Finding and Being Found

January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In the passage, John 1:35-51, which I’m preparing to preach on Sunday, the greek word eurisko is used five times. The word means “I find.”

In v.41, Jesus finds Andrew.
Also in v.41, Andrew reports to Simon that he has found the Messiah.
In v. 43, Jesus finds Philip.
In v. 45, Philip finds Nathaniel.
Also in v. 45, Philip reports that they have found “him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote.”

This implies that there was a profound amount of seeking. Johns disciples were seeking the Messiah, the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, but the Messiah — the Light — was also seeking them. It reminds me of the last line of Psalm 23, “Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.”

Eurisko implies a deep sense of seeking.

When we seek in darkness, it’s hard to tell what we are looking for,
but when we seek in the light, we find and are found.

Filed Under: contemporary hermeneutic, john, NTGreek, preaching

Jesus, Mr. Rogers and the Role of Neighbor

January 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a Father’s only son.” Jn 1:14

John, the evangelist, provides his reader with a deep sense of incarnational theology: Christ’s selfless abiding among his people. This was a radical worldview shifting idea, and still is. To this point, the deities sat removed from humanity, annoyed with humanity and only became god incarnate to meddle or get someone pregnant.

This God on earth idea changed the way God’s relationship with humanity was represented from that point in history forward. God among us. God with us – Immanuel. God not meddling, not coercing, not abandoning.

The Greek verb, skeinao, literally means “pitched a tabernacle tent.” The holy place got built next door. Eugene Peterson interpreted this passage, “The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.”

A less subtle understanding is that God became our neighbor.
Even less so, we became his.
This reminds me of Fred Rogers, changing his shoes, switching his sweater, looking into the camera asking, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” That was a request, a question. The power in the relationship was yours.

This should transform the way we understand Jesus – as he said to an expert in the law: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets [Mt 22:37-40].”

How are these two commandments alike? They both share Jesus as their center.

Jesus is the Lord that we love heart, soul and mind. He is also, our neighbor. Remember, he moved in next door? Recently I listened to a podcast and heard Peter Rollins describe MT 22 passage like this: “[sic] I’ve always thought about these two commandments like they were twins walking down the street. You can’t tell them apart. They are different, but we can’t tell the difference.”

In the opening of John’s Gospel, the author locates Jesus not only in historical context, but also next door to you. The question of how to treat our neighbor is a dominant gospel theme. How we treat our neighbor (which the Greek renders ‘not you, but the other one’) has 50% share in the way our faith is lived. Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan? That story was told in response the question, “Who is my neighbor?” One could look at the entire ministry of Jesus as a ministry to neighbor.

When a new family moves into your neighborhood, how do you respond? Do you receive them? Ignore them? Wait for them to come to you? Remember that verse in Hebrews? “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it [13:2].”

  • Does this change how we view our neighbors?
  • Does love of neighbor (as though they were Jesus) make you feel uncomfortable?
  • Why?


    • Filed Under: contemporary hermeneutic, john, new testament, NTGreek

    darkness used to live here

    January 15, 2012 By 1 Comment

    The Gospel of John, 1:5, “…and darkness did not overcome it.”

    John does not implicitly say that light has overcome darkness. We can be sure, and find a divine sort of comfort and peace in the fact, that it has already overcome darkness, in a future sense.

    John is addressing the reality that in all of our lives, in all that we experience and can see, it often feels like darkness is darkness is on the march towards victory. As if twilight is soon to be fully eclipsed by the night. Here, as always, feeling

    But God has even set the moon and stars in their courses; who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever, who made the sun to rule over the day, for his steadfast love endures forever, the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever [Ps 136:7-9].”

    We have seen the Light of God’s glory in Jesus and that Light, that brilliant and dazzling glory, will not only put the electric company out of business and render the sun impotent, but that Light will take its rightful place as our one true source:

    And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of the Lord is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb [Rev 21:23].”

    Filed Under: contemporary hermeneutic, john Tagged With: , , ,

    Incarnation and…menstruation

    December 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    In John’s birth narrative, we read in verse 14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only [Son], who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The greek verb that gets translated as made his dwelling among is skay-na-oh, which has a more euphemistic translation of “pitched a tent.”

    The point is, Jesus (God) came to earth and made his dwelling alongside us. He dwelt among us. We call this action the Incarnation. Jesus took on our flesh, to become like us.

    From India, there is a story that is so incarnational it’s unbelievable how far Arunachalam Muruganantham went to embody the suffering of the other and find a solution at the risk of losing everything.

    When Arunachalam Muruganantham hit a wall in his research on creating a sanitary napkin for poor women, he decided to do what most men typically wouldn’t dream of. He wore one himself–for a whole week. Fashioning his own menstruating uterus by filling a bladder with goat’s blood, Muruganantham went about his life while wearing women’s underwear, occasionally squeezing the contraption to test out his latest iteration. It resulted in endless derision and almost destroyed his family. But no one is laughing at him anymore, as the sanitary napkin-making machine he went on to create is transforming the lives of rural women across India.

    Yes, you read that correctly!

    Why did he do this? Women in India use a whole variety of things that most women would shudder to think of because “buying sanitary napkins meant no milk for the family.”

  • The women in his life left him.
  • He was “called a psycho, a pervert, and [was] accused of dabbling in black magic.”

    • And after wading through a MAJOR cultural taboo (probably not fearlessly, but definitely courageously) he succeeded…and his wife has returned to him. Whew!

    Read the rest of this strange and wonderful article here

    Filed Under: christmas, gospels, john Tagged With: , ,