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Scripture Focus: John 12.4-9
4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” 6 He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. 

7 “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” 

9 Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

Reflection: Mary and Judas
By John Tillman

The raising of Lazarus, in chapter 11, is the seventh sign John has arranged to tell us who Jesus is. After presenting these signs, John shows us the responses. He begins with the responses of two of his close followers, Mary and Judas.

I’ve written before that Mary seems to be the only one of Jesus’ friends to realize what the signs meant. She did the theological math. She gave her offering knowing Jesus was about to give his life.

Judas did some math as well. He realized that he didn’t want to follow the path Jesus was on. John tells us that Judas stole from the money bag. This highlights the difference between Mary and Judas. Her response to Jesus’ identity and to what Jesus is about to do was to say, “What can I give?” So she gave her all. Judas’s response was, “What can I get?”

He criticized Mary’s extravagance, but Jesus shut him down, saying, “Leave her alone.”  So he took what the world gave him: money, guilt, and death.

The detail of Judas being an embezzler hints that his betrayal of Jesus wasn’t an instant or impulsive decision. Betrayal kissed his heart long before he kissed Jesus’ face. 

When Jesus came to Bethany after Lazarus had died, Mary and Martha knew he had delayed. They knew he could have prevented Lazarus from dying. Mary wouldn’t come out to see Jesus until he called for her. Jesus wept with her in her grief before he raised Lazarus. Then she wept in grief over Jesus, before following him to the cross.

When we look at Jesus, we have a choice. It is our turn to respond. 

Like Mary, you may be in a moment of doubt or confusion. Like Judas, your heart may already hold sins and betrayals you are ashamed of. You may be unsure of Jesus or wondering about him. Or you may know someone who is.

Every rebuke from Jesus is also a call to come close. Come to him like Mary. Look again at the signs John described:
He makes something from nothing. (John 2.1-11)
He heals the dying. (John 4.46-54)
He motivates the paralyzed. (John 5.1-15)
He feeds the hungry. (John 6.5-14)
He delivers from chaos. (John 6.15-24)
He makes the blind see. (John 9.1-7)
He raises the dead. (John 11.1-45)

Who could this be except the Son of God? You can trust him and follow him, even to the cross.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading
The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah—that is, Christ—is coming; and when he comes he will explain everything.” Jesus said, “That is who I am, I who speak to you.” — John 4.25-26

Today’s Readings
Genesis 13 (Listen 2:16)
John 12 (Listen 6:26)

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Mary of Bethany’s anointing of Christ on his last trip to Jerusalem is intimately connected to the gospel—Christ said that it would be.

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Scripture Focus: John 10.11-15
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 

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

Reflection: Urban Legends and Good Shepherds
By John Tillman

In the 90s, listening to Phil Keaggy, I heard a story from a friend.

“Phil’s the world’s greatest guitarist. One night, on Johnny Carson, Jimi Hendrix was asked, ‘What’s it like to be the world’s greatest guitarist?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. Ask Phil Keaggy.’”

“So cool,” I thought at the time. I spread the tale often as I shared my love of Phil Keaggy.

Years later I heard another Keaggy fan begin the same story. I was shocked when, instead of Jimi Hendrix, it was Eddie Van Halen on the talk show. Every other detail was identical. My heart fell. I realized the stories weren’t true.

To put it kindly, they were urban legends. To be more direct, they were lies. Lies I had spread over and over. I felt sick and angry. My friends and I had been duped.

Worse than urban legends about guitarists are urban legends about God. Recently, I was reminded of an old “preacher story” about shepherds and lambs.

Supposedly, a shepherd would break a wandering lamb’s leg and carry it as the leg healed. By caring for the lamb and holding it close, it would bond with him and never wander again. This act of “tough love” allegedly explained how God wounds us to keep us close to him. Authoritative and abusive leaders have used this metaphor to justify “wounding” parishioners with “tough love” because they are “good shepherds.”

To put it kindly, this metaphor is a myth—a “rural legend” instead of an “urban” one. To be more direct, it is a lie. Nowhere in records of animal husbandry or the Bible is there a description of shepherds breaking the legs of sheep in this way. Worse than damaging our understanding of human shepherds, this story damages our understanding of Jesus, the true good shepherd.

Don’t be duped into thinking that Jesus treats his sheep in this way. Abusive “hired hands” may wound their sheep or leave them unprotected from the wolves. But Jesus, the good shepherd, rushes in to face the wolf.

Jesus doesn’t heal our wandering by breaking our legs. Jesus lays down his life for the sheep and by his stripes, we are healed. Jesus’ body is broken for his sheep, and by him we are whole.

You may have been wounded by a foolish or wicked shepherd. But you can still be healed by Jesus, the good shepherd.

Music: “Jesus Is The Great Shepherd” from Live From Lawrence, Kansas (November 1974) by Phil Keaggy and Paul Clark

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Out of Zion, perfect in its beauty, God reveals himself in glory. — Psalm 50.2

Today’s Readings
Genesis 11 (Listen 7:19)
John 10 (Listen 4:44)

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May we, and our shepherds be more like Jesus. May we seek and support earthly shepherds like him.

Tendencies of Unfaithful Shepherds

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Scripture Focus: John 9.30-33; 39-41
30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

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

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

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

Reflection: Blinded by the Light of the World
By John Tillman

Until he is made to see, no one treats the blind man as a person, except Jesus. To the disciples, the blind man is just a theological quandary. They talk about him as if he is not there. Only Jesus speaks to him, instead of just about him. Jesus tells the blind man, and his disciples, that he is the light of the world.

The man’s blindness, in a way, made others blind to his value. He couldn’t work. He couldn’t enter the Temple and worship in the traditional ways that others worshiped. He couldn’t attend Hebrew school and learn to read the Torah as other boys had. He was not included in theological education. 

However, when he was questioned by the council, his responses revealed that he had been listening. They had taught him their theology with their calloused words and actions. And he remembered. He experienced the difference between how they treated him and how Jesus treated him.

He lectured the teachers with overheard lessons. He knew that those who were “sinful,” like him, were not expected to be heard by God, called by God, or used by God. “We know that God does not listen to sinners…” Therefore this Jesus, this mud-making man who claimed to “do the works of him who sent me,” must not be a sinner. He must be something else. He must be what he claimed to be—the light of the world. Rather than learn from this light, the leaders end up blinded by it.

Let us not, as followers of the light, become blinded. Let us not be surprised when Jesus speaks to those we overlook, blesses those we thought cursed, and uses those we thought valueless. Let us not be surprised to learn lessons about Jesus from those who just met him.

We are to be the light of the world. Our hands are to do God’s healing work. Let us open our eyes to see what kind of light we are shining and what kind of work we are doing.

Do we treat people as theological quandaries to be puzzled over?
What theology are our words and actions teaching?
Who around us do we think God won’t listen to?
Who are those whose value we are blind to?

Jesus, cover our eyes with mud and send us to wash away our blindness, that we can say, “…but now I see.”

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Purge me from my sin, and I shall be pure; wash me, and I shall be clean indeed. — Psalm 51.8

Today’s Readings
Genesis 9-10 (Listen 7:19)
John 9 (Listen 7:33)

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We can blind ourselves, like the Pharisees, refusing to see our sin. Or we can admit our former blindness…

Steeped In Sin

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Scripture Focus: John 6.25-26, 30-35, 68-69
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” 

26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.

30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 

34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” 

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

On January 6th Christians across the world celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. This represents the manifestation or revealing of Christ to the non-Jewish world. May we seek to manifest Christ as the one who is the bread of life for all who will partake.

Reflection: Manna or the Man?
By John Tillman

Many followed Jesus out of impure motives.

The feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle of Jesus in all four gospels. It is the fourth of seven, and therefore the central, sign that John chooses to demonstrate who Jesus is. Like a central pole of a tabernacle or tent, it supports some of the loftiest, most direct messianic claims that Christ makes.

A tiny detail at the beginning of chapter 6 tells us that it is almost Passover. The rescue from Egypt is on everyone’s mind. Over the course of the chapter, it is like John runs Exodus in reverse. Meeting with Jesus on the mountain echoes the meeting with God at Sinai. Eating the bread and fish in the wilderness mirrors the manna and quail. Jesus miraculously crossing the water with the disciples reflects the crossing of the Red Sea. The crowd finds him on the other side and demands a sign like those Moses showed to prove to both the leaders of Israel and to Pharaoh that God spoke through him.

The crowd seems to have noticed the parallels, as they directly refer to Exodus in questioning Jesus. Moses had said to God, “What if they do not believe me…” (Exodus 4.1) This crowd says to Jesus, “What sign will you give that we may believe you?” (v 30-31) 

Jesus isn’t impressed with their request for a sign or their motives. They’ve already seen signs, but they don’t care what they mean. They just want to eat miraculous meals. They just want a bonus of blessings. They want a physical kingdom and political victory. They are uninterested in anything he taught on the mountain. They just want his power.

What are our motives for pursuing Jesus? Do we want the man or just the manna?

Do we even want to live in Jesus’ kingdom or do we just want to live in a nicer version of Egypt where we are in charge? Do we care about his miracles for others or do we just want him to fill our bellies and our other base desires?

If these are the motives of our following Jesus, he will disappoint us and offend us. But if, like Peter, we realize that Jesus is the only source for the words of life, that he is “the Holy One of God,” (John 6.68-69) then nothing will tear us away from him.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Search for the Lord and his strength; continually seek his face. — Psalm 105.4

Today’s Readings
Genesis 6 (Listen 2:48) 
John 6 (Listen 8:27)

This Weekend’s Readings
Genesis 7 (Listen 3:18) John 7 (Listen 5:53)
Genesis 8 (Listen 3:06) John 8 (Listen 7:33)

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