Presented to Swift Current Corps of The
Salvation Army on 03 May 2015 and Warehouse Mission 614 Toronto on 10 June 2018 by Captain Michael Ramsay,
This is the 2015 version, to view the 2018 version, click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2018/06/john-1321-1431-where-are-you-going.html
This is the 2015 version, to view the 2018 version, click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2018/06/john-1321-1431-where-are-you-going.html
I don’t
know how many of you have been following the Boundless Bible Challenge[1]
readings. We put the on-line readings in the bulletin every week for those who
do not have ready access to a computer. One of two people who write these
devotions is Major Beverly Ivany. Do you know who she is? One, she is a writer
for the international Salvation Army and two, in her spare time, she is a corps
officer. Do you know which corps she and her husband, Major David Ivany (who is
Spiritual Director for all of Canada and Pastoral Services
Officer for Quebec and all Francophone Officers)
run in their spare time? 614 Regent Park, Toronto: the corps to which we are
being transferred. This is quite an honour. Majors David and Beverly Ivany are
big names and rightfully so as God is using them to do so much in The Salvation
Army world. I thought this was a neat connection for us as I was reading the
Boundless Bible Challenge in preparation for today.
I wonder
too if it is by accident or design, the readings that we have had before us
this week: Last weekend was move announcement day. All the Officers who, like
ourselves, are moving were told we are going to farewell - and the assigned
Boundless readings for this week are part of what is know as 'the farewell
discourse'. Either by accident or design or both at the same time, as we have
been given our farewell orders the Scriptures we are reading today are taken
from the farewell discourse. We’re going to look at the first part today – it
is a long discourse – and we have already read the context for the speech as
well. This is really quite something in itself.
At the last
supper, when Judas left the room the eternal moves were announced, so to speak.
Jesus let his disciples know that the time is coming and is actually now here
when Jesus will move from them. He informs them of this and gives some
instructions and a number of his disciples take this opportunity during the
last supper here to ask Jesus a bit about the move. They enquire about where he
is going.
Picture
this with me. Jesus and his disciples are having dinner upstairs in a rented
room in Jerusalem. Jesus has conversations with John and Judas and then Jesus
knows, allows, enables, prompts or even provokes Judas to move to do what he is
going to do. This will be Jesus’ last evening with his closest disciples: the
twelve, now the eleven. After Judas leaves, Jesus turns to his friends and he
breaks the news, among other important things that, 13:33-35: “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look
for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you
cannot come. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved
you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another.”
Jesus is moving away and he tells his
friends what he wants from them is that they love each other. I think this is
important. I know that as Susan, the girls and I are moving this is the same
thing we want: that you love each other. I know that when I see pictures on
Facebook, receive news, or a visit from Swift Current, that will be one of the
first things I will wonder: how is everyone getting along? Are we still a good
little group fighting together for the gospel of Christ? Susan asked us last
week in her sermon, ‘do we love one another… even those who can’t make it here
on Sundays’? Who has visited Dorothy or Elaine this past week? When is the last
time someone contacted the Harders? What about that person who used to always
sit near you? What about any of our church family whom we haven’t seen in a
while? Have we called them, not to lecture them saying, “haven’t seen you in
church for a while?!” but rather to say that we have been praying for you and
would like to offer you a word of encouragement. “By this everyone will know
you are my disciples”, Jesus says, “if you love one another.” I
love you guys and I will miss all of you. There is even more to this command of
Jesus’ to love one another. As part of this same farewell discourse Jesus says
that greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friends (15:13).
That is what Jesus did for us. That is what the apostles did for him. That is
what me must do for each other. Call or visit someone from our flock here this
week and spend some time with them – especially someone you haven’t seen in a
while. Jesus says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if
you love one another.”
This is good but Simon Peter cues not on
the instruction to love his comrades, colleagues, or congregation so much as
the fact that Jesus is leaving. ‘Where are you going?’ he asks, in essence,
‘what do you mean we can’t come with you? Why not? I’d die for you!’ Now Jesus’ response is really quite interesting; he tells Peter in essence,
‘Really? You’d die for me? Honestly, even before tonight is finished you will
deny me not once, not twice, but three times.’
This is not the sort of response usually
recommended to offer a grieving person coming to terms with an impeding move.
It is certainly not the response that we instructed people to give in the ESC
courses I taught this weekend in Beaver Creek Camp near Saskatoon. Now about
this denial, Jesus is right, of course, and Peter does deny him and we know
that Peter is later repentant of his actions. And Jesus, after he rises from
the dead, forgives, reaffirms, and/or reinstates Peter and we know that
according to tradition Peter is good to his word and God does award him with
his martyr’s crown.
And there is ore because at this moment the
exchange isn’t as lacking in pastoral care as it first appears. As you read on,
contained in the very next verses, 14:1-4, Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts
be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many
mansions; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to
prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come
back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”[2]
Then he says, “You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Now sitting around the table after the last
supper, while Peter is still trying to figure out Jesus’ somewhat confusing
answer to his simple question, ‘where are you going?’ Thomas tries to help
Peter out a bit here. He re-asks, re-phrases, re-articulates, adds to Peter’s
‘where are you going?’ with his own
words, Verse 5, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how
can we know the way?”[3]
Jesus answers, Verse 6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know
my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
So Thomas, after trying to help out by
re-phrasing Peter’s simple ‘where are you going’ question; now like Peter, is
left to ponder Jesus’ somewhat less than simple responses. The response to,
‘how do we get where you are going?’ is ‘I am the way where I am going.’ This
probably isn’t all that illuminating for Peter or for Thomas.
Jesus does give them some very important
information though. He says point blank that the ONLY way to get to God is
through Jesus Christ. There is no other way. There is no other truth. Jesus is
the only way to life and the only way to the Father. This is important and
while Thomas and Peter may not understand this at the moment, they do later and
we should now, right? Basically in layman’s terms: if your mother, brother, son
or daughter, do not enter into a relationship through Jesus Christ, they are
not going to inherit eternal life with the Father. This is significant. Jesus
is telling Thomas, Peter, and the others that there is no other way to be a
part of the Kingdom of God than to come through Jesus Christ. So, for us here
today, if there is someone you claim to love and you don’t tell him about
Jesus, do you really love him? If there is someone you claim to like and you
don’t tell her about Jesus, do you really like her? As the only way not to
perish is to go through Jesus Christ, if there is someone you do not
loathe, it follows that you will tell them about Jesus; if you do not at
least try to introduce someone you know to Jesus, is it not true that
you really must despise them? Why else would you keep them from salvation? This
is what Jesus is saying – Salvation is easy. There is only one way but it is
easily accessible. Jesus provided salvation for everyone and if you really do
love Jesus and if you really do love your friends, family, and acquaintances
then you will point them to the way.[4]
Peter’s simple question ‘where are you
going?’ still seems unsatisfied for him though even as Thomas has re-stated it
as ‘which way do we go?’ So now Philip takes a crack at getting an answer as he
asks for further clarification, Verse 8, “Lord show us the Father and that will
be enough.” Jesus’ answers here are hardly any more straightforward and concise
but Jesus does give them more important information: Jesus offers them a free
introductory course - Trinity 101[5]
- so to speak. Jesus says that he is in the Father and the Father is in him.
Jesus speaks about the
coming of the Advocate, the Paraclete, the Helper, as well as the post-resurrection role of the Holy Spirit and the importance of
obeying Christ.[6] He says that
they will know that Jesus is in the Father and that we will be in Him so long
as we simply obey His commandments and then He
will reveal himself to us as he is in us.
So we are starting to make some ground in
the conversation here. Remember that this is after dinner and Judas Iscariot
has already left. And this has led to a long conversation as the disciples are
repeatedly asking Jesus, ‘where are you going?” So now we have Judas (not Judas
Iscariot, the other Judas), as they are starting to understand the answer to
‘where are you going’? He ultimately asks, 14:22, “But, Lord, why do you intend
to show yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus then more fully explains to
his disciples that He is going away but He will come back (15:28) and when He
comes back those who love Him and keep His commands will be eligible to receive
that mansion that He has prepared for us (14:2).
So the
answer to the question, ‘where is Jesus going?’ After dinner, Jesus and his
disciples will leave and then this very night in our text, Jesus will be
arrested. He will be tried. He will be executed. Three days later He will rise
from the dead and come to his disciples, then later he will ascend to the
Father.
That is
where Jesus is going now in our text and then sometime very soon now in our
world he is coming back and before that happens we will all need to answer a
most important question and that question is, where are WE going? Jesus is
going to the Father and the ONLY way to the Father is through the Son. Everyone
who loves Jesus (as shown by obeying His commands) will go to be with Jesus in
our eternal mansion. So the question for us today is not where is Jesus going –
we know that - but rather the question for us today is where are WE going?
Let us
pray.
---
[1] The Salvation Army, Boundless: the International Bible Reading
Challenge (2015). Available on-line: http://www.salvationarmy.org/biblechallenge
[2] Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, The New Interpreter's Bible,
Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995),740
also N.T. Wright, John for Everyone
Part 2 (Louisville, Kentucky, USA: WJK, 2004),58.and Colin G. Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary.
Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament
Commentaries 4), S. 292
[3] Cf. Lincoln, 390.
[4] Cf. Gerard Sloyan, John, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for
Teaching and Preaching, ed. James L. Mays, et. al. (Atlanta, Georgia: John
Knox Press, 1988),179.
[5] Cf. Gerard Sloyan, John, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for
Teaching and Preaching, ed. James L. Mays, et. al. (Atlanta, Georgia: John
Knox Press, 1988), 185ff.
[6] Merrill C. Tenney, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis
CD-ROM:John/Exposition of John/III. The Private Ministry of the Word
(13:1-17:26)/B. The Last Discourse (13:31-16:33)/1. Questions and answers
(13:31-14:31)/e. The promise of the Spirit (14:16-21), Book Version: 4.0.2
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