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Tag: Matthew

  • Jesus, a Refugee

    Jesus, a Refugee

    ‘Can you explain the church?’

    An unbeliever or a follower of another faith notices your joy for Christmas.  Maybe you just wished them a ‘Merry Christmas’ and they sensed your sincere joy in the Lord. A flesh and blood friend, a friend with a soul, wants to know from you something about Christ’s corporate community, the church. What do you tell them?

    Note: This is the third post of my Advent 2014 series, which began with ‘The Scandal of a Virgin’ and is a continuation of last week’s Advent post, ‘Christ’s Corporate Community – A Christmas Question.’

    Who is this Jesus of Nazareth, this baby in a manger?

    Well… He’s not actually from Nazareth or even Bethlehem, the place where God had Mary give birth. Jesus is historical.  Jesus was born as a man just like you and me. Jesus died just like you will die and I will die.

    Yet Jesus, Son of Man, born in a manger, crucified on a cross, buried in a grave – Jesus, Son of God, was raised from the dead! Jesus lives in the flesh and blood and Spirit! Jesus Is!

    This is the Good News of Christmas, Gospel to the darkness of the world: Jesus Is. Through faith in Christ Jesus you may receive eternal life and light, rather than darkness, death and punishment for your sins.

    Jesus Is and was not just a baby in a manger or a poor suffering man on a cross.

    The story of Jesus’ nativity (as it is called) in Bethlehem is witness to God with us, Immanuel. It is the story of Jesus being rescued from death as a child as part of a family of life and light for all mankind. Hear this prophesy of Isaiah:

    Isaiah 9:

    But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

    The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
    those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
    on them has light shone.

    John 8:12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

    Who is this Son of Man, born in a manger in Bethlehem?

    It is the same question of the unbelieving crowd Jesus answered before His crucifixion and resurrection.

    John 12:35-36a So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”

    The church: men and women who claim God and claim Christ as Lord – Christian families: worshipers of God the Father, Jesus Christ (born in a manger, etc.) and the living Holy Spirit are intended by God to be a light in the darkness of these days to all mankind. Are you?

    Are you a light in the world of unbelievers? Joseph and Mary were.

    Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem as loyal citizens of the community of God and forced to flee as refugees. It had to do with government, taxes and Joseph having to go to his family home in Bethlehem along with everybody else, because he was a descendant of David, King of Israel.

    Luke 2 English Standard Version (ESV)

    Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea (for there was no Israel in those days), but immediately Joseph took Mary and Jesus to Egypt. Eventually their family (Joseph, Mary, Jesus and his brothers) settled in Nazareth of Galilee.

    Jesus had a father and a mother on earth to raise him as part of an earthly family – a husband and wife with kids to raise – God’s plan for family and community.

    God’s living example of this family that included Jesus was not without its troubles (just like your family and mine). God the Father provided both an earthly father and mother for Jesus, a home in which to be raised and a community in which to live (once the danger of the destruction of babies was past). [See: Matthew 1]

    The nation of Israel were God’s chosen people. Joseph and Mary were faithful to God, more faithful than than leaders who had taken power, rebuilt the Temple and compromised God’s laws to rule alongside pagan Romans over Jerusalem and surrounding towns.

    Into the Temple, Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to be dedicated to God, as was the tradition of faithful Jews.

    Luke 2

    21 And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

    Jesus Presented at the Temple

    22 And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) 24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”

    25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. 27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, 28 he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,

    29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
    according to your word;
    30 for my eyes have seen your salvation
    31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
    32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
    and for glory to your people Israel.”

    33 And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

    Jesus of Nazareth, as this child in a manger would come to be called at age thirty in Jerusalem, would be known to the community of Nazareth and neighboring towns on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus would be known and rejected by the leaders of God’s worshiping community as well, the Temple of Herod in Jerusalem.

    Roman-Provincia_SyriaJudea was a mess, again. Judea was no longer Judah. Jerusalem was not a political capital, because it was ruled by Rome. Israel was centuries before defeated (even before the fall of Judah and the rise of Rome). Israel became part of Syria on the current Roman map. Galilee was less than a state, under the rule of different Romans than Judea. Nazareth was nothing more than a little fishing village, a nice place for Joseph to have a little carpenter shop and raise his family.

    Certainly Joseph and Mary were poor as they eventually returned to Nazareth after being persecuted and living as refugees in Egypt. Certainly this refugee family which had quickly fled Bethlehem and Jerusalem struggled like so many of us as they settled in Nazareth with next to nothing.

    The young boys, Jesus and his brothers, needed Joseph. They needed Mary. They needed the help of their community, Nazareth. They needed the help of those fellow worshipers of God who had the compassion to help this truly royal family without means to survive and live alongside them in Nazareth. Jesus and his mother and Father lived as a family and a part of the community of God.

    In fact, the babe in the manger became a refugee.

    Jesus needed both his father and his mother. Jesus needed help from faithful believers (like the wise men and others). Jesus needed a home to which He would return after the persecution. Jesus needed a family of friends and faithful followers.

    Jesus needed community. Jesus needed help! Jesus needed the love of many between the events of the manger and the ministry of His three years of well-documented ministry as the Son of Man, Jesus of Nazareth.

    If you could help Christ Jesus along His journey as a refugee fleeing the violence of the middle east, what would you do?

    My dear brother [sister] in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: would you save Him?

    Matthew 18 NASB

    10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven. 11 [For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.]

    14 So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.

    To be continued…

     

  • The Scandal of a Virgin

    The Scandal of a Virgin

    Everything seemed to be in chaos; no real leadership to speak of in households in my country or surrounding countries. Armies of men, young men and even boys terrorizing our lives, then running away. Soldiers, they call themselves; robbing homes, taking what they please and offering it back to helpless widows.

    The men flee and fear radical zealot followers of traditionalist religious men. The powerful army of an enemy has occupied once more in a place where no one will be led – a place where men and women will only do what is right in their own eyes.

    Life seems hopeless for us. What little semblance of order we once had in our families is now broken by the futility of war and the occupiers of peace.

    Is this scenario from which we are constantly distracted so unfamiliar?

    When judea mapRome occupied Syria and Palestine  and there was no longer an Israel (recall from your history), the traditional local leaders had failed in leading a rebellious people that will not be led – a history much repeated over the centuries.

    War and conflict: familiar and frequent in these lands of the Bible ripe for the picking of wealthy nations, open to opportunists conquering the wealth of weak peoples.

    Life has little value to those who fight for an army of conquerors. They have no home any more; these soldiers and those who flee from them.

    Family: husbands and wives, boys and girls – these are of little importance to those who wage war, men who desire riches and glory for themselves.

    Is anything new under the sun? Yet this is not God’s intention for God’s family.

    Deuteronomy 12:8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, 9 for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters…

     —

    As we prepare to celebrate a ‘Christmas’ season in the year of our Lord, 2014; rich Americans, prosperous Europeans, several wealthy Arabs, select Asians, a few Africans and some South Americans are much distracted by our addictive daily entertainment and games. It was no different in the games of Rome years before the Roman Empire fell, miles away from Palestine and the birth we mark in Bethlehem.

    Christmas is now a time of self-indulgent shopping and entertainments of blockbuster movies. A box-office hit might well suggest movie-scene destruction of a country the size of Argentina or Poland. How like a video game must all the violence seem to these boy warriors.

    Who would even bat an eyelash at so many deaths in a war-like scene where men of war are determined to wipe out their enemies; where young boys will break up communities and families and men who lead armies will cause them to take their crusade of higher cause to unfamiliar lands, wreaking havoc and devastation in the most evil ways upon the innocent?

    It would not seem unusual in this time of surreal, video game-like violence for a man like me, who drives through a city like Allentown PA US, to go to work to discover that in just one day some violent, evil force had destroyed every living being the entire city (or in a year the deaths of the entire population of Poland). This is the deception of our industrious entertainment empires.

    This unimaginable violence, both real and portrayed, whether in the dramas of the Roman Colosseum or the movies of Hollywood, trivializes the value of every human life intended for a place on this earth by God; a place in a marriage by God; a place in a family of God; a place in a community of God in a place where war is no more. We are a world corrupted by sin and peoples led by evil men.

    —

    iraqis refugeesAbout 850,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have fled the conflict in central Iraq to seek safety further north in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). They are scattered across the KRI in a variety of temporary housing situations: though a small number of them are in camps, most live informally in local schools, unfinished buildings, and public parks. Half a million of them are in the city of Dohuk alone. The great majority of these 850,000 internally displaced are members of religious minorities – Christians from the Ninewa Plains and Yazidis from the Sinjar area, in particular.
    As humanitarian agencies scramble to meet their needs, there must be a plan for longer-term support that reflects the increasingly complex and unpredictable environment in the country as a whole: an environment that is likely to result in more displacement.

    Syrian-refugees-setting-up-camp-receiveing-aid-in-IraqThese 850,000 refugees are in addition to the 640,000+ registered refugees from Syria in Jordan, not to mention the hundreds of thousands who have fled war in many parts of Africa and the Middle East; more than a million refugees from Ukraine and other countries.

    ‘What does all this have to do with a virgin?’ you ask.

    An introduction to our ‘cover girl’

    West_Bank_&_Gaza_Map_2007_(Settlements)

    The young girl featured above the title of this post lives in the troubled land of Israel of today. She is part of a group of young Jewish girls born in the troubled settlements of the West Bank.

    Tzuriya, a recent graduate of Ma’ale Levona, is doing her National Service as a guide at a Jordan Valley farm for kids with drug and alcohol problems.

    Two thousand, fourteen years ago, she would not be unlike a young Galilean girl named Mary, betrothed to a man a little bit older than her named Joseph. In those days young girls adhered to strict Biblical standards for young women prior to their betrothal to their future husband.

    They were called virgins. Their virginity was expected and guaranteed by their fathers as virgins were given to a husband as his bride and wife. A young woman’s life could be forfeited if she became pregnant. No honorable young man would consider having intercourse with just any young virgin (girl) and fathers protected their daughters with all power and authority until they were married. The family and pureness were held to the highest standards by all Hebrews.

    Babies were protected by mothers and fathers; all women, children and elderly preserved and protected by brothers and by close-knit biological families of the husband and his wife.

    Do you recall my reference above to an unimaginable violence of a movie scene that destroyed a city like Allentown PA US in just one day (and then another one, say, Hartford Connecticut, tomorrow)? That is the scope of the violence now being done to unborn babies executed by abortions each day of every year!

    The global holocaust of deaths of babies by abortion destroys the equivalent population of Argentina or Poland each and every year!

    The threats of the duplicitous government of Herod were small by comparison to what we matter-of-factly call ‘planned‘ in destroying the lives of babies for the indiscretions of their mothers. As a matter of fact, Mary and Joseph (you may remember) did have to flee Herod and the political troubles of the day for their baby Jesus to grow up in Egypt for a time (until it was safe for these refugees to return to Galilee (after their eventful visit to Bethlehem).

    Yes, the problem of refugees and violence against babies and families is not new and was familiar even to Jesus.

    Matthew 1 ESV [notes]

     The Birth of Jesus Christ

    18 Now the birth of the Christ [the Messiah] took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed [That is, legally pledged to be married] to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

    19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

    21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

    23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
    and they shall call his name Immanuel”
    (which means, God with us).

    24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

    —

    A Light in the darkness

    Christians make much of the pageantry of the Christmas story and the child-like delight to which our Lord calls us as we hopefully hear the annual re-telling of the birth of Christ Jesus.

    The Gospel of Luke recounts the events in even more detail than our account from Matthew (above); however the Gospel of John tells us why a young virgin girl giving birth in Bethlehem of Judea remains the most scandalous birth of all time – the virgin birth of the most controversial son of man ever born, Christ Jesus, Immanuel, God With Us, Redeemer of the Jews, Hope of the Nations, Sacrifice for our sins, Judge of all men; Perfect and Holy example of what it means to be made in the Image of God.

    Jesus was a sinless man, sacrificed for your sins and for mine. No other man (or woman) born of a woman can claim Christ’s sinlessness.

    John 1

    4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…

    9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

    12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

    14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

    32 And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.

    —

    The same Jews who believed John the Baptist to be a Prophet, rejected Jesus for political and traditional religious expediency. Only a remnant of the Jews accepted Jesus as the Messiah. [v.11] Christ Jesus adopted the people of the Nations (gentiles) who believe in Him. He gave those who believe the right of being part of the family of God. [v.12]

    It is not the land that is important; it is the God of the land.

    Jesus even praised some Romans and commended hated Samaritans (formerly part of the Israel of David) for their faith.

    Jesus chastened the rich to be generous and the ‘religious’ to be faithful, compassionate and loving.

    Love one another. Love your neighbor and pray for those who persecute you.

    Jesus performed many miracles, fulfilled many scriptures, taught scripture (the Bible) with authority, lived and died righteously, and most importantly of all – rose from the dead (witnessed by over five hundred men and several women). Yet most Jews do not accept Jesus as the Christ to this day.

    Did the Prophets not condemn the hardness of their hearts? Have the hearts of some christians not now become just as rebellious to the commands of Christ Jesus? Just read what the Prophets had to say about the darkness and disobedience of the time before Jesus Immanuel came into the world.

    Is it not the same darkness which now permeates the border-less regions of the nations and secret places in the hard hearts of mankind in these last days before our Lord’s triumphal return on the clouds?

    The Apostle John speaks well of the overflowing love of God, the love of Christ Jesus and the necessity of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men.

    IF we expect to inherit eternal life and the eternal Kingdom of God and His only Son, Christ Jesus, then we must repent of our sin and follow Jesus as our Lord. The Good News of Christmas is that you are invited to do this. You need not live in Israel or be of Hebrew descent.

    John also cautions that many will not accept Jesus, the light of life; and John tells us why many (including some who would claim to be ‘christians’) will not follow Jesus as Lord. The words following near to the well-pronounced John 3:16 remain a relevant caution to all in these last days.

    John 3:

    19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world,

    and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

    20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

    Jesus confronted Pharisees of the Jews as whitewashed tombs. They are dead in their religion and dead in their life – dead in their witness of the love of God and dead to eternal life. Jesus acknowledged that accepting His righteousness – accepting God, worshiping God as Lord of your life and not merely doing what is right in your own eyes is controversial; even more controversial than the scandal of a virgin giving birth.

    Ask a Jew who rejects Jesus; ask a Muslim who rejects most of what Jesus taught (as just one more prophet before Muhammad); ask a Hindu or Buddhist, who believe in many gods; ask a post-modern agnostic or atheist, who speak of peace yet believe only the science of the provable:

    Did Jesus come into the world to bring peace? Is Jesus God Incarnate; God With Us? Does Christ Jesus still live, resurrected in the body (as the Gospels witness)?

    Matthew records Jesus’ own comment about ‘peace’ on earth.

    Matthew 10:

    18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. 19 When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. 20 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved…

    Not Peace, but a Sword

    34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

    36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.

    37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

    —

    Is it not true? Is it not scandalous that a virgin should give birth to God Incarnate?

    Is it not true, that God is NOT one (in a definable sense), but infinitely unknowable by a being – a human being – of His creation; rather, the LORD GOD is a trinity – Father: Abba Father, a loving Father, as Christ Jesus taught, a Father overflowing with love for those who love Him; Son: Christ Jesus, the Messiah, Sacrifice for our sins, Redeemer of our eternal life in Him, example in the Person of God’s love and teacher of God’s very Word, the same ‘Word’ which spoke all being into existence [John 1:1]; and Holy Spirit: The same Person of the Holy Spirit which descended on Jesus and His Baptism (not a bird), the same Person of the Holy Spirit that descended on the Apostles (no more a fire than the burning bush, but something more of the Holiness of God), and the same Person of the Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost, hagios pneuma) which gave the Son to Mary.

    Matthew 1:20 …for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

    Scandalous!

    —

    Love and follow Jesus Christ as your Lord. Build a personal relationship with the Son of God, that you may be known in His eternal Kingdom.

    My Christmas messages to follow in this year of our Lord, 2014,  are not a traditional rendering of the Christmas story, a message of ‘peace on earth, good will to men.’

    It is not a message of peace for those who will not receive the peace and love of Christ Jesus, God Immanuel, the Person of Christ returning in victory.

    It is not truly the Gospel, the Good News that IF you accept Jesus as your Lord and follow Him, as I pray you will; that in Christ Jesus you will have an inner peace in addition to eternal life. It is not the message of love to which I pray my Muslim, Jewish, and unbelieving friends will come as they humbly accept that no works or laws can earn our right to eternal life with God.

    Rather, my Christmas messages to follow are a plea to the church; a trumpet call to marginal ‘christians’ to do what Jesus would have us do, to say what Jesus would have us say, and as best we can to live as Jesus would have us live. Christians must love one another as God has loved us in the Person of Jesus Christ – the Christ of ‘Christ-Mass’ – coming to us; for our LORD has commanded that His love be evident in us as we live in the world, while we are no longer part of the condemned.

    Are we not here to do something about a world of devastating darkness, hearts of uncaring coldness; lives lived without love, souls surviving with no hope, no faith and no love?

    Is it not scandalous that even God is not loved by those whom He created – those whom He knew even before we were in our mother’s womb, souls who the Word of God spoke into existence in the beginning and will judge in the end?

    Can you think of any lasting scandal more divisive (even now) than the birth of Christ Jesus to a virgin in Bethlehem?

    If you do not believe it, I challenge you to share the love of Christ and witness the Name of Jesus.

    Those who love the darkness will hear nothing of our sin; they will scandalize and reject the Name of Jesus, this Christmas and until the Judgment.

  • Personal Witness of a Personal Love

    Personal Witness of a Personal Love

    Luke 10:23 Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

    Isaiah 53

    Who has believed what he has heard from us?
    And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

    John 1:

    14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

    Who IS Jesus Christ?

    And what is the witness of His divinity?

    Note that I ask, ‘Who IS Jesus Christ,’ not, ‘who was Jesus Christ.’

    For if Jesus Christ is not divine – if Jesus Christ is not God; then Jesus was and is not; for the son of man was not and is not the Christ – God with us. If Jesus is not the Christ, then the gospel is not true witness and our faith would be in vain (as states Paul in 1 Corinthians 15).

    Yet again, as Paul did witness, as the Apostles did witness, as John the Baptist did witness, as Jesus’ mother and brothers did witness, as many were witness to the resurrection of Christ Jesus: He IS Divine – Jesus, with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit IS GOD! This is our witness of the gospel of grace for those who will believe.

    Where were you three years ago (in 2011)?

    Were you walking near to the life of a loved one? Were you involved in the daily life – the comings and goings of one so dear that you knew nearly their every action, most of what they said and understood much of what they thought? Were you – three years ago and for these past three years – that near to your beloved, a man or woman of this flesh? Were you near to their soul? Are you joined in your purpose and understanding even now to do what they would have you do?

    And where are you now (on this day in the year of our Lord, 2014)?

    Have you remained faithful in your relationship and love to your beloved? to your husband (or wife)? to your children? to your brothers and sisters in the Lord?

    I would venture to say that you have NOT been as near to any soul, to any of flesh and blood, as was the John the Disciple to Jesus. (And may we be convicted by the Spirit for our neglect of the love of those nearest to us in Christ Jesus.)

    This was the intimacy of John, Peter and the Disciples of Jesus: they lived with the Man, they ate with Him, they traveled with Him, they listened to His teachings in public, they listened to His instructions in private, they witnessed His miracles in public and they witnessed His Power in private.

    It is with this intimacy and understanding of the risen Christ and the Incarnate Son of Man that John the Apostle witnessed Jesus by his Gospel, his letters and his Revelation of Jesus Christ.

    Jesus was, IS, and is to come – GOD!

    AND God is love.

    How can we, a mortal man (or woman), a soul surrounded by flesh and bone and a mind finite in understanding, grasp the fullness of the love of Christ Jesus?

    Indeed, we cannot; but must know the Lord by humility and faith. We must believe by faith the many witnesses of God in the flesh.

    The witness of John the Apostle in his first letter [KJV]:

     That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

    2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)

    3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

    NO faithful Jew speaks lightly of GOD – of ‘That which was from the beginning.’ John makes a remarkable statement about God here:

    ‘That’ which WAS FROM THE BEGINNING (Only GOD IS from the beginning), we have heard and we have seen with our eyes.

    We have touched GOD! And He has embraced us!

    How near may a man stand to God? How near dare a mortal come to the Immortal?

    John is witness that God, in the Person of Christ Jesus, came near to us – near to him. Is it any wonder that John’s witness is: God is love?

    John comforts us, “our hands have handled … the Word of life.”

    Following the resurrection, the Holy Spirit was witness to John and the disciples of the divinity and power of Jesus. Following these letters of John the risen Christ is once more witness to John on Patmos (after the other Apostles have been martyred for Christ). Yet prior to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, GOD the Father gives witness to the Son in the presence of John.

     Matthew 17

    And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light…

    5 He [Peter] was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

    6 When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”

    We may also be familiar with the witness of God the Father at the witness of Jesus’ baptism by John. We are perhaps less familiar of the following witness of God the Father to Jesus Christ the Son, near the completion of Jesus’ three year ministry on earth.

    John 12

    Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead…

    9 When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead…

    12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord…

    23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…  27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.”

    Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

    29 The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”

    30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

    John, the Beloved Disciple, is witness to the love and glory of Christ Jesus. John says of his Holy friend:

    1 John 1:3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

    John held the hand of God, in Christ Jesus. John lay upon the breast of our Lord Jesus, hearing the beating of His mortal heart. John beheld the holes of the nails of the cross in the flesh of the hands of the risen Christ Jesus. John is witness that God is love and in Him is no darkness at all.

    John 13:23 KJV Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.

    John’s Gospel and witness and Revelation reveal the light and life and truth of God in Christ Jesus, that only in Him is light and life. He IS the living water. He IS the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

    Only in Him will you have eternal life. Only in Christ Jesus will you have the fellowship of love. Only if by faith you follow and witness by His love: Jesus IS Lord, will you have any life and hope and love for your soul – in this life and that which is to come, which we cannot understand, except by faith in Jesus Christ.

    May our Lord draw you into His arms of love and light and life.

    Amen.