John 13-17: Abiding

'Don't let your hearts be troubled,' Jesus tells his disciples.  'You believe in God, believe also in me.'  With these words, Jesus tries to explain the relationship between himself and the Father.  He tries to explain that his life has been one of abiding in the Father, that his life has not been his own, the words he has spoken, the deeds he has done, have all been orchestrated by God the father.  Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? - John 14:9-10 NIV

And then he tells them a truly marvelous thing.  The same relationship that he has with the Father will be theirs.  Another Counselor will come to be with them forever, the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you - John 14:16-17 NIV

 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. John 14:19-20

If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. - John 15:10-12 NIV

The King James Version uses the word 'abide' instead of 'live' or 'remain'. 

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. - John 15:7 KJV
 
 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. John 15:10 KJV
 

According to Webster's dictionary, Abide is an intransitive verb that means to remain stable or fixed in a state or to continue in a place, to sojourn. There is no separation in abiding.  Just as there was no separation between Jesus and his Father, their words and deeds were one and the same, there should be no separation between those who call themselves disciples of Jesus, their words and deeds should be one and the same as well.  Abiding is more than believing, abiding is walking together as one.

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. - John 17:23 NIV

John 10-12: Ordained and Spoken by God

Jesus did nothing and said nothing that was not ordained by God the Father.  This was true when he said that he was the good shepherd, that he cared for his sheep.  And it was true also when he did not rush to Lazarus' side when he lay dying, but waited until he had been dead and buried for four days. Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” ( John 11:4 NIV)  God ordained it that Jesus would raise Lazarus from the dead so he could proclaim “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. (John 11:25-26 NIV).

But after all of the miracles, most of them still did not believe.  That was ordained by God as well, as spoken by the prophet, Isaiah:
 Who has believed our message
   and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
   and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
   nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
   a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
   he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
 Surely he took up our pain
   and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
   stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
   he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
   and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
   each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
   the iniquity of us all. - Isaiah 53-1-6 NIV

The iniquity of us all was laid on the good shepherd, the one who cares for his sheep.  Jesus knew that all he was to suffer was ordained by his Father.  As he told them, For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.  There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day.  For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”  - John 12:47-50 NIV

Jesus had the power to raise people from the dead, but nothing would deter Jesus from speaking the words of the Father and seeing the Father's plans carried out to completion.

John 8-9: The Blind will See

Although Jesus told the Pharisee's over and over again that the Father had sent him, they still did not understand.  Your testimony is not valid, they told him.  Even when he healed the man who was blind from birth, they did not understand or believe him.  They kept interrogating the blind man trying to get him to denounce Jesus, but he would not.  They they tried to trap his parents.  'We know he is out son, they told them, but how he can see or who opened his eyes, we don't know.  You'll have to ask him.'  So they asked the man who had been blind the second time to give the glory to God instead of Jesus because they knew that Jesus was a sinner, but the blind man would not take the bait.  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!” (John 9:25 NIV)

This angered the Pharisees so that they threw the blind man out of the temple.  Jesus found him and asked him if he believed 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.
   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. - John 9:36-41 NIV

'It s not a sin to be blind,' Jesus says.  Those who know they are blind are willing to ask for their sight.  The sin is to claim you can see when you cannot.  Jesus came to give sight to the blind.  There is nothing he can offer those who think they can see.

John 5-7: The Bread of Life

The people followed Jesus.  The crowds grew, first because of the healing miracles that he performed and later, after he fed the five thousand with only five loaves and two small fish, because of food.  After the five thousand were fed, Jesus disciples got into a boat and crossed the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum.  Without the people knowing it, Jesus joined his disciples in the boat by walking to it on the water.  The people, knowing that Jesus had not left in a boat were still waiting for him where they had been fed.

  Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.
  When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
  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. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
  Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
  Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
  So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
    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. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
   “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
    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.- John 6:24-35 NIV

Jesus saw through the crowds that were following him.  They were not looking for him.  They were looking for miracles and manna.  They did not understand that Jesus was the bread, the bread of life.  Further more, they did not understand that it was Jesus' flesh, his life that was to be offered up so that they might have life.  Not just earthly life, fed by a few loaves and fishes, but eternal life.   As he told them in the temple, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.  For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink." - John 6:54-55 NIV

This was a hard thing for many of them to swallow.  The scripture says that many turned back after that and no longer followed him.  To follow someone for real food was one thing, but to follow for the 'bread of life' what was that?

John 3-4: A Prophet Without Honor

Jesus' Ministry was lost on most of the religious leaders of his day.  There is no mention of whether or not Nicodemus received Jesus' message even though his response to Nicodemus' question of  'How can a man be born again when he is old?' (John 3:4 NIV) contains some of the most well know verses in the Bible:
‘You must be born again.’The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." - John 3:7-8 NIV

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. - John 3:14-15 NIV

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. - John 3:16-18 KJV

In contrast, the Samaritan woman was not one of the religious leaders, nor would she have been accepted by them because of her life style, yet, when she encountered Jesus, she was convinced.  Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” - John 4:28-29 NIV

Jesus knew that a prophet has no honor in his own country.  As John said, He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:  - John 1:11-12 KJB

John 1-2: As Many As Received

Two of the gospels, Matthew and Luke include Jesus' genealogy in the story of his birth.  The Gospel of John begins with Jesus' genealogy as well, but with hints of the prophet he will become, John tells Jesus' genealogy from a different perspective.  He has listened to Jesus' descriptions of the kingdom of heaven and realizes that there is another more significant reality than the one limited by our earthly world view.
 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
 The same was in the beginning with God.
 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. - John 1:1-4 KJV

There you have it, the story of Jesus' genealogy and the story of the known world from creation to today.  Jesus was there all along.  He was at the creation.  He is the source of life.  He came to tell us of that life and the world could not accept it.  He came, he appeared as light in the darkness for a brief moment, but the world would not accept him.  The world always has and always will love darkness better than life. 
 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. - John 1:11-14 KJV

John, the disciple, received Jesus as the Son.  He was witness first hand to the miracles, beginning with turning the water into wine.  John, the Baptist, received Jesus as the Son.  He saw the Spirit descending on him like a dove. Many others who witnessed his miracles received him as well.  Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.  But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person. - John 2:23-25 NIV

Jesus knew who he was, and he knew what people were.  He did not need any testimony.  The ones who received him became the sons of God.  The ones who did not receive him did not.

Luke 22-24: What Things?

What a time for the disciples.  Things they could not have imagined were happening faster than they could keep up with.  By now it has become obvious that the chief priests and teachers of the law are trying to find a way to get rid of Jesus.  The Passover is approaching, and they all gathered for the passover meal when Jesus told them that one of the twelve would betray him.  And in addition, Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him before it is all over.  Things are going to change, Jesus tells them.

Then Jesus asked them, When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything? Nothing, they answered.
    He said to them, But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.
    It is written: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors'; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfilment.
    The disciples said, See, Lord, here are two swords. That is enough, he replied. - Luke 22:36-38 NIV

What?  Two swords will be enough?  What kind of fight is that going to be?  And so, fortified with only two swords to prevent Jesus from being taken, they go about as usual, following Jesus to the Mount of Olives where he like to pray.  Were the disciples so confident of Jesus' power that they immediately fell asleep, or were they just tired of all the drama?  It was only the beginning.  When Judas approached with the crowd who would take Jesus away, things began to move rapidly.  One of the two swords cuts off the servant of the high priest's ear which Jesus immediately heals.  'Am I leading a rebellion,' Jesus asks.  'With only two swords?'  But this is your hour— when darkness reigns.(Luke 22:53 NIV)

And the darkness reigned with a furious force through the trials, through the crowds yelling for his crucifixion, through the mocking of the soldiers as he hung on the cross and up until the time that Jesus cried, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. (Luke 23:46 NIV) and breathed his last breath.  What has just happened?

Then the strangest things start to happen.  His body disappears from the tomb.  The women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them say they have seen an angel who says Jesus has risen.  'What things?' Jesus asks the disciples on the road to Emmaus.  ' You seem so surprised.'  This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. - Luke 24:46-48 NIV

What things?  It is all as it was supposed to be and now the disciples are to be witnesses of all they have seen.


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