Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Staying Close

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. 

No comments: