DEVOTION
THE GOSPEL
OF JOHN
STAYING
CLOSE
John
11:54-57
54 Therefore
Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew to a
region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his
disciples. 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 area
they asked one another, "What do you think? Isn't he coming to the Feast
at all?" 57 But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that if
anyone found out where Jesus was, he should report it so that they might arrest
him.
NIV
This is
simply a narrative of the social situation that was going on, Jesus withdrawing
to Ephraim with his disciples and the Pharisees set to arrest him as soon as he
shows his face again. So what can we learn for us as a lesson of life?
Certainly we already know there are people today who would desire to arrest Jesus
so as to put him to death. Some of the non-religious types, although that may
not be the appropriate word choice, as all people have a religion, even atheism
is a religion, would like nothing more than to put Jesus to death. There are
groups who desire all reference to God, much less Jesus, be removed from the
public square. There are groups within the evolution movement which use Darwin’s
theory as proof there is no God and therefore no Jesus. Using a theory as proof
seems rather ridiculous, but then they claim us to be ridiculous using the
Bible as proof there is a God, and therefore a Jesus. We also see here that
Jesus created a physical distant between himself and the Pharisees, at least
for the moment; of course the Pharisees had already created a spiritual separation
from Jesus. So we are back to square one in some sense. But the fact still
remains there are people who do not want Jesus in their lives; they have
created that spiritual distance from Jesus. They are far more comfortable as
the Pharisees were with their own brand of religion. Perhaps the lesson we
should take away from this narrative is not to allow anything to get between
Jesus and us. We should not allow our brand or any brand of religion get in the
way. We should not allow any distant to exist between us and Jesus, physical or
spiritual. We must acknowledge that it was not really the Pharisees, who arrested
Jesus and put him to death, but it was us, it was our sin that put Jesus to
death. We arrested Jesus, but that was his plan all along, that is what he came
for and we should be so grateful. Yet at the same time we need to stay close to
Jesus. God himself has told us through
the apostle James that if we come near to him, he will come near to us. For the
time being Jesus distanced himself from the Pharisees, but he will never
distance himself from us for he is always staying close.
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