A Message of Hope

In the first post in this series we looked at what it means to authentically say the 23rd Psalm and how, as Christians, we can say it with the Lord Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, in mind.  In the second post we drew three points of application from John 10.  To be able to say “The Lord Jesus is my shepherd,” means to be known by him, to listen to his voice, and to follow him.  Today, close by looking at two otther implications of following Jesus as our shepherd.

To Be Protected By Him.

Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.  (John 10:7-8)

It’s a dangerous world our there; there are lots of wolves, and some of them are in sheep’s clothing.   There are thieves and robbers.  Satan tries in so many ways to lure us out of the flock, and out of the care of the good shepherd.  Think about what how he tries to do it in your own life – maybe you’re overwhelmed with busyness; maybe it’s discouragement that tempts you to wander away from Jesus.  Maybe it’s a kind of spiritual loneliness where you feel don’t feel like you have a true friend to walk alongside of you.  Maybe you’re listening to the voice of the thieves and robbers, of our society that tells you that something newer or faster or sexier is better than life with the Good Shepherd. 

Jesus says that the only place of safety is to enter the sheepfold through him.  And once you’re there, he won’t let anyone come and snatch you out.   

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.(John 10:27-29)

A lot of Christians believe this verse teaches something called  “the perserverance of t he saints,” or, as we usually hear it, “once saved always saved.”  But you and I have all seen people who have chosen to walk out of the sheepfold .  The good shepherd lets them go because his hand is place of safety, not a prison.  Sometimes the good shepherd pursues them.  Sometimes, like the Father in the parable of the lost son, he waits for their return.  Some of them return and some of them don’t.  But we should not confuse the possibility of leaving the hand of Jesus with the probability of leaving.  Jesus says, “As long as you stick with me, I’ll watch out for you; I’ll protect you – ain’t nobody gonna grab you out of my hands; you can be assured of that.”

Finally, to have the Lord Jesus as your shepherd means

To Be In His Flock.

Now that may sound like a no-brainer, but it’s surprising how many sheep try to survive away from the flock.  That’s a dangerous place.  In another passage, Jesus talked about a man who left his ninety-nine sheep who were safe to go after the one who had wandered away (Matt. 18:12-13; Luke  15:3-7).    Why would he do that?  He does that because to be in the flock, to be with other sheep in the presence of the shepherd, is the best place to be protected from the thieves and the robbers that are out there – and they are out there!    

I think another reason that the good shepherd wants us with the flock is because the flock is place where he can gather new sheep. 

I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.  (John 10:16)

In this context, Jesus probably had in mind bringing the Gentiles into a flock that was, at that time, all Jewish.  That’s not a big issue for us today, but I think there’s a message for us here.  The flock, of course, is the church – we all need the church and we need to be in the church and we need to be with other Christians.  But the good shepherd never intended to have a flock that just had the same sheep in it year after year after  year.  He wants wild sheep – sheep that have never been part of a flock – to come in.  And he really doesn’t want a bunch of different flocks.  He didn’t want a Jewish flock and a Gentile flock—he wanted to bring them together.  And I’m convinced that he still longs for one flock, not a bunch of different flocks wearing different denominational banners.  And he sure doesn’t want his sheep butting each other trying to push one another out of the flock! 

 Jesus really is the good shepherd – he is my shepherd, and I hope that he’s your shepherd.  To be his sheep is to be known by him, it is to know him, it is to follow him, to be protected by him, and to be in his flock.  All of this is possible because the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

Yesterday we looked at the 23rd Psalm and talked about why we are justified in taking what it says about “the LORD,” and thinking of our Lord, Jesus Christ. 

We’re back to our question – ““What does it look like to have ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ written—not just on my tombstone—but on my life?”  “What does it mean to be the person who can say the 23^rd Psalm without hypocrisy?”  “What is it like to have the Lord Jesus Christ as my shepherd?”

According to what Jesus teaches in John 10, having the Lord Jesus as my shepherd means …

To Be Known by Him

Tis is what Jesus is saying in John10:3, and again in verse 14.

³The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

¹⁴“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—

When Jesus taught this, he knew that his audience would have a whole set of mental images  of sheep and shepherds and the relationship between them.  These people saw sheep and shepherds every day.  They knew what their lifestyle and practices were like.  Today, most of us have very little direct knowledge of shepherding even in our own culture – and the images that we do have are probably quite different from those to whom Jesus was talking.    

When I think of shepherds and sheep, when I think of the 23^rd Psalm, when I think of the good shepherd – I usually think of a scene like this.

In reality,  however, we should probably think more of a scene more like this. 

This was the kind of life Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived.  This is the kind of world the shepherd boy David lived in; and this is the picture that would have come to mind when Jesus talked about sheep and shepherds. 

Here in John 10, Jesus draws from a couple of different settings.  One comes from the village, where several families live and each has a few sheep.  Each morning, the person assigned to watch after the sheep that day – usually a child – David was a shepherd boy – would go to the different family compounds, and the watchman at each compound would open the gate, call the sheep, and they would follow him.  At night, they would return to the village, because the shepherd knew each sheep, he would make sure that each one was safely home.

During the warmer months, however, the shepherd and the sheep might not return to the village.  They might spend the night in the field.  But the sheep didn’t just roam around all night.  There was a sheep pen, surrounded by a wall built from rocks that had been gathered from the field.  Thorns were placed on top of the rocks to prevent predators from climbing over.  There was an opening for going in and o out, but no permanent gate.  Instead, the shepherd would sleep in the opening – the shepherd was, himself, the gate.  So,  you see, when Jesus says, “I am the gate for the sheep” in verse 7, and “I am the good shepherd” in verses 11 & 14, he’s really saying the same thing.

Those shepherds knew each sheep individually.  Because the Lord Jesus is my shepherd, I know that he knows me as well.  He cares for the whole flock, but he also cares for me.  He knows exactly what my life is like, he knows exactly the temptations I face, the knows exactly the encouragement that I need to make it through the day, he knows exactly what spiritual gifts I have and how I can be use them in his kingdom .  I am his sheep, and he knows me.

To have the Lord Jesus as my shepherd also means…

To Know His Voice.    

When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.(John 10: 4)

Today is not my first day in the field with this shepherd.   We’ve spent some time together, so I know him.  I recognize his voice.  I know the kinds of things he would say.  So, when I hear another voice telling me something that he would never say, I recognize it as a dangerous, deceitful voice. 

Of course, I have to make sure that I really know him.  I have to know what he has said in Scripture, so that I know what he really would say, and not just what I want him to say or think he should say or that someone else told me he would say.  If the Lord Jesus is my shepherd, I know him first through Scripture, and then I know him through my day-to-day experience with him.

To Follow Him

Notice that the good shepherd is out front; he is leading, and the sheep are following where he leads.  If the Lord Jesus is my shepherd, then I’m going to walk in his steps, I’m going to follow where he leads.  He will lead me, as the 23^rd Psalm says,  in “paths of righteousness”  — this isn’t a goody two shoes kind of self-righteousness, but it’s treating people fairly, and trying to get justice for people who are being cheated out of a fair deal.

Jesus, the good shepherd, will also lead me to love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, to love my neighbor as myself, and even to love my enemies.  If the Lord Jesus is my shepherd I will follow him; I’ll follow him all the way to the cross where he lay down him his life.

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.  (John10:14-15)

Few passages of Scripture have brought comfort to as many people as the 23^rd Psalm.  If you memorized it in childhood, take a moment to recall it.  If not, here it is.  (This is one case where the King James Version is still my favorite.)

 ¹The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
 ²He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
 ³He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.  
⁴Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
 ⁵Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
 ⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

This passage is read at almost every funeral, and it is inscribed on many tombstones.  That is certainly appropriate – it’s appropriate if it reflects the life of those saying it or the one who is being remembered.

Dallas Willard has noted, however, that “’The Lord is my shepherd’ is written on many more tombstones than lives.”

What I want each of us to ask today is, “What does it look like to have ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ written on  my life?”

I think we’ll find the answer in John chapter 10.  As we’ve been moving through the gospel of John, we’ve been learning a lot about Jesus – who he is as our Lord and our Savior.  That’s the primary purpose of John’s gospel – to bring us to greater faith in Jesus, so that we can have life in his name.  We’ve talked about how the “I am” statements of Jesus, like “I am the bread of life,” “I am the light of the world,” are all in the context of the great I AM, Yahweh, the God of Scripture – that Jesus is indeed God! (For a fuller explanation of this idea, see my earlier post.)  This chapter is no different.  We have another one of those “I am” statements.  Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd,” in verses 11 and 14. 

We confess, “The LORD, Yahweh, is my shepherd.”  And now Jesus says that he  is the good shepherd.

A passage similar to Psalm 23 is found in the book of Isaiah.  Speaking of the “Sovereign LORD,” the prophet says,

“He tends his flock like a shepherd
                He gathers the lambs in his arms,
                and carries them close to his heart;
                he gently leads those that have young.” (Isaiah 40-10-11)

So, when Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd,” he is continuing to do what we have seen all along in John’s gospel; he is making a claim that rightfully belongs only to God.  So then, we have to decide what we believe about him.  Either Jesus is the biggest liar and imposter that the world has ever seen, or  he is who he claimed to be, and who the church believes him to be –  he is the Son who is one with the Father–he is God.

But we have to remember that, in John’s gospel, faith is not an end in itself.  In John 20:31, John says that he is writing, “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

So the real focus of John’s gospel is not faith, but life!  In this very chapter, John 10, that’s what Jesus says he has come to offer. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)   — You see, it’s all about life!  Jesus offers full life, abundant life.  But what does that life look like?

That’s where we’ll pick up tomorrow.

For the past couple of days, we’ve been looking at Jesus’ healing of a man born blind, found in John 9.  Because Jesus healed the man on a Sabbath, the Pharisees interrogated the man who been healed, and even his parents.  In verse 17, the man tells the Pharisees that he believes that Jesus is a prophet.  He’s already made progress in his faith.  In verse 11 he had just talked about “the man called Jesus.”  Now he’s calling him a prophet.  Then, after they talk to his parents, we get down to this courageous and rather humourous exchange, starting in verse 24.

A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God, [that  means, “tell the truth,” or “’fess up,” we might say]  ” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”

He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?”

Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”

The man who had been born blind is messin’ with these Pharisees and they are spittin’ mad.  But you see, this man is showing us exactly what it means to be Jesus’ disciple – it means taking a stand for him, and sometimes it means being regarded as a rebel and a troublemaker.

 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.  [That expression probably means, “They disfellowshipped him.”]

This man declared himself to be Jesus’ disciple and he was called to pay the price of discipleship.  To be thrown out of the synagogue meant to be isolated from the life of the community; it meant to be an outsider.  Because of his handicap, this man had alredy lived his life as an outsider. Now he has a chance to blend in, to become just a regular guy, but his gratitude and his commitment to Jesus made that impossible.  The cost of discipleship means being different.

This man born blind had started out as viewing Jesus as “a man.”  Then he called him “a prophet.”  But now he is about to make another leap in his acknowledgment of Jesus.

Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

“Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”

Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

This man called Jesus “Lord” – remember (or read this post) that that’s what a Jew said instead of saying “Yahweh.”  Of course, the Greek word can else mean something milder, like “Sir.”  What did this man mean?   Look at what he did.  He worshiped him.  There is only one who is worthy of worship, and that is Yahweh.  There is only one who is worthy of worship – that is God.  The God who said, “Let there be light,” and there was light – brought light, not only to this man’s eyes, but to his heart.

Not everyone received that light.

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”

Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

While John 3:17 is still true– that Jesus came to save, and not to condemn, John 3:18 remains true as well … “whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

The question that this man sarcastically asked the Pharisees, becomes the question that each of us must answer today – “Do you want to become his disciple, too?” 

Being his disciple means living our lives in his light, and his light reveals to us the lies of Satan and the seduction of the world, so that, like this man, we are prepared to say, “Lord, I believe,” to fall on our knees in worship, and then rise to take our stand for him.

If you missed yesterday’s post or you need to refresh you memory, go back and read John 9:1-7.

Notice that the disciples look at this blind man, and instead of actually being concerned about him as a person, they want to get Jesus’ opinion on a theological question.  They ask, “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind.” 

I wonder how that man felt when he heard people ask those questions about him—when people treated him as an object instead of as a person.  And I wonder how people feel when we treat them in the same way –maybe they’re handicapped, maybe they’re elderly, maybe they’re sick – and we see them and we’re aware of their physical presence, but we choose not to think about their humanity, about their personhood, and we treat them as objects rather than as people.

The disciples start with a wrong assumption, but it was a very common one then, and it remains common today.  “Who sinned?”  “What went wrong?”  “Things aren’t supposed to be this way.  Whose fault is it?” 

Jesus says, “It’s nobody’s fault.  This man isn’t here so that we can blame someone or to provide us with a topic for discussion, this man is here so that God can be glorified in his life.”

In that sense, this man is just like all of us.  We’re all here so that God can be glorified in our lives.  Now God is glorified in our lives in different ways, but it almost always comes out of whatever challenges we face.  Every challenge that we face, every problem in our lives, every way in which we are handicapped is an opportunity for God to be glorified in our lives!

Now some people are offended the idea that God would have allowed this man to live his life to this point in blindness, just so he could be glorified.  Well, God is God and he can do whatever he wants.  But there is another way of translating Jesus’ words, not as showing the purpose of his blindness, which is what we have in the NIV – but as a command to Jesus’ disciples.  These words can just easily be translated, “Neither t his man nor his parents sinned, but let the work of God be displayed in him!”  If this is what Jesus meant, then  Jesus isn’t saying anything about why this man was born blind – he just addresses the reality – since things are this way, let’s get on with glorifying God.

Isn’t it that way it is in our lives?  We want to know why things happen, but usually we can’t.  What’s important is just to get on with glorifying God by being faithful in adversity and by looking to him to work a miracle if that’s what he chooses to do. 

I think that it’s remarkable that Jesus gives this man an opportunity to participate in his own healing by  telling him to go wash in the pool of Siloam.  The fact that the man had to do something didn’t mean that it was any less of a miracle or that there was any less grace involved, but it gave him an opportunity to show his faith by obedience.  In that regard, his washing in the pool of Siloam is similar to our washing in baptism.

As you might guess, this man’s healing causes quite a stir among those who know him.  Some are not even sure that he’s the same person.  A blind person carries himself differently from a seeing person; their eyes, of course, look different – a person who sees has a completely different look about them than a person who is staring into blackness.  That happens on a spiritual level as well.   When a person goes from walking in darkness to walking in the light, they don’t even appear to be the same person.

But this guy causes a really big stir when he is brought before the Pharisees.  Instead of seeing a miracle of healing, they get uptight because they think, once again, that Jesus has broken the Sabbath, so they interrogate this man and his parents about his healing.  All the man knows at first is that “the man they call Jesus” had healed him.  He doesn’t even know where to find him.  His parents affirm that the man is their son and that he was born blind, but they claim not to have any idea how  he was healed.  The Pharisees themselves argue about what this means.

Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
      But others asked, “How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?” So they were divided.

You know, both groups were using impeccable logic, but they could not get at the truth through logic alone.  Basically both groups are using logical syllogisms, but they ended up with different conclusions. 

Look at their logic. 

Both groups had equally compelling logic.  Who was right?  Well, the second group was right, of course.  When you look down at verses 31-33, the man who has been healed uses this same line of reasoning.  (There were some holes in his reasoning as well.  For example, he says, “We know that God does not hear sinners.”   What other kind of humans are there?) 

What made this man right, however, was not his logic or his theology, but the fact that he had a saving encounter with Jesus, and he responded by taking a stand for him.

In this way, this man stands in contrast to the paralytic back in John chapter 5, who Jesus healed, also on a Sabbath, also at a pool.  Remember that man, even after Jesus had healed him, betrayed Jesus and turned him into the Sabbath police so that he could stay out of trouble.

This man who had been born blind, however, is moving toward faith and so he takes a stand for Jesus.  It got him into trouble, but as he grows increasingly convinced of who Jesus is, he knows  it is worth it.  Tomorrow we’ll look more at the stand that he takes.

Most of us are familiar with the story of Moses and the burning bush – how God spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai and told him to go back to Egypt and to set the people free.  When God did that, Moses started to ask a lot of questions and, basically, to make excuses.  We see one of his questions to God  in Exodus 3:13-16:

13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

 15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

 16 “Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt.

What we see written in our English Bibles as “The LORD,” with “LORD” in all capitals is actually the Hebrew word “Yahweh.”  This is the name that God revealed to Moses and to the people of Israel, and it’s closely linked with the verb “to be,” “to exist,” and that’s why God says that he is the “I AM.”  There are only four letters in the Hebrew word because, originally, Hebrew didn’t have vowels.  In fact, we’re not 100% sure of the pronunciation because the Israelites considered the name too holy to pronounce.  When they got to those four letters in the text, instead of even daring to try to pronounce them, they would just read “Adonai”—which means “LORD,” and that’s why our English translations today continue that tradition today, by writing the word “LORD,” in capital letters.

Now, I believe the name of God is holy and should be revered, it should certainly never be used casually or disrespectfully.  I think it is shameful and sinful the way that the expression “Oh my God” is used today in a way that makes it clear that the person’s not even thinking of God.  But I also think that the Jews went to the opposite extreme.  If anything, it seems that the name “Yahweh,” or however you’re supposed to say it, was a name that God wanted to make known – he even said, “it is to be remembered from generation to generation.” 

Now, every Jew in Jesus’ day considered the name sacred; they knew that it referred to God alone, that it was linked to God’s revelation of himself as the “I AM.”  That’s why, at the end of John chapter 8, we read this:

“I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

These folks understood that when Jesus used the expression “I am,” not only was he was claiming to have been around before Abraham, who had lived about 2,000 years earlier, he was also claiming be the very God who had spoken to Moses on the mountain.  No wonder they wanted to stone him!

In fact, throughout John’s gospel, Jesus uses the phrase “I am.”   In John 6, he says, “I am the bread of life,” and in John 8:12, just after Jesus’ words of grace and challenge to the woman caught in adultery, that we talked about last week, John records,

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

These words carry over directly into this week’s text, which is John chapter 9.  In fact, John 9 is a commentary and an illustration that shows  us the difference between those who walk in light and those who walk in darkness, and it does so through the miracle of Jesus giving sight to a blind man.

Read John 9:1-7.

You see the clear connection between the two texts – just like in John 8, Jesus says here in John 9, “I am the light of the world.”  But what does it mean to have that light of life, and what does it mean to refuse it, to walk in darkness?   That’s what we’ll be looking at as the week goes on.

I concluded yesterday’s post on the powerful (but troubling) text of John 8:2-11, by saying,

Jesus did not come to condemn, but to save.  That is the message of the whole New Testament, and that is what this story powerfully illustrates for us.  There’s more to salvation, however, than avoiding a stoning.  Check back tomorrow.

Well, it’s tomorrow.  Let me explain what I was getting at.

There are two aspects of salvation and, in order to f ully experience salvation, we have to experience both of them.  We are saved from and we are saved for.   We are saved from a host of things.  We are saved from condemnation, from hell, from guilt, from the power of sin over us.  We are saved from Satan, we are saved from ourselves, we are saved from trying to please others, we are saved from the pressures of materialism and seeking status in the eyes of man.  We are saved from fear and hopelessness.  None of us deserve to be saved from any of these things, but that’s what grace is!

Yet that’s only one side of salvation.  We are also saved for lives of holiness and righteousness, we are saved for living in the kingdom of God, we are saved for a victorious life, we are saved for those streams of living water that Jesus wants to flow through us.  We are saved for service and sacrifice.

The apostle Paul put it this way in Romans 12:1.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy [because you have been saved from], to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God [this is what you have been saved for]—this is your spiritual act of worship.

You see, you’re not fully saved until you have embraced both aspects of salvation.  Jesus said to this woman,

Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more. (John 8:11, ESV) 

She is saved from those who want to stone her.  She is saved for a holy life. 

If you’re saved, praise God for everything that  you’ve been saved from.  But praise him also for what you’ve been saved for!  For the purity and holiness, for the purpose and direction that he has given you.

Betty Maxfield, who survived the 9/11 tragedy at the Pentagon, said, “I should’ve been dead. I was, for some reason, saved. My question now is, what am I supposed to do with it? I just can’t go waste it. I thought I was living my life well before, but obviously there’s more that I can do to say thank you for my life and a second chance at it.”

Believe it or not, if you are in Christ, you have been saved from something far worse than having a plane crash into your office building.  You have been granted salvation for a reason.  You have salvation, now, as a present possession.  The question before you today is, “What am I supposed to do with it?”

Througout the gospel of John, Jesus spends a lot of time disputing with the Jewish leaders.  And this story shows how arrogant they were and how determined they were to trap him.  Notice that it’s early morning when they bring this woman to Jesus.  Had they drug this woman out of bed, or had they caught her the previous evening?  Had they themselves caught her, or had she been reported to them by her husband?  We just don’t know.  But the huge question that immediately arises is, “Where was the man?”

The law that they cite, Leviticus 20:10 says,  “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.”  Deuteronomy 22:22 says,  “ If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.”

In both cases, the law clearly says that both the man and the woman are to be put to death.  But, as they quote the law, they say, “In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. “  It sounds like they were misreading the law.

Also, there is no evidence that this law was ever enforced in this way in Jesus’ day.  So not only are they reading the law through male chauvinist lenses, they’re being hypocritical.  They’re asking Jesus to take a stand on an issue of law that they almost certainly have no intention of keeping.

They do this because they think they have Jesus trapped.  If he upholds the law, he’ll be contradicting his own way of life and teaching.  He’ll also be inviting the wrath of the Romans occupiers who had not given the Jews the right to carry out executions.  If he says to disregard the law, then they will offer this as proof that he could not be from God, because he has not respected God’s law.

So what does he do?  First, he bends down and writes something on the ground.  He knows what he is going to say to them, but he intends to build the suspense.  Then  he straightens up and says to them, “Go ahead, stone her.”  But with a qualification – “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 

You see what he’s doing.  By saying this, he is maintaining his respect for the Law, while at the same time saying that there are other considerations that take precedence over the letter of the law.

Then he stoops down and writes on the ground some more.  Of course, over the centuries lots of people have guessed about what Jesus might have written on the ground.  I really have no idea, but I think the significance is that, by writing in dust, he was acting out a parable.  I think he may well have had Jeremiah 17:13 in mind.

Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust
because they have forsaken the LORD,
the spring of living water.

Considering that Jesus has talked about the streams of living water that would flow from within the believer (John 7:37-39) , I find this parallel too powerful to be coincidental.  By writing in the dust – and he may have been even writing their names—Jesus was acting out a parable that condemned those who were wanting him to condemn this woman.

These people, in fact, condemned themselves.  Faced with Jesus’ challenge that the one who was without sin should cast the first stone, they all walked away.  By doing so, they were confessing their own sin.

The woman is left standing there, while Jesus is still kneeling.  I find it a very powerful sign of grace and humility that she is standing while he is kneeling.  Then he straightens up.  I wonder what she was thinking.  Is she hopeful, or is she still quite frightened?  Because there is still one person there who is without sin and who could, justifiably, throw that first stone. 

He asks her where her accusers are.  “Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir.”
“Then neither do I condemn you.  Go now and sin no more.”

Whether it came from the pen of John or not, this story is the perfect commentary on John 3:17:

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Jesus did not come to condemn, but to save.  That is the message of the whole New Testament, and that is what this story powerfully illustrates for us.  There’s more to salvation, however, than avoiding a stoning.  Check back tomorrow.

 The text that we’ll be looking at over the next few days records one of the most powerful moments in Jesus’ ministry.  It’s a story that lets us look into the heart of Jesus, and because it shows us Jesus’ heart, it has given grace and  hope to many, many people who thought that they were beyond forgiveness, that they were not worthy to come to God, that there was no hope for them.  Some people, because they live without h ope, feel that they really have no choice but to continue to self-destruct.  In this story we see that there is always hope for forgiveness from the past, and a forgiven past is the doorway to a better future.   It’s a message that we all need to hear.  It’s the story of a woman caught in the act of adultery.

Take a moment to read John 8:2-11.

Whether you were reading in your Bible or online, you probably noticed something very troubling.  There is this note right in the middle of the text that says,

“The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53-8:11.”

Now that can be disturbing.  Maybe this story that gives us so much hope isn’t even supposed to be in our Bibles!  And if that’s the case, what are we going to do with it?

First of all, we need to acknowledge that no respected scholar today even tries to claim that this story was part of John’s original gospel.  It doesn’t show up in any of the earliest, most reliable manuscripts of the New Testament .  Also, the language that’s used is more like that of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) than it is like John, although none of them record the story either.
 
Now occasionally you’ll run into someone who says that you can’t trust the Bible because the text has been copied and re-copied so many times and so many errors have crept in, that we don’t have any way of knowing that we have the original.  Muslims will even claim that, in its original form, the Bible was from God, but  they’ll say that anything that disagrees with Islamic belief  is a later change that was made.  But it’s not just Muslims, a lot of people who don’t want to follow the plain teachings of Scripture will often throw this out as an excuse.   And then there are all the honest folks who want to do what’s right, but they’ve accepted these claims and just don’t feel that they can trust the  Bible. 

But if you can trust any other ancient document, you can trust your Bible.  We have to remember that the Bible was written long before the printing press was invented and so the oldest copies of the Bible are hand written.  We call them manuscripts.  With most ancient works of history that no serious scholar disputes, we have only a few copies that were made hundreds of years after the originals.  But with the Bible, we have literally thousands of ancient manuscripts of the New Testament, many going back to very close to the time of the original writings.  Scholars have spent hundreds of years pouring over the copies of the New Testament comparing them, and –yes, there are differences – but the sheer number and quality of the manuscripts that we have to compare gives us a very high degree of confidence that we can determine the original writings.  And in those very few cases where we just aren’t sure, there is not a single issue of Christian doctrine that depends solely on one of these disputed texts.  

So, the fact that we know that this story of the woman caught in adultery was not part of John’s original text should not trouble us.  Rather, it should reassure us that we do know what the original text was, even though this particular story was not a part of it.  There is not some giant conspiract to keep things in the Bible that don’t belong there – you can’t be much clearer than the notes that we see in our Bibles.

So, in spite of all the evidence that this story was not part of John’s text, why is it that every major English translation includes it, most with a note similar to what we see in the NIV?

Well, one reason is probably simply that we love the story.  Many of us know have known it from our King James days, and it has become dear to us.  Now, that may not sound like a very good reason and, by itself, it isn’t, but it’s important to be honest.  The bigger question is, “Why do we love it?”  Do we love it because it shows us a different picture of Jesus, or do we love it because it is consistent with everything we know about Jesus?

I believe that it is the later – the Jesus we see in this story is the same Jesus we see throughout the gospels—it’s just that the story brings this loving, compassionate, wise Jesus to life.  In fact, this is one of the reasons that, in spite of the fact that this was not originally in John’s gospel, most people believe that this is an authentic, historically accurate story from the life of Christ.  Not only is it consistent with everything we know about Jesus, it is not the kind of thing the early church would have made up.  You see, the early church, especially in the second and third centuries when they were being severely persecuted, was very tough on sin.  These people were dying for their faith, and it was important to them that the church remain  pure.  So they were very hard on Christians who were sinning; they would not have invented a story like this.

In fact, in the earliest reference we have to this story, it was used to address church leaders and to encourage them to show more grace and mercy.  The reference comes from a church manual that was written to guide new converts from  in northern Syria in the early part of the third century (called the Syriac Didascalia, if you’re interested).  It tells the church leaders that, when someone sins and repents, they should do “as he also did with her who had sinned, whom the elders set before him, and leaving the judgment in his hands, departed.”

This is a clear reference to this incident, so this was a well-known story at a very early stage in the church’s history.  And it’s a story that they thought was important enough that it continued to be handed down and eventually worked its way into some copies of John’s gospel.  And while this story doesn’t tell us anything new about Jesus that we can’t get elsewhere, it beautifully reminds us of some aspects of his character, and our response to him, that we need to be sure not to miss.  More on that next time.