He's Calling for You

 

 

“Martha went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you” (John 11:28 NASB).

 

Musings from John the Beloved Apostle:

 

I am often asked, “What was it like to write your account of Jesus?”

 

In response I usually have no response, just as I have no response to the question of what it was like to write the Apocalypse. There are some things that cannot be answered, at least in this life, and, I suppose, if they could be answered it would not be lawful or helpful to do so. Once in a long while I’ll look the questioner in the eye, pause, and then say, “You can only imagine.”

 

Yet, as I am with you today, I do feel like sharing an element of not so much what it was like to write the Gospel, but rather what it is like to live out of the Gospel I have written. One does not write a Gospel and have closure, anymore than one should read a Gospel, or Isaiah, or Job, and have closure. I dare say that anyone who reads Scripture and experiences closure has never read Scripture – for is not reading Scripture to enter into relationship with the Word who was in the Beginning, to live in the Eternal? Ha! Is it not to breathe His Life, to inhale and exhale? Ha!

 

O how I remember, how I still feel His holy breath upon us! How I felt it when I wrote, “He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit”.” (John 20:22). I felt His breath in the Upper Room, I felt His breath when I wrote those words, I feel His breath as I write these words. May I ask you, do you feel His breath right now?

 

To write is to remember, to relive, to experience, to be there – and it is for Him to be here; with me, with you, with us.

 

And so it was, when I related Lazarus’s death and Jesus raising him from the dead, when I described seeing Martha and Mary in their grief and Jesus in His compassion, when I wrote the words, “She went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you,’” that I thought, “Yes, amen, that is it, that says it all.”

 

Do you see what I mean?

 

Is this not what my life has been all about, since that Day when He called me?

 

There is Martha, conveying to Mary Jesus’ words of calling and His desire for Mary to come to Him.

 

“The Teacher is here,” Martha says.

 

Isn’t this what my life has been all about? To say to those around me, no...not to merely say, but to proclaim, to insist, that the Teacher is here! Right here, right now! The Word has become flesh and lives among us, He who was in the beginning, that is, He who is the Beginning, He has come, He is coming, He is here – O for people to know that He is here, here for them.

 

Martha speaks the calling of Jesus to Mary. “He is calling for you.”

 

Hasn’t this been my Message? Haven’t I learned from dear, dear Martha? O reader, there is more to Martha than meets the eye. Yes, yes, she may have her times when she is busy serving (John 12:2; Luke 10:40), but her serving also includes speaking the Word and heart of Jesus to others. Can you think of a more sacred charge than to say to those around us, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you”?

 

In the midst of her own grief, Martha speaks the presence and call of Jesus to Mary. This is, I know, a hard thing. It is a hard thing to go out of our own sorrow and pain and share joy and hope and peace and the call of Jesus with others. How well I recall when James, my sweet brother, was murdered by Herod (Acts 12:2).

 

At that very same time my beloved friend Peter was thrown into prison, indeed many of our brothers and sisters were persecuted, it was chaos around us. Yet, the peace of the Lamb was with us, the Teacher walked among us, and Voice of our Good Sheperd spoke to us…and I knew I must continue to encourage the sheep of our Lord Jesus, pray for Peter, and rejoice that my brother James had proven faithful to our Lord and His saints. I recalled Martha going to Mary as I was living through that particular trial, I recalled her words to Mary, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

 

Out of her own grief, Martha spoke words of hope to grieving Mary.

When Martha came to Mary their house was a cacophony of wailing and crying…it was chaos. Yet, Martha spoke and Mary heard. I have learned that no matter the chaos around us, no matter the noise, no matter the hopelessness, no matter the distractions, that if we will be the Voice of our Teacher, if we will be His Presence, if we will call others to Him, that His sheep will hear and respond.

 

Sadly, as I was reminded when I penned the Apocalypse, we often blend in with the chaos, make alliances with the world and the dragon, and fail to call others to our Lord Jesus.  

 

When Martha came for Mary, there was an empty place at their table. As the sisters would learn, in Jesus Christ there is never an empty place, for He is the Resurrection and the Life and when we believe in Him we never die…I reminded myself of that when I lost my brother James…a temporary parting you might call it…but since he remains with me it isn’t even that…one of those things you can’t explain, and if you could it wouldn’t be lawful to do so.

 

O the memories I had when I recorded my Gospel, how I relived what I wrote, how I learned from Martha and Mary…and how I am still learning from them, from Jesus, from Peter, from James…learning to say to others, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

 

Whom can you share those words with today?

 

With whom can you be the Presence of Christ?

 

To whom shall you say, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you”?

Reading the Bible, Knowing Jesus (6)

 

 

Now let’s consider what it means to read the Bible as a pilgrim.

 

"A pilgrim learns about themselves, and you learn about yourself by leaving your home and looking at it from a distance, you try to get closer to God through your travels.” Rick Steeves.

 

I have asked over the years, “Does a fish know that it lives in an aquarium?” This question has been asked in many forms over the centuries, asking it can be quite the journey, a pilgrimage. Can we answer the question without leaving the aquarium?

 

It is a challenge to “leave your home and look at it from a distance.” Generally, this is discouraged by the folks at home (in the aquarium).  Whether it is a family, a business concern, a religious tradition that exalts its practices and doctrinal distinctives, an academic institution, a political or social movement…whatever the system may be, traveling a distance and looking back to gain understanding is typically considered a threat to the system, and threats are either subjugated and brought back to be good little boys and girls, ostracized, or just plain destroyed.

 

Jesus was constantly asking His hears to travel and look back, travel farther and look back, travel even farther and look back again. “An hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:21, 24).

 

When Paul looked back at his impeccable Jewish pedigree, he wrote, “Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ…I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:7 – 8).

 

When we read the Bible as a pilgrim, we learn to read the Bible not through the lens of our religious tradition but rather learn to see our religious tradition through our reading of the Bible. In America, we have the additional challenge of learning to see our syncretistic Christianity through the Bible, seeing ourselves as Biblical pilgrims – passing through the United States just as we are passing through the world.

 

When we read as a pilgrims we read as an aliens, as people whose eyes are heavenward (Col. 3:1 – 4; Heb. 11:8 – 16; 1 Peter 2:4 – 12).

 

We ask the Holy Spirit to teach us about Jesus and about ourselves, with the Word of God piercing into the depths of our beings (Heb. 4:12 – 13). As we come to realize how intimately God knows us, we cry, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and led me in the Everlasting Way” (Psalm 139:23 – 24).

 

The greater the distance between us and home, the more we realize that home is not home, the more we realize that our Home is that City where the Father and the Lamb are the Light (Rev. 21:22 – 23; 22:5). Now this can be a problem, for few people want to hear this, speak this, know this, or practice this. We think the light is in our tradition, our doctrinal distinctives, the history of our movement. In America we think the light is in our syncretistic version of Christianity with its creation myth along with its justification for conquest, war, and extermination – and selling the souls of men (Rev. 18:13).

 

The farther we travel as pilgrims, the deeper God speaks to us about ourselves and where we’ve come from, and as we look back from a distance there may be things we are thankful for, things we regret, things we see in a new perspective, and things we dare no longer touch.

 

Pilgrimage is not encouraged; questions are seldom welcomed. Mystery is not acknowledged, and loose ends are quickly tied up or cut off. What do we fear? If Jesus Christ is truly the Head of the Body and we are under His authority, if He is indeed our Good Shepherd, then we can trust Him to care for us all on pilgrimage – we do not need all the answers, but we sure do need Jesus.

 

I seldom meet Christians on pilgrimage. I meet lots of Christians who care more about fitting in with their religious system but don’t think about fitting in with Jesus, about being conformed to His image. I have seldom heard a question asked in Sunday school or in a small group that was searching and penetrating and which had the potential to be life changing. True questions are not encouraged, on the contrary, it is more important to articulate the “correct answers” and to read the Bible in the image of our traditions, than to actually attempt to touch the hem of His garment and behold the Face of the Lamb.

 

We should not be surprised at this, it is our human condition, our center of gravity – it is a challenge to gain perspective, and it is most certainly a challenge to go against the grain of society and our associations. Perhaps this is particularly true when we are in religious and political environments, environments in which conformity is prized and insisted upon.

 

When we do sew a new piece of cloth on an old garment, or pour new wine into old wineskins, we soon have problems and find our actions quite unappreciated.

 

Ultimately, a pilgrim becomes a pilgrim – at least that is a possibility. What I mean is that the pilgrim may cross a point of no return in which his (or her) identity ceases to be that home county which he has left, and becomes rooted in that heavenly country which draws him with ever increasing desire.

 

The pilgrim realizes that the Jerusalem here on earth is in bondage; whether it is a city in the Middle East, or a flavor of doctrine, doctrinal distinctive, or particular practices – the possibilities are myriad, they all fall aside as the pilgrim beholds the Lamb. The pilgrim learns to live as a faithful citizen of heaven anticipating that blessed hope of eternal transformation (Phil. 3:20 – 21).

 

The city from which we departed appears dimmer and dimmer, indeed, without realizing it we cease to look back, it fades from our minds…as the glorious City of the Father and the Lamb descends from above into our hearts and minds, filling our souls, quickening our spirits, uniting us to the Bridegroom, opening its gates and calling us home – and we are pilgrims no longer.

 

“If they had been mindful of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a City for them” (Hebrews 11:15 - 16).

Full Circle

 

 

“He went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was first baptizing, and He was staying there” (John 10:40).

 

Well, old friend, here we are again. How long has it been? Three years? Almost three and a half?

 

How well I recall the look on your face as I approached you! Ha! What a surprise for you…or was it? Had you ever suspected that it might be Me? That I might be the One you were called to bear witness to?

 

The Voice from heaven, the Spirit descending like a dove, and your cry, “This is He!”

 

Did you realize what it all meant? I mean, did you realize that one day I would be back here, back here preparing to go to Jerusalem one more time, one more time for an appointment with yet another baptism, a baptism of death.

 

But it must be, must it not? Just as it was decreed that you would meet the executioner in Herod’s prison, so it has been decreed before the foundation of the world that I, the Lamb, would offer Myself for the world.

 

It seems like yesterday that you and I were here, by this river, in this river. I can still feel your hands on Me as you led me into the waters of baptism, as you raised Me up for the Father and Spirit to bear witness to Me, as you bore witness to Me.

 

Would you have leapt in your mother’s womb had you seen Herod’s prison with its executioner ahead of you?

 

Yes, I think you would have.

 

I won’t be here long, for My friend Lazarus is going to take a nap and I will go wake him up.

 

O John, O John, it is hard to wake people up, is it not?

 

Those who claim to see, do not see. Those who profess to hear, do not hear. Those who make a fuss about being alive, are dead.

 

Well, we have come full circle, have we not?

 

I will go to Bethany, then I will go to Jerusalem. There is a hill outside Jerusalem waiting for Me. There is a tree that has been growing, waiting to be transformed into a cross, waiting for Me. There are nails that have been forged that are waiting for Me.

 

Ah John, you waited for Me and I came. So I will come to, and not disappoint, the hill, the tree, the cross, the nails.

 

O John, but there is a joy beyond all of this that I see. The joy of My brothers and sisters returning to our Father, the joy of a glorious reunion of our Family – and so there is a fuller circle yet to come, a consummation in which God, who has ever been All, is seen as the All in All.

 

Well old friend, I’ve got to go now, it is time to head to Bethany.

 

I will see you soon.