One of the things I appreciate most about John’s Gospel is how the stories John chose to share with us tend to be very reflective of our experience of relationship with God. The line of thought John gives us is that we abide in Jesus by virtue of the Holy Spirit abiding in us and abiding in Jesus we then actually share in his relationship with God the Father. The Holy Spirit binds us to Jesus, unites us to him, and he is in the Father. We are in him, he is in us, he is in the Father and the Father is in him. We know the Father through him and we share in their relationship by the Holy Spirit’s abiding in us. Abide. Abide. Abide.
In fact, one could say that John’s Gospel is an exposition of what it is to have eternal life. You all know John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who is believing in him shall absolutely not perish but shall absolutely be having eternal life.” That translation sounds a little different than the billboard version we are accustomed to that is translated with an agenda for conversion. John 3:16 is not the formula for how a person gets saved is actually a description of reality of those who are believers in Jesus, not a contractual offer of what a person will get if he or she should decide to believe in Jesus. It says that those who believe in Jesus Christ have eternal life now.
Let me shake you up a little more. John doesn’t define eternal life as going to Heaven when we die and believing is the way you get there. Rather, John defines eternal life straight from the mouth of Jesus at 17:3 while he is praying his great prayer for the church. Jesus says: “And eternal life means to know you, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ, whom you sent” (GNT). That’s the Good News translation. If you need it to be more official than that, the King James Version reads “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” If you are a conversion-agenda-ed Evangelicals, the New International Version reads “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” If you are a liberal Protestant, the New Revised Standard Version reads “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” If you’re just kind of alternative and you’re from Vancouver or Seattle, Eugene Peterson’s translation The Message reads “And this is the real and eternal life: that they know you, the one and only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.” That’s pretty much the full theological spectrum in translations from hippie to hypocrite and they all say that eternal life is knowing God and knowing Jesus.
Knowing another person involves being in a relationship with them. If it is the case that having eternal life is knowing God the Trinity (and I think it is), then it is not too far of a stretch to say that believing means being in a relationship with the Trinity. This definition of believing should change how we look at what’s going on with Thomas. Jesus told Thomas “Do you believe because you see me?” The question is not so much about whether Thomas believes Jesus has risen from the dead. Jesus reaches a little deeper I think and asks, “Thomas, do you have a relationship with God because you see me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have this relationship.” But how does one have a relationship with another whom we cannot see?
To answer that question, we need to step back to the beginning of that evening and look at how John has chosen this encounter to inform our experience of Jesus. The disciples are hiding in fear. Jesus shows up and says, “Peace be with you.” He shows them the scars. Jesus showed up. To have a relationship with God in and through Christ Jesus, Jesus must show up. Jesus must step into our lives with his blessing of peace. There is nothing we can do to conjure him up or make that happen. He must reveal himself to us.
Do you ever wonder why people in small churches always sit in the same place? We make jokes about this, but I am reasonably sure that it is because that spot in that particular pew has been the place where they have had some very powerful experiences with our Lord. It is sacred space. My sacred space. Here, Jesus showed up.
Jesus reveals himself to us as the wounded One, the One who was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; the punishment that leads to our peace was on Him, and we are healed by His wounds (Is. 53:5). Jesus reveals himself as the one who was wounded because of our sin yet by his suffering we are healed. If we think we have had an encounter with a presence but have not eventually been lead down the road of transformative healing from our sin, then it is likely not Jesus whom we have encountered.
Just as he did on that evening with his first disciples, Jesus the wounded and risen One also sends us forth in his ministry as the Father sent him. He empowers us with the power of his own life, the Holy Spirit, to carry it out. Notice how he defines his ministry in terms of forgiving or not forgiving the sins of others.
The concept of forgiveness is a tricky one. I say that because what the Bible means by forgiveness isn’t exactly what we think forgiveness means. We think of forgiveness as a transaction involving apology and not holding a grudge. The wrongdoer must hopefully be remorseful, apologize, and want to change. The one wronged, even if there has not been an apology or repentance, must not bear a grudge against the wrongdoer and try to keep friendship. The Bible’s a little different here.
The Hebrew word we usually translate as forgive actually means to pick up and carry; to bear the burden of another. On the Day of Atonement in ancient Israel, the day they dealt with the sins of the people, one of the rituals they did involved what we call a Scapegoat. The High Priest would place his hands on a goat and whisper the sins of the people into its ear, thus transferring the sin to the goat. They then lead the sin laden goat off into the wilderness and let it go so that it could be destroyed by whatever was out there. By the death of the scapegoat the sins of the people were destroyed in death as well.
Looking at the passage from Luke that we read about the four men bringing a paralyzed man to Jesus on his mat we have a good image of forgiveness. They had to cut through the roof and lower the man down on his mat and then they picked him up on his mat and carried him to Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all three say that when Jesus saw the faithfulness, the efforts of the men, he told the man on the mat that his sins were forgiven. They were carrying him, bearing him as a burden, in all his brokenness, lameness, and shame to Jesus so that he could be healed. That’s forgiveness.
I don’t think in this passage that Jesus is simply telling his disciples to forgive those who have wronged them rather than bear a grudge. I believe he is telling them to get involved in the muckiness of the lives of others and bear them to himself where they can be healed and transformed like the paralyzed man becoming able to pick up his mat and go to his home.
So how does a small congregation of elderly people who sit in the same pew week in and week out go about bearing others in their sinfulness to Jesus where they can be healed? Prayer is the place to start. Let me share with you a prayer an elderly matron of a small congregation once prayed out loud in a prayer meeting at church.
“Lord, I’m tired—so very tired. Please, Lord, I don’t want any advice. I’ve heard enough of that over the years. I don’t want to be told what I must do. I’ve been told often enough. Lord, I just want to sit here in quietness and feel your presence. I want to touch you and to know your touch of refreshment and reassurance. Thank you for this sacred little spot where I have heard your voice and felt your healing touch across the years. Thank you for these dear friends who share this pew with me. Together we have walked the tear-lined lanes. We know what it is to be lonely…we also know comfort and strength of one another and the joy of your presence. O God, the child of my womb has become a drunk…Daily I watch her die before my eyes. Where have I failed, O Lord? How can I find the strength to continue? How can I help my dying daughter find herself?
O God, soon I will be going home to be with you and my husband. I am ready, even eager. But until that day help me to be a help to others. Give me strength to live this day and peace to enjoy it. Amen.”[1]
Friends, I think this prayer is what forgiveness looks like. Amen.
[1] Dudley, Carl S.; Effective Small Churches in the Twenty-first Century; Abingdon Press; Nashville; 2003; pg. 49.
