We lay intertwined embraced in warmth flowing from fingertips to toe. Our paradise shattered as I awoke to a loud knock on the door…
We will return to my reaction to this awakening later, but for now we must leave the security of our dreams to a new reality of this prison of our solitary confinement.
Separation
COVID – 19 – – & other causes
What happened to the security of our past?
WHYa ‘new normal?’
(It’s not really normal, is it?)
We often feel like the man in prison wondering how he got there and missing his freedom of being with others.
Look into the soul of the one locked up – – – in a prison away from everyone — even in solitary confinement — to keep him safe — from other prisoners – – – to keep others – – safe from his own threatening condition.
This new reality is not like when we were back home in paradise – – home – – – with those who loved us – – – not like when our security became LIFE – – | | | – behind these confining bars – – | | | with a window looking out – – to a world virtually separated | | | from my lone soul…
We MUST get back HOME – – – – – – – for this is not our home.
..you will become like God, knowing good and evil.” – – –
The TREE was desirable to the eyes, | | | but it was the one place the LORD GOD commanded adam not to go.
Cursed is the ground because of you; With hard labor you shall eat from it All the days of your life. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – By the sweat of your face You shall eat bread, Until you return to the ground,
So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden,
and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:24 NASB
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
Jesus, Son of the Father, the Son of ‘adam – The Good News of John 14:
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT in the world outside the Good Garden – – – an eternal place to which the Son of ‘adam invites those banished and condemned to DEATH . . . to return to the Lord our God and Savior.
Separated from walking in Personal relationship with THE LORD GOD . . .
Therefore we pray:
.. and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us…
And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.
.. this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. Acts 2:23 And how is this the Spirit of Grace?
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that He might suffer and die on a Cross for sinners like us, that we should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com – on Christ’s Crucifixion & John 3:16
The Apostle John presents the Good News of Jesus Christ in light of the love of God the Father.
Yes, the LORD of Old Testament Scripture to which John will point IS the Almighty God who must judge sin! Yet John testifies of Jesus who reveals God as the Father, the One of relationship who willingly shows mercy for the sake of the Son and saves sinners like you and me by grace.
A brief reintroduction to John
John had unique access to witness the questioning of Jesus by the High Priests of Jerusalem. At the beginning of our journey through the Gospel of John we introduced the Apostle, this youngest Son of Zebedee who we now know was also known in the house of Herod.
It is important to note here that the Apostle John later became the last surviving Disciple of Jesus Christ, living more than fifty years more until nearly the next century.
John wrote the gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia Minor when he was advanced in age (Against Heresies 2.22.5; 3.1.1) – source
John’s Good News is NOT a News Alert to our phone, a BREAKING NEWS HEADLINE interrupting our life at home or even a well-researched story for an Ephesus News Courier.
The Apostle, therefore, has not written the Gospel of John as events unfolded at the horrific scene of the crime of Jesus’ Crucifixion.
In Conclusion
The beloved Apostle and recognized authority of witness to these historical events some decades ago will soon assure the reader of John’s Good News (Gospel): Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;
.. but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John now begins the conclusion of his Gospel even before the climax of the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection.
Intermingled with John’s conclusive evidence, he includes reporter-like facts (which we will address in a later post), but his purpose now is to reveal why Jesus did some of what the Lord came to accomplish.
Every mention of Scripture (of course) refers to the Old Testament. John links the events of Jesus’ crucifixion to Old Testament prophesy.
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers also twisted together a crown of thorns, put it on his head, and clothed him in a purple robe. 3 And they kept coming up to him and saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” and were slapping his face.
6 I gave My back to those who strike Me, And My cheeks to those who pull out My beard; I did not hide My face from insults and spitting. 7 For the Lord God helps Me, Therefore, I am not disgraced; Therefore, I have made My face like flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed.
14 It was the preparation day for the Passover, and it was about noon…
17 Carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called Place of the Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him and two others with him, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle.
23 When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, a part for each soldier. They also took the tunic, which was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. 24 So they said to one another, “Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it, to see who gets it.
This happened that the Scripture might be fulfilled, John tells us.
Scripture includes more than the Law, which Jesus promises will be satisfied; but also the Psalms (or songs of worship), historical scrolls and also writings of the Prophets who Jerusalem’s religious leaders seldom heeded and like now, rarely taught.
Here is this Scripture, a Psalm most descriptive of Jesus’ crucifixion.
READ ALL of Psalm 22, if you dare. And looking upon the scene of the Place of the Skull, with Jesus’ Blood pouring forth from His broken Body on the middle Cross, know His suffering for our sin endured for the grace of God’s love.
Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted, Struck down by God, and humiliated. 5 But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings; The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed.
John’s Testimony is True
Jesus replied [to Pilate]. “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
Here is John’s Gospel GOOD NEWS of Scripture fulfilled.
“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced;
and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.
John began his Good News speaking of grace. He begins his conclusion by quoting Zechariah’s imagery of the Spirit of grace and of supplication.
For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
Even Pilate would share some understanding of this Greek concept of grace.
that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness: grace of speech
of the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues
(This, of course, is that love of the Lord Jesus which John frequently shares freely as grace.)
John later greets his fellow beloved believers in his second letter(mailed in about A.D. 90–95):
Grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
About 5-10 years earlierin about A.D. 80–90 John would have had his Gospel delivered to these same saints of the churches where he quotes Zechariah (from about 520 BC, five centuries after David and before Christ), whose name means: “The LORD remembers.”
“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace..,” John encourages from Scripture, as one who witneesed and had mourned for his beloved friend Jesus near the foot of the Cross.
In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.
John began his Gospel by hope in the Messiah who was hung on a Cross.
No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes will have eternal life in Him.
John 3:13-15 NASB
As Jesus gave up His Spirit while John and other witnesses sat beneath the Bloodied Cross with the corpse of their Messiah and Savior they must have wondered why.
John 3:35–36 “.. The Father loves the Son and has entrusted all things to His hand.
The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
Although my thoughts now gather more urgency, they tend to come to the page just a bit slower.
Change ahead in my Christian Social Witness to you and the world.
Yet as always, my thoughts will remain well-considered in light of scripture before you read it here. (Bear with me and help me by your comments, please.)
I do have a reflection or two on my three score and ten, which I will share with you more gradually than before.
Roger Harned – reflection on continued writing at 70 years old
How many score remain?
Those accustomed to the language of King James Bible may take account of their days by the same measure of years used by Lincoln.
Lincoln and Gettysburg Address
“For score and seven years ago,” Lincoln began on November 19, 1863. He looked back to the year of our Lord1776 (as they used to say) just 87 years before.
You may also recall from Lincoln’s memorial to those killed:
… that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Lincoln could not have known then that an assassin’s bullet would soon end his own life five years short of just three score years, at age 54.
All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.
Job 34:18
Abraham Lincoln and Job were both highly successful men of integrity in life who encountered tragedy. Lincoln no doubt had read in his own King James Bible of Job’s struggles.
If you’re keeping score
Only a few of you will know what I once chose as a ‘life verse’ and that it comes from Job.
{IF you want to know my life verse, just click the link to it above and it will open in a new tab or window.} It may help you to understand more about my purpose and gifts.
It just so happens that in this year of our Lord{Anno Domini}A.D. 2020, I have, by God’s grace, lived three score and ten years.
a bit of biography
My mother, Marie Hall Harned, lived more than four score years, though her father lived only to three score and five and her mother, Vera Tyler Hall not even to three score.
My father William E. Harned, his siblings and father William Alba all lived past four score years.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
I praise God for good health of this aging flesh and might easily boast (and speculate) of more years to come.
Yet I remember well so many struggles of the lives of loved ones, their end which came upon us sooner or suddenly.
Therefore like Job I consider that my end will be dust and strive to live for the life of my saved soul — in worship and love of Christ Jesus, One with God our Father.
Take to heart your own possible suffering to come from Psalm 22. It precedes one we know so well about ‘the valley of the shadow of death‘:
Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help…
Psalm 22 was part of our celebration of the wife of my youth, Becky Rice Harned. We considered our end — knowing how she had suffered to survive just her fiftieth birthday.
She went to the Lord in spirit in that same year of our Lord, 1999, on the 10th of February, her disintegrating frame now returned to dust.
Other beloved ones suffer in the flesh even now. Some endure pain known to us, while others, like Becky, suffer in silence.
This frail frame will fail. So will yours, yet be encouraged in the Lord.
Though our aging flesh contains the image and essence of our Holy God, our dust is not our living soul.
A few family and long-time friends know a partial history of my life in this world. And I suspect a handful know yours as well.
Most of you know my own failures and disappointments, as we all have in varying degrees at different times. Yet I do not expect to receive Job’s double blessing before I draw my last breath.
Job suffered much, as some we know — even as Jesus Christ suffered severely for our sins.
I am no righteous man – only in Christ’s righteousness – but like Job I have sought to live my life in integrity. I could not have lived through it all without the encouragement of the Holy Spirit through Christ Jesus, when finally I relented from my sins and sought the Lord for help for this helpless flesh.
Looking back & ahead
Reflecting back on my three-score and ten, as well as looking forward into the light of life given to my own spirit of hope, I continue in God’s grace.
I continue in purpose, perhaps more directed toward that which lives within reach of my limited mortal touch.
Leaving behind each dream and soul beyond my reach, I press on to preach to Gospel exclusively to those whom the Lord has chosen. (You may not be one of these.)
Those not saved by the grace of God have most likely scrolled past the Light of their salvation already.
Roger Harned – reflection on why most will never talk of Jesus Christ
Social Media is not the world
Based on technical data, talkofJesus.com has reached readers in many countries on at least four continents so far. My Christian Social Witness may yet by God’s grace reach some soul who has doubted the only Son of God as the Way and Truth of Scripture.
So often Jesus taught His followers, that is, believers who loved the Lord God and one another, and also preached to multitudes which included many who failed to have ears to hear or eyes to see.
Though in Christ, I am certainly not Christ Jesus. I can no longer preach the Gospel to those who refuse the Good News of Christ Jesus. They have no interest in a relationship with the God of love and life!
Therefore, Christ’s purpose for my witness of the Gospel to a 21st century church, wrought with ‘christians‘ who witness something other than Christ, pales by comparison. Never-the-less:
No soul has more need for the true Gospel of Christ Jesus than the 21st century christian.
Although we will soon return to my 2020 series on the Gospel of John, you, beloved reader, will be in for a new and more pointed relational look at scripture as we speak exclusively to the church.
To be continued... Lord willing...
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