17/06/2016
Take your time Dear Friends to read the following article
Jesus as the Revelation of God
Out of the various ways in which we encounter Jesus emerges a fundamental truth: the Person we meet was here on earth for a specific purpose. Jesus came to provide us with as full a revelation of God as our human minds are capable of grasping, revealed in terms we could understand.
In His lifetime on this earth, Jesus made a number of “I am” statements, self-descriptive phrases that referred to His identity and purpose. Here‟s one of the major ones: “ „I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him‟ ” (John 14:6, 7).1
If you read these two statements together, the idea Jesus is building is one of revelation and knowledge. Notice how He uses the word “know” several times. He‟s saying that one of His roles is to make God known, to reveal God and God‟s way of life, to show what the truth of life really is. The author who writes these words, John, the disciple of Jesus, at the very beginning of this personal account of Jesus‟ life, calls Jesus “the Word of God” (1:1). He‟s suggesting that Jesus‟ primary mission or purpose is to reveal God and what God is like: Jesus is the spoken words of God made flesh, the one who describes God as “grace and truth” (v. 17, NKJV). Jesus comes to live life, God‟s way to show what that “way” is. “No one has ever seen God. But the one and only Son is himself God and is near to the Father‟s heart. He has revealed God to us” (v. 18).
So Jesus is the human revelation of God. The question is, what did Jesus‟ life reveal God to be like? What is God‟s “way, truth, and life?”
John the disciple, writing his book about Jesus, remembers a radical and revealing scene involving Jesus and the twelve disciples. In the previous chapter (John 13), he describes it. The whole group has gathered together to celebrate the Jewish Passover in an upstairs room. (This is the evening before the day Jesus is executed.) The usual practice is for a servant to enter the room and wash the guests‟ dirty feet before the meal, but no servant shows up. The disciples look around the room uncomfortably, wondering what to do. None of them move toward the pitcher and basin—it‟s too demeaning.
John describes what happens next: Jesus “got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples‟ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him” (13:5).
Imagine the shock waves reverberating through the room. The master, the rabbi doing the washing! Unheard of. It‟s a servant‟s job, after all!
“After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, „Do you understand what I was doing? You call me “Teacher” and “Lord,” and you are right, because that‟s what I am. And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other‟s
feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them” (vv. 12-17).
The “way” that Jesus is both referring to and demonstrating is the way of unselfish service. It is the willingness to give yourself in meaningful ways to others, the path of humility and selflessness. Significantly, Jesus gave His life to others before He ever went to the cross. He lived a life of love and compassion and service to everyone, no matter what the condition of their lives or the status of their positions. Washing feet symbolized Jesus‟ entire way of living.
And by going about life in this way, He was making powerful statements about what God was really like, the truth about God. He once told the disciples: “ „You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many‟ ” (Matt. 20:25-28).
Imagine how radical and revolutionary this view of the divine and human interaction was. The Greeks believed that humans were placed on this earth to serve the gods. The Roman rulers embraced a hierarchy of status in which the lower strata of the population existed solely to serve the higher ones. But Jesus comes along and portrays the polar opposite: in God‟s universe, God serves. God washes people‟s feet. God acts in humble caring and compassion. God‟s way is the path of selfless service. The truth about God is that God lives to love.
So in God‟s world, real life, real living centers around giving, serving. Jesus once said, “ „The thief‟s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life‟ ” (John 10:10).
And He went on to describe the kind of life He gives. Using the metaphor of sheep and those who watch the sheep, He contrasted the hired hand and the shepherd (vv. 11-15). The hired hand, while watching the sheep and suddenly faced with personal danger from an attacking wolf, runs away. He easily leaves the sheep in order to save himself. He‟s only a hired hand with no personal stake in the sheep.
The shepherd, on the other hand, reacts quite differently. The shepherd has a personal stake in every sheep. Each one he knows by name. Each one belongs to him. So when danger appears, he refuses to run. He stands his ground and, if need be, lays down his life to protect them.
“ „I am the good shepherd,‟ ” Jesus said. “ „I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep‟ ” (vv. 14, 15).
So what kind of life does Jesus reveal? What is God‟s way of life? It is life that gives and serves completely unselfishly, a life that involves giving life extravagantly and even wastefully.2
God Shows His Own Face
God sent His Son not only to die for us, but also to live in such radical ways that His example sparks in us a desire to live that way too.
In God‟s broad view of human history, there was only one thing to do. He had planned it all along, and at just the right time, Jesus came to live and die as a human being and teach us firsthand what real unity is all about. The apostle Paul expressed it quite clearly: “He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Eph. 1:9, 10, NIV).
First, Jesus lives in a family—possibly a rather dysfunctional one in some ways. He shows us it is possible to love them anyway. Then He chooses a small group of people to take with Him everywhere and to train. It is instructive that He seems to spend more time simply letting them follow Him around and watch Him work and work with Him, than in orally instructing them. He does teach them, too, and when He does, He calls God the equivalent of “Daddy,” (a shocking idea to an observant Jew of the time), and talks a lot about God‟s realm, where things are completely upside-down and sideways from anybody‟s idea of a normal realm or kingdom.
In this “Realm of God,” people are supposed to be like little children (Matt. 18:4). As Isaiah wrote, “A little child shall lead them” (Isa. 11:6, NKJV). In this realm, a son who ran off with his inheritance, wasted it all, and ruined his life is welcomed back with open arms and no condemnation (Luke 15:11-32). Did not Jeremiah say something like that? “ „Is Ephraim My dear son? . . . I will surely have mercy on him‟ ” (31:20, NKJV). In this kingdom, the last was supposed to be first, the greatest like the youngest, and the ruler like a servant. (Luke 22:2, 27) Wasn‟t the great King David himself chosen as the youngest of his house, and didn‟t the law say that a king‟s heart must not be lifted up above his countrymen? (Deut. 17:20).
When they listened to Jesus, the people‟s hearts must have tingled like something long asleep beginning to awaken, like something lost showing up unexpectedly, like something forgotten, now newly remembered. Crowds followed Him, hanging on His every word. Children brought Him their lunches, and thousands ate together as one family.
A Roman centurion, lepers, women from Syro-Phoenicia and Samaria, demoniacs from “the other side of the water,” and at least one highly-placed Pharisee reached out to Jesus, and in so doing, came a little closer to each other. So this is what God means by fellowship!
By the end of Jesus‟ earthly life, His friends may sometimes be bright-eyed with hope and possibilities, but they‟re not really getting it. They argue over who‟s greater and beg for the best places in His government and run away when He‟s arrested. Two of them betray Him, one with a kiss and one with an oath.
It is in the middle of this confusion that Jesus prays His ultimate prayer request for His followers in all ages. “ „As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them‟ ” (John 17:18-26, NIV).
There are many fascinating mind-stretchers in this prayer. “You in Me . . . I in You . . . they in Us . . . I in them . . . you in Me”—try drawing a diagram of that! But there is a good deal more than first meets the eye. It is most often assumed, for instance, that when Jesus asks His Father “that they . . . be where I am,” He is speaking of going with Him to heaven someday, and so He no doubt is. But take a look at Ephesians 2:6 where God “raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (NIV).
Was this, in fact, also an immediate prayer request? Was it fulfilled soon, in some way? Is it fulfilled now? “So that they may see my glory.” Does this only mean His glory after all things are completed, or does it mean something present and immediate? When is/was Jesus‟ moment of greatest glory? Is it the brilliance of His presence on the throne (with us, incomprehensibly!), the blinding flash of His second coming? Perhaps the moment of the resurrection, when soldiers collapsed? Or is it the bloody, gasping spectacle of the Son of God and man giving up His life for us? Those He prayed for that night were about to see that. Not only that, but millions have been staring spellbound at (or averting their eyes from) that heartrending scene for twenty centuries now.
God sent His Son not only to die for us, but also to live in such radical ways that His example sparks in us a desire to live that way too.
