Our hearts in this year of our Lord 2021 still struggle with the affliction of COVID and restless crowds of displaced people displaced from work. All the world suffers a great loss of normalcy as we cry out, “HOW?”
COVID – the Affliction of Social Distancing – 1 + talk of Jesus .com
We will return to our 21st century lamentations of COVID, but now return to the 6th century B.C. question of the people of Judah:
This prophesy of Jesus Christ may not sound any more encouraging than the affliction of COVID or our isolation in social distancing; but you with ears to hear, listen to this metaphor of the Lord Jesus for the time ahead.
The Gospel of John
“Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish G2347 because of the joy that a child has been born into the world. – John 16:21 NASB
Does the Lord’s metaphor not apply to these early pangs of pain in these last days?
Jesus continues in His metaphor of labor pain applying it personally to His own approaching Crucifixion for our sins in Jerusalem, which of course is followed by the Lord’s triumphal resurrection!
The Disciples would once again know their Lord in His risen flesh!
COVID may be one cause of our present affliction, but social distancing will not cure the condition of our dejected demeanors of heart and soul.
“Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. – John 16:22 NASB
The Lord assures the Apostles that they will be ALONE.
While Jesus is isolated in death they will think that HE is ALONE. But HE is not.
Jesus will be with the Father.
“Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.
John 16:32 NASB
SCATTERED.. AND ALONE! Sure sounds like our contemporary SOCIAL DISTANCING.
“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, G2347 but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 NASB– Strong’s G2347 – thlipsis: tribulation, affliction, trouble
COVID – an affliction of God’s Judgment?
Jesus and the Apostles guide the Church to the narrow path along the valley of the shadow of death.
Perhaps the time has come and is now here for Christians to witness Light into the darkness of these foreboding days of COVID’s crumbling impact on the unclean social environment of the world.
in the context of A.D. 90, with application to A.D. 2020,
rather than chronologically, culturally or by chapter & verse..
..while during recent months:
some sought to stream the stage of worship
some sent seeker-friendly scripture into our homes
some church communities disintegrated while others diminished & distanced (like our 2020 remote office meetings complete with slides).
To review the Gospel of John, simply click on any link in the outline below& it will open in a new window.
Roger – author of A.D. 2020 series on the Gospel of John
I hope you were blessed by the secure links to reliable sites for further study of Scripture, as well as insight into the 1st century church of John’s Gospel (written ~A.D.- 90).
Scripture encourages us to a more mature faith.
John’s Prologue – Good News!
IN THE BEGINNING was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
ALL THINGS came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of
MANKIND.
And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it.
14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God [Son] who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
John’s Prologue [1:1-18], from which the Apostle next proceeds to the testimony of John the Baptist and the Messiah’s calling of the Twelve, states many important theological themes & along with his Epilogue [21:1-25 {linked below}] provides additional depth of purpose of John’s Gospel.
John 3: “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” …
Teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ
‘My Father’s House – John 2
“You must be born again.
I am the Messiah – John 4
Before Abraham was, I AM
John 11
“..and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.
also love one another-John 13
Jesus prays – John 17
Jesus answered him – John 19:11
Jesus said:
Gospel of John
“Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! – John 1:29b
As Jesus passed by, He saw a man who had been blind from birth. – John 9:1
Are you greater than our father Abraham who died? And the prophets died. Who do you claim to be?” – John 8:53
“But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. – John 10:26-28
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise from the dead.” .. “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” – John 11:23,25
Hear all the unrelenting bad news of yesterday or today.
For followers of Jesus, His death diminished life’s hope in eternal life; that is until the Gospel of the Lord’s resurrection reached the eyes and ears and touch of His dearly beloved friends.
John and the Disciples witnessed the Lord Jesus in His Risen Flesh many times after His resurrection.
“Peace be with you.”
And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
John 20:20
Their sorrow had turned into joy and so must ours; for in Christ Jesus his disciples of every generation have eternal life through His sacrifice for our sins. This is our Gospel, His Good News to those who would believe.
NEWS of A.D. 2021
SEE what follows JOHN 2020 in JOHN 2021.
“Peace to you,” yet also a command of the risen Christ Jesus.
& without Him:
EXPECT MORE BAD NEWS
John’s Epilogue
John 20:30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.
But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John 20:21 CSB
I pray that the Lord has blessed you through the Gospel of John in A.D. 2020
Roger – Roger@talkofJesus.com
May our Lord Jesus Christ
draw you into His grace,
giving you new hope of Eternal Life
in the YEAR OF OUR LORD 2021,
in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
AMEN.
None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.
John 21:12 CSB
3 Questions & more..
As you read previously in Witnesses to Jesus Risen! – Simon Peter this third encounter of the Disciples with the risen Jesus includes John and five others fishing with Peter, but John draws our attention to Jesus’ questions to Simon Peter.
If you have not briefly examined the Lord’s exchange with Simon in Greek or love defined where they converse, you will find if helpful to click on the link above to the previous part of this post about Simon Peter.
Our focus is on just three verses.
John 21:
15 So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?”
He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.”
He said to him, “Tend My lambs.”
16 He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”
He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.”
He said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.”
17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”
John now adds his personal understanding of his fellow Disciple, Simon Peter:
Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.”
Jesus said to him, “Tend My sheep.
Questions & Answers of Love
Last time we noted from the Greek a mismatch between Jesus’ questions and Simon Peter’s answers.
Furthermore, in the Lord’s first question to Simon He asks him about the others, who Peter ignores in his self-focused reply.
And I pointed out a possible motive for Jesus switching up His third question of love to Simon Peter.
3 Commands – Leading in Love
With all of this as background (to this 2-part post about Simon Peter), now we can view Jesus’ three commands to His Disciple He named, The Rock.
Let’s look at the Lord’s three commands to Simon Peter [SimōnPetros].
Tend My lambs.
Shepherd My sheep.
Tend My sheep.
All three commands of Jesus to Simon are similar. In Jesus’ first question the Lord’s reference to the others suggests to Peter a metaphor. His lambs (the others) require a comparative tenderness, even more so than simply watching vulnerable sheep. (Do not be the hired hand who flees the danger of the one that devours them.)
βόσκω– to feed, portraying the duty of a Christian teacher to promote in every way the spiritual welfare of the members of the church
ποιμαίνω – to feed, to tend a flock, keep sheep; but also to rule or govern
ποιμαίνω – again, the same verb for Shepherd, from the Noun ποιμήν for a herdsman, esp. a shepherd
And in Jesus’ parable, he to whose care and control others have committed themselves, and whose precepts they follow.
This applies metaphorically to any presiding officer, overseers (i.e. bishops, elders), kings and princes, and of course to Christ as head of the church.
“I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.
John 10:14-15 NASB – The Lord Jesus, Son of Man Sacrificed for our sins.
John’s understanding of Peter
Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?”
John tells us that ‘Peter was grieved,’ but as I mentioned before John has a great understanding of Peter’s heart.
For when John writes his Gospel sometime after A.D. 85, Simon Peter has already ‘taken up his cross’ and literally followed their Lord, Shepherd and Master to be crucified on a cross.
John grieves for Peter. He misses his own dear friend as he does his own brother James who also had been martyred for their Master, Christ Jesus.
Matthew confirms their reaction
The Apostle Matthew had used the same description of what all the Disciples felt when Jesus revealed that one of them would betray Him. “Surely not I, Lord?”
John explains Peter’s own grief of rejection for his failures of the flesh, breaking through an apparent hardness of The Rock who cannot answer his Lord directly about his commitment to love.
You will weep & lament.. and you will grieve
“Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy.
be sorrowful (6x), grieve (6x), make sorry (6x), be sorry (3x), sorrow (3x), cause grief (1x), be in heaviness (1x)
to affect with sadness, cause grief, to throw into sorrow
to grieve, offend
to make one uneasy, cause him a scruple
There’s a relationship between grief and love,
And there is no grief where a soul has not love.
Have YOU ever experienced grief in a loving relationship with another?
Simon Peter had.
John’s heart for their friend Peter (even after Peter’s death) desires to share the Disciple’s grief over his failings of their friend and Lord, Christ Jesus.
Jesus & Peter
NOTE: All these things had taken place in just three years, many events within the weeks just prior to Jesus’ Crucifixion, and now His Resurrection appearances to Peter, John and the Disciples.
Peter follows Jesus
All the Gospel writers except John testify how Simon Peter and others came to follow the Lord. (Many had previously been disciples of John the Baptist who baptized Jesus.)
MATTHEW 4 & MARK 1 also witness this important event
Now it happened that while the crowd was pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret.. And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s.. When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.” .. they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break.. their partners in the other boat .. came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink.
Does this sound at all familiar?
It was from when Jesus first called His Disciples, which must have been a most memorable moment to both Peter and John.
And listen to Simon Peter’s response to Jesus choosing him as His Disciple:
But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
Luke 5:8 NASB
For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.”
These three become Jesus’ inner circle and closest earthly friends.This is the Simon Peter for whom both Jesus and the Apostle John show compassion. “Tend my lambs…” and Simon’s surviving friend witnesses to the Church Peter’s heart for Christ Jesus.
When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.
Peter’s Confession of Christ
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon [Son of Jonah] Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”
And even though the Disciples had met the risen Lord Jesus in Jerusalem behind locked doors, here He fed them once more at dawn on a Galilee beach near Capernaum.
The Disciple Jesus loved testifies the Good News to the Church. It was here that Christ restored The Rock upon which their Living Stones have been built.
Simon, Son of Jonah, was also crucified when he took up our Shepherd’s Cross. The Disciples and Peter live in Christ Jesus!
In Him Christ has restored sinners like Simon — sinners like me, the one Jesus loved would say — and because like Peter you follow Him, sinners like you.
John does give us GOOD NEWS about death, yet most urgently the Gospel of Jesus Christ who died to give sinners like us eternal LIFE.
P.S. – John’s post script
The Apostle closes his Gospel with a brief explanation to Christians who know him and have heard ‘church rumors’ that are untrue. (Have you ever heard something untrue from a fellow saint of your church?)
We will hear John’s clarification of truth next time and briefly mention the importance of truth in our witness for the Lord Jesus.
To be continued..
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