Finding Jesus - John 20

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

John 20: 13-15

Do you ever feel like you are searching for Jesus but you can't find him?

You read scripture. You go to church. You talk to Christian friends. You listen to Christian music.

You do all of the "right" church-y things and still...no Jesus.

You might even begin to think it is you...and maybe it is.

When we try super hard - do everything within our own power to make God appear in our lives - we sometimes try too hard. We can become so focused on the "doing" and the "seeking" that we forget to simply "be".

God promised us that He would always be with us.

He promised that if we sought Him with our hearts - our whole hearts - we would find Him (Jeremiah 29:13)

Jesus promised he would be with us when two or more were gathered in his name.

And the promises go on and on....We know in our minds that God is always present - but often we do not feel Him because we are blocked by everything in the world around us. 
Even the church-y stuff.

When you begin to feel like you can't find Jesus - stop.

Stop the searching.

Stop the working.

Stop the trying.

Stop and simply turn around at the sound of Jesus calling your name.

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

John 20:16

Stop and simply be with the King who created you - because all you really need to do to find Jesus is to simply be with Jesus.

Scripture

John 20

Quote

Only God who made us can touch us and change us and save us from ourselves.
Billy Graham

Question

How can you chose to recognize God in your every day of life?

Good Choices for Jesus - John 19

 

 

 Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders.With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. ³⁹ He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.

John 19:38-39

 

Many of us have read about the awful - horrific way Jesus died. He was beaten, whipped, publicly humiliated, tortured and finally hung on a cross to die; to die for our sins.

 

But what is amazing is what happens immediately after his death.

 

We often see the heartbreaking image of the Pieta - Mary holding Jesus' lifeless body in her arms - but what we don't think much about is those who took his body away. The ones who cared for his body after his death and before his resurrection.

 

Two men - Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus - asked Pilate for Jesus' body. This was the act of two friends who loved Jesus and wanted to honor his life by caring for his body. They didn't know that Jesus would rise only three days later. They only knew that their grief and their love for Jesus propelled them to face the hatred of their fellow Jewish leaders by caring for their friend.

 

Jesus had entered Jerusalem only five short days earlier with the heralding of a king and now his body was bloody, tortured and lifeless. These men risked their own personal safety and future security by asking Pilate for Jesus' body and by placing him in this honored tomb.

 

They couldn't protect their friend in his final hours so they chose to honor him in his death with a proper burial.

 

They honored the love they had for Jesus by simply giving of themselves with little regard to what others thought of their actions.

 

How often do we allow others' opinions influence our decisions?

 

We allow marketing to dictate what soda we like or what gadget we want next.

We allow friends at school or work to determine where we will sit in the cafeteria or what (or about whom) our conversation will be. We so often allow other people's opinions to dictate the courses our lives will take that we can sometimes wonder if we are following our own path or someone else's.

 

It isn't always easy to go against the crowd.

Only a few of Jesus' closest friends stood by his side through to his death. Joseph of Arimethia and Nicodemus stood in the shadows and allowed Jesus' death to happen with their inability to stand up to the Jewish leadership. But yet, they didn't allow this error in judgement - this betrayal of their friend - to determine the course of their lives. They chose to follow their hearts. They chose a much harder path by honoring Jesus. But they did so knowing it was the right thing to do.

 

Just because you make a "bad choice" by following the lead of a friend doesn't mean you need to continue to follow those friends down a pathway of bad choices. You have the heart within you to be a person who stands up for justice and for what is right in the light of God's love.

 

If you have made a bad choice - turn away from that choice and get on God's path to righteousness and love. He will honor your right choices.

 

Even when you feel like you might be all alone - He will honor those choices by surrounding you with His presence and His love...and He might even send you a friend like he sent Nicodemus to Joseph.

 

It is always easier to stand tall as two rather than one.

 

Seek out friends who will help you to make the kind of choices that bring JOY to Jesus rather than sorrow to your Savior.

 

Scripture

John 19

 

Quote

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.

David Star Jordan, The Philosophy of Despair

Question

 

What choice can you make today - which is a right choice for God?

 

 

Eating Your Brussel Sprouts - John 18

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear.

John 18:10

Some days you have to eat all of your brussel sprouts - and that stinks.

Some days life stinks.

It just does.

You have a hard test at school.

Your mom yells at you because you left your socks on the floor.

You loose your job because of cut-backs.

Your candidate doesn't win the election.

Your friend dies.

Some days life just plain old stinks.

In the middle of dealing with the "stuff" on our plates - the icky things in life that make you wish the hardest thing you had to deal with was eating all of your brussel sprouts - we have a choice to make.

 We can choose to be mad, discouraged and honked off by our circumstances....

OR

We can choose to accept, embrace and navigate the brussel sprouts of life.

When we wallow in self-pity or discouragement because of a challenge we face - self-inflicted or something outside of our control - we allow the challenge to take center stage. Our lives become the emptiness of pain, jealousy, hatred and disgust. And in that emptiness we are essentially questioning God and His authority over our lives.

When we choose to see a challenge as an obstacle rather than an opportunity we choose to say that God doesn't know what He is doing.

As hard as it may be to reconcile in our hearts, everything in our lives - the good, the bad and the ugly - has been allowed by God. And often, the bad and the ugliness of life teach us lessons we need to learn to press through the next challenge or obstacle. If we hadn't had today's stinky, brussel sprout day we would not be able to handle the broccoli day in two months or two years.

Jesus knew this. Jesus lived this.

Jesus was - IS - God. He came to earth so that we might be freed - long term - of the sins which held us bondage. But in doing the freeing he took upon himself a whole basket full of brussel sprouts.

The night before Jesus died for our sins, he was praying in the garden when Judas led a contingent of soldiers to capture him. He didn't resist arrest. He accepted the Lord's will because he knew he had to pass through the trial and the crucifixtion so that we might be free. He knew that no matter how horrible his brussel sprout tasted he had to eat it - he had to be obedient to his Father.

“Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup he Father has given me?” John 18:11

Peter was very human that night. He tried to defend Jesus - he tried to push Jesus' brussel sprouts off of his plate. But he was wrong.

Somedays life stinks. Somedays life is filled with a bushel of brussel sprouts and we are called to eat them so that we can have the beautiful desert of Heaven with Jesus.

Jesus ate his sprouts. He followed God's will - as painful and as difficult as it was.

Sometimes that is exactly what each of us needs to do. We need to eat the sprouts put on our plate. They aren't always easy to chew - but they always have a purpose.

Scripture

John 18

Quote

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

Albert Einstein

Question

What is the greatest challenge - brussel sprout - you have faced this week?

John 17 - Jesus Prayed for You

 

 

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. ² For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. ³ Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.⁴ I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

John 17:1-5

 

Do you ever wonder what Jesus was thinking while he was on earth?

 

I often wonder about those days, years and months before he began his public ministry. Did he ever worry about those petty things we worry about -

what grade am I going to get on the math test?

will I get a raise?

does that new student like me?

 will I fit in on the first day?

 

I don't think he did. Please do not misinterpret what I am writing - I do believe he struggled with all of the things that weigh us down as human beings, but ultimately I believe that his focus was on you and me. I believe that although he had to deal with how he was going to get food to eat and water to drink, his main focus wasn't on his basic needs - he knew God would provide those - rather his focus was on the impact of his choices on each one of us over 2,000 years later.

 

In the seventeenth chapter of John, the Beloved Disciple records Jesus' prayer to the Father. In this prayer his first focus is on the glory that God will receive through Jesus. His next prayer is for his disciples - all of those who had followed him through out his ministry. And he concludes his prayer with a prayer for All Believers - ALL. He actually prayed for you and for me. He was praying that through his actions and through his sacrifice we might:  that the love you have for me may be in them. John 17:26

 

Jesus was asking that the love the Father had for him be transferred to each of us. He was asking for grace. And his prayer has been granted.

 

Jesus intervenes for us every single day and I often imagine it something akin to this prayer he prayed 2,000 plus years ago. Father - let the love you have for me transform them - let it be made real to them.

 

Because, at the end of the day the love of Jesus - which is in fact the love God has for His ONLY Son - will transform you into a new being.

 

Jesus is pleading our cases to the Father. Will we be open to receiving the love given freely to us? Or will we turn our backs on the sacrificial gift of the one who gave Heaven up so that we might have new life?

 

Ultimately, the choice is freely given.

Thankfully Jesus was thinking of us all of those years ago. 

Will you accept the gift he gives to you today - the gift he has been preparing to give to you for millennia?

 

Scripture

John 17

 

Quote

Love is a gift. You can't buy it, you can't find it, someone has to give it to you. Learn to be receptive of that gift.

Kurt Lagner

 

Question

What choice will you make?

 

 

Note: I apologize for not writing for awhile...I have been under the weather but hope that we are climbing up the mountain now. Thank you for your prayers and you concern. I hope you have a blessed season as the holidays approach ~ Courtney