracle, Jesus, and God Himself. After this there would be no doubts about where Jesus had come from and why He was there in Israel. With such a demonstration of His God-given power, how could anyone not believe in Jesus?

Jesus of course didn’t have to remind everyone through a verbal prayer. He was always in constant communication with His Father, Spirit to Spirit, mind to mind, thought to thought, Son to Father. Jesus as we know was and is part of the Godhead, the Trinity, and for a brief time, was willing to become human for the sake of mankind. There was never going to be another opportunity for people everywhere to believe in Him. Greater miracles were not ever going to happen. 

Ever since the devil assumed control of the world, introducing wickedness and evil, mankind has been in self-destruct mode. The last thing the devil wanted was to see people come to a faith in Jesus, because by doing so they would be released from his clutches. Through faith in God, people ever since have had the ability to live in a different way, able to communicate with their loving Heavenly Father, because He always hears us. The Holy Spirit now resides within us, those of us who are believing pilgrims on their way to the fruition of their faith, eternal life. 

Psalm 139:1-4, “O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord”. The Psalmist David, who wrote these words many years ago, knew from his relationship with God that He heard everything he thought, not just prayed. He went on to say, “I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence!” (Psalm 139:7). And he finished the Psalm with, “How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! …  Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Psalm 139:7, 23-24).

God hears us, even when we perhaps think otherwise. Apart from the obvious outcome regarding our thought life and behaviour, we have the assurance that the relationship we have with God is alive and real, and it enables us to check in with Him at every opportunity. Because of our humanity we are prone to sinful thoughts but through Jesus we have a remedy that allows us to maintain our relationship with God. So what are we thinking today? God is listening in as well, don’t forget.

Dear Father God. As Your children we are grateful for Your presence in our lives. Please help us to live in a way that is worthy of You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Glory of God

Posted on by korgrocker

“Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ‘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.’ Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me.”
John 11:38-41 NIVUK

We human beings are natural beings living in a natural world. We see with our eyes and hear with our ears. We taste, feel and smell. But there are many things in this world that we cannot experience with our senses. Take the air around us, for example. We know it is there, but we cannot appreciate it with any of our senses. We cannot appreciate another person’s thoughts or see their inner turmoil with our natural senses. Concepts and theories are real but beyond our physical abilities to experience. Of course, the scientists and technologists invent devices to enhance our natural abilities but there remain huge gaps in our knowledge. In John 3:8 Jesus said to Nicodemus, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit”. How can a natural body invade the spiritual realm and sense what is there?

God’s glory is not something we can measure because it is the fullness of who He is. In Exodus 33:18, we read about a question from Moses,  “Then Moses said, ‘Now show me your glory.’” God’s reply was, “And the Lord said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no-one may see me and live’” (Exodus 33:19-20). 

Jesus reminded Martha that earlier He had told her that she would see the glory of God. We remember that He said to her, “ … I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this? ” (John 11:25-26). God’s glory is His ultimate and perfect goodness and an experience of it will change our lives. There was a time of natural instability and Isaiah did what many do at such times – he went to church. There he experienced God in a way that changed his life. He received a vision that we can read in Isaiah 6. “It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. They were calling out to each other, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies! The whole earth is filled with his glory!” Their voices shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire building was filled with smoke” (Isaiah 6:1-4). The glory of the Lord filled that place and Isaiah was never the same again.

Martha’s life was never the same again. She was about to experience the glory of the Lord in a very personal way. We don’t know anything about the rest of her life, but we can be sure that it was never the same again. Perhaps we pilgrims long for such a time when we too will experience at first hand the glory of the Lord. But we look up into Heavenly places and see the Lord there, and He smiles at us. One day we will be with the Lord sharing with others the glory of the Lord. And we will say and sing with them, “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honour and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased” (Revelation 4:11).

Father God. We give You all the glory today for all You have done for us through Jesus. We worship You today. Amen.


Quite a Stench

Posted on by korgrocker

“Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.””
John 11:38-39 NKJV

Imagine the scene. It was a place where caves had been hewn in the rock face to provide burial places for individuals or families. Sometimes these tombs were quite elaborate and consisted of several rooms, but each would have been sealed with a rounded stone that sat in a groove, preventing access by wild animals. The poorest in the society, who couldn’t afford such a burial place, would have been interred in a shaft dug in a designated field. Anyway, Jesus went to Lazarus’ tomb accompanied by an unknown but significant number of people including Martha. What happened next was unheard of because Jesus told those who were there to “Take away the stone”. Martha, ever the practical one, protested that there would be a bad smell coming from the tomb because Lazarus had been dead for four days. There were no doubts in anyone’s mind that Lazarus was really dead and his body had started to decompose, something that happened rapidly in that warm climate.

There comes a point in everyone’s life when they die. No matter how hard people try to stop it, ageing is a natural process and our bodies will one day wear out and be of no more use to us. This was not what God intended when He created us, and the first records in Genesis indicate lives extending into hundreds of years. But there came a point when a life span was expected to be “three score years and ten”, or eighty if the person had the strength (Psalm 90:10). These days, the average life span is in the late seventies for a man and the early eighties for a woman, but some die much younger and others exceed a hundred. After death, a body buried in a grave will decompose and eventually end up with skeletal remains. The Jews were horrified by the thought of cremation, assuming that a person’s physical body, regardless of its condition or what remained, would one day be physically involved in the resurrection of the dead.

So we have the scenario with Jesus and a number of people standing outside a tomb, watching as the stone is removed. The thoughts of those around Jesus could almost be heard. Thoughts such as “What on earth is Jesus up to now”? But did anyone expect what was about to happen?

We pilgrims read the account almost dispassionately. We didn’t know Lazarus or his sisters. But we do know Jesus, and recognise and honour Him, the Son of God. Because God has the interests of His children at heart, we feel a warmth within our spirits as we observe the scene outside the tomb. Jesus was about to demonstrate a miracle so amazing that it changed the lives of those in Jerusalem at that time and it brought into perspective that our God is all-powerful and has the ability to overturn all the preconceptions of the worldly people around us. What are we expecting God to do today? There may be a stench emanating from the sin and death around us, but that will never faze our miracle working God.

Dear Lord Jesus. You are the Saviour of the world. There is no other way to Heaven and we journey on to be with You. Our journey through life will attract the stench of the wickedness around us, but through Your blood we are washed as white as snow. Amen.

Jesus the Non-Conformist

Posted on by korgrocker

““Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?””
John 11:34-37 NLT

There must have been quite a crowd of people in the area where Jesus was because His emotions were seen and commented on. The kinder ones in the crowd observed Jesus’ tears and put them down to His relationship with Lazarus, now ended after his death, or so they thought. So to them tears were a sign of a grieving Jesus. However, there were others in the crowd who were not so impressed and came to the conclusion that Jesus wasn’t all-powerful, because the Healer of the blind man obviously, to them, couldn’t have saved Lazarus. Well, as we know, they were about to receive quite a shock!

A major problem within Israel was false expectations. The people had drawn their own conclusions about the Messiah they were expecting, based on Scripture that portrayed Him as the coming King, who would restore to Israel their autonomy, and political and emotional stability. Scriptures such as Zechariah 9:9-10, “Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey— riding on a donkey’s colt. I will remove the battle chariots from Israel and the warhorses from Jerusalem. I will destroy all the weapons used in battle, and your king will bring peace to the nations. His realm will stretch from sea to sea and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth”. The Jewish people extrapolated the prophetic writings into an imagined situation where the Messiah would destroy the Roman occupiers and fulfil their expectations, even if He was riding a donkey.

Such was Jesus’ impression on the people of Galilee after He fed the crowd of five thousand men and their families, that we read, “When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!” When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself” (John 6:14-15). They wanted Jesus to lead a rebellion to be free of the Romans, just as their ancestors had been freed from slavery to Egypt. But the same attitude to Jesus was present when faced with His miracles. Some people wanted to dictate to Him what He should and shouldn’t do. Their expectation was that the Healer of Mr Blind-no-more was also supposed to be the Healer of His friend Lazarus. So in their eyes Jesus wasn’t as powerful as He seemed to say He was. 

Jesus was never going to conform to an earthly or human agenda. He was counter-cultural and non-conformist within the Israeli society. His work was in accordance with His Father’s instructions, not the expectations of the people. Jesus said to the Pharisees,  “ … When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I Am he. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me. And the one who sent me is with me—he has not deserted me. For I always do what pleases him” (John 8:28-29). Jesus was not a man-pleaser and was never going to conform to human expectations.

We pilgrims are also counter-cultural and non-conformist in the sense that we are not going to always behave in a way that unbelievers expect. We are citizens of the Kingdom of God living as ambassadors in our natural world, the kingdom of darkness, and that will expose us to all sorts of criticism and expectations. We are not followers of the crowd walking long the broad way that leads to hell. We are journeying on the narrow way, a path paved with ridicule and abuse from the broad way people. But that matters little to God’s counter-cultural and non-conformist children.

Dear father God. Please help us on our journey to the Promised Land, a place where we will find the glory of the Lord. Amen.