Saturday, December 20
Scripture: Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath. (John 3:36).
Observation: The speaker sounds like Jesus, but this is John the Baptist talking about Jesus. We’re overhearing a conversation between John and his disciples.
John’s disciples are confused. More people are flocking to Jesus and his disciples than to John and his disciples. This is new. John was a Billy Graham-type preacher with a massive following and influence with the poor and rich alike. But the winds have changed. The very same people who went to John’s revivals are camping out at the Jesus revival. John’s disciples aren’t disappointed about a drop in their own popularity as much as they are perplexed by what the rise of Jesus’ popularity means for them and for John. From the perspective of John’s disciples, John was the clear Messiah, even though John had explicitly denied being the Messiah. Perhaps because they thought John was being humble, the disciples of John were convinced that John, rather than Jesus, would restore Israel and inaugurate the Kingdom of God on earth.
John hits his disciples with the truth: Jesus offers what John cannot provide, and that’s eternal life. John uses the Greek word zoe for life. Whereas the word bios was the Greek word for physical life in a biological else, zoe meant life in a spiritual, quality-of-life kind of sense. Having bios makes a thing alive, but having zoe means a thing is living, really and truly living. Just because a person exists doesn’t mean they’re living. Zoe is living. John testifies to his own disciples that Jesus is the one who offers eternal zoe, meaning the eternal quantity of time a person is alive, as in living after death, and the eternal quality of living a person can have before they die, a true living before dying. Belief in Jesus is the open door to eternal living on both sides of death.
The piece about “God’s wrath” refers to what awaits a person who refuses to walk through the open door of eternal living. Such a person would have what they had to begin with, which is the absence of living, not death in the biological sense but an existence without substance, a mere aliveness without meaning for living. “God’s wrath,” then, isn’t punishment but a descriptor of the downgrade that is waiting for anyone who is presented with the choice to walk through the door of eternal living but chooses to stay put. Such a life is characterized by wrath: anger, bitterness, self-centeredness, greed, loathing. God doesn’t thrust this downgrade on anyone; we would be choosing it for ourselves. It would be far better if we walked through the door of eternal living.
Application: I want to walk through the door. I choose to believe Jesus is the open door to eternal living on both sides of death. I choose to reject a life of wrath where I loathe the world around me because, deep down, I loathe myself. I choose living, and because I choose living, I choose Jesus.
Prayer:
Holy One become Human One,
you are the path of living on both sides of dying.
Believing in you is baby steps through the
Door of Live busted open and dangling off its hinges because
You rushed in and took the spot closest to me
While I was dying while I was alive.
Now I see the path of living, extending to eternity away from the
Door of Life that will not shut, and you ask me to take
Baby steps shoulder-to-shoulder with you.
Living is what I choose for life ahead of me.
Dying is what I choose for life behind me.
Bless me with baby-steps away from a dying life.
Evict the loathing pointed outward that started
With loathing pointed inward, for that is dying.
Take my hand and guide me toward living.
You are the path of living on both sides of dying.
Bless me with baby-steps away from a dying life.