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JOHN’S GOSPEL… FAMILY CONFICT – 13

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John 7:1-5 NIV
[1] “After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him. [2] But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near, [3] Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. [4] No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” [5] For even his own brothers did not believe in him.”

Jesus was no stranger to conflict. It had begun in His own home at a young age. Jesus was different. Of course He was different! In a family of many siblings, He stood out like a sore thumb. As the eldest son, He was responsible for His younger brothers and sisters, according to Jewish culture. He took the rap for their misdeeds, He made decisions for the family, yes, and He inherited a double portion of His father’s estate, a reward for His role…and He dud it all with excellence!

In His early adulthood, Jesus must have been head of the family since there is no Biblical evidence of His father’s presence. Imagine, the sinless Son of God having to take the rap every time a sibling stepped out of line…and He always did it with grace!

This “goody-goody” brother must have really got under His brothers’ skin. He was too nice, and they hated Him for it. Imagine how they must have ganged up against Him and deliberately done things to get Him into trouble. What an opportunity for Him to practise what He preached and to face what was to come!

So, when it was time to go to Jerusalem for the festival, they taunted Him. “Go to Jerusalem, brother. Don’t hide away. You are so popular that everyone’s waiting for you!”

Jesus ignored their taunts. He was used to them. When it was His time, He would go.

John 7:6-8 NIV
[6] “Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. [7] The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. [8] You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.”

However, He eventually went to Jerusalem without fanfare, to watch and listen to public opinion about Him. True to form, people were divided. Some were for Him, others were skeptical. He was, the focus of attention and people were continually discussing and bickering about Him.

When the festival was in full swing, Jesus was noticed. A crowd began to gather around Him. Opportunity! Knowing full well that He was in danger if His presence was known, He did what He did best…He began to teach. Truth was His message and every time people gathered around Him, He taught them truth.

Why did Jesus need to teach truth? His people were in bondage to the false teaching of their teachers…forced to obey endless laws they couldn’t keep. They needed to know the truth that would set them free from their cruel taskmasters. True freedom, not from Rome or any other oppressor lay in believing in Him, the only one who could set them free from sin, the worst of their slavedrivers.

Now, let’s go back to the siblings. They thought Jesus was crazy. The things He was saying and doing! Mark records…

Mark 3:20-21, 31-32 NIV
[20] “Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. [21] When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”…
[31] Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. [32] A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

So much for family unity! Jesus distanced Himself from their petty sibling rivalry. He was about a much bigger family than hostile brothers and sisters. He was about a global family loyal to a loving Father through faith in Him.

This antagonism continued until… something so dramatic happened that all the early skepticism and false notions about Him exploded! His ememies finally killed Him but He didn’t stay dead! How could these unbelieving brothers ever deny this fact? So, everything He said about Himself and everything He did proved that He was, after all, the Son of God. Just imagine, for 30 years before He left home, the Son of God was living in a normal family, doing ordinary things…and they missed it!

Acts 1:12-14 NIV
[12] “Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. [13] When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. [14] They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.”

The disciples and Jesus’ family finally came together in faith…the nucleus of the church to be born! Traditionally, even James’ letter, written by one of His brothers, was included in the canon of Scripture.

What a revelation! Their own brother, alive from the dead! What a transformation! From skeptics to believers! Don’t you love what James wrote…gone the taunting and disrespect! Gone the hatred! Gone the jealousy!

James 1:1 NLT
[1] “This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ…” A slave? Of his own brother? His Lord and Saviour? How did this happen? A light-bulb moment, an “aha” awakening, when Jesus rose from the dead, changed everything.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 7 NLT
[3] “I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. [4] He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said…
[7] Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. “

Seen by James…

It all happened in a flash when Jesus walked out of the tomb. In the unforgettable event, faith was born!

Setting The Record Straight

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SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with Him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen Him, they did not believe it.

Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. They returned and reported it to the rest, but they did not believe them either. (Mark 16: 9-13)

Talk about unbelief! First the women at the tomb when the young man told them Jesus had risen; then the disciples when Mary reported to them that she had seen Jesus; then the two whom Jesus had accompanied home from Jerusalem to Emmaus.

I suppose it was understandable seeing to them there was no such thing as someone rising from the dead. O yes, they had seen Jesus raising people from the dead, but that was different. They had come back to life in their old natural bodies.

But the reports about Jesus may have seemed spooky to them. He seemed to come and go like a spirit, and yet, He was a real person. They recognised Him as Jesus. These reporters must have described in detail what they had seen. Best they just dismiss the reports rather than raise their hopes only to be dashed when He failed to show Himself to them.

But that’s where they were dead wrong. It was not only Thomas who refused to believe the good news that Jesus was really alive until he had verified it for himself. The others were in the same boat. They wanted to see Him personally before they would finally abandon themselves to the truth that He was really alive and they could rejoice without reservations.

What is so wrong about that? Perhaps people in this generation could take a leaf from their book. There are too many “believers” walking around today, thinking they are disciples of Jesus but having done nothing more than given mental assent to Him, or ”accepted Him as their personal Saviour” because of what He could do for them – sins forgiven, a free pass to heaven and all that.

Is that how the disciples understood Him and His call to them? If that was so, what difference did it make to them whether He was dead or alive? They had His teaching, and they could carry on with His mission as He had taught and trained them to do. He was no different from any other founder of a religion. After all, they believed in Moses and held to his teaching even though he had been dead for many centuries.

But was that what Jesus had actually taught them? Not by a long shot! All the other rabbis with authority who had ever lived could do no more than pass on their teaching. Their disciples were taught to imitate them but they were, at best, human and fallible. However closely their followers stuck to them, it would make no difference to their hearts. They could copy their rabbis as carefully as they liked – it was all external. Their sinful hearts remained unchanged.

But Jesus was different. He promised His disciples a union with Him that would recreate them from within. He told them of the Holy Spirit, His “other self”, one just like Him, who would come when He left, “another Counsellor” who would be “in” them. He said that they would see Him again and that He would return to take them to where He was. All empty promises if He were dead – or were they? Did they die with Him and prove Him a liar, or would He really be able to make good on His promises? From what they had seen up to that point, everything He told them had disappeared with Him into the tomb behind the stone. They were left helpless, hopeless and alone.

The stories that the witnesses of the resurrection of their Master persisted in telling them, only served to make their loss more poignant. Why raise their hopes when they knew His resurrection was impossible? Whoever added the last few verses to Mark’s story to set the record straight, since Mark’s story ended abruptly with the women fleeing from the tomb, made sure that Mark’s readers would know that Jesus’s story did not end there.

What the disciples dismissed as impossible, actually happened and much more. Everything that Jesus taught and modelled hung on His promise that He would rise again. Did He or didn’t He? If not, then He was just another hoax!

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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