John 10:1-10

Jottings on John…Easter 4…2017

When I was a child, our local paper ran a weekly page for kids. One feature was a riddle column. One riddle it took me a long time to work out was, ‘When is a door not a door?’ A: ‘When it’s ajar!’ Victor Golyavkin¹ poses a different kind of door riddle; a poem by him called, ‘The Door’ runs, ‘This door had no hinges. And it had no handle. And it had no keyhole. And it wasn’t entirely a door…..’ That door was in fact serving as a bier for his dead father!

The Easter stories make much of a locked tomb & locked doors. Our passage & its continuation pose a double edged riddle: ‘When is a door not a door?’ A: ‘When it’s a Shepherd!’ Why does Jesus refer to Himself as both Gate, &, Shepherd? Both metaphors appear to be about being let in to the resurrected life of Christ’s flock, & being lovingly cared for in the course of our new raised life in that flock. They are also a warning that we’re excluding ourselves from both if we persist in a) remaining on the wrong side of a locked door, & b) shunning the caring arms of the Good Shepherd?

 Whatever the answer, it has to be applicable now. Not in some future. That present tense that’s the Essence of God, the Eternal “I AM”, is compelling. God is always the God of Now. We’re to live as God’s people Now, or there’s no tomorrow. Live on the inside, with the Good Shepherd as door/keeper, & safely in His arms, now!

Human sheep stray. More than little Bo Peep’s. When that rather infamous shepherd eventually goes looking for her lost sheep, ‘She spied their tails side by side, all hung on a tree to dry’. Then comes, ‘She tried what she could, as a shepherdess should, to tack each tail back on its lambkin!’ But it didn’t work! Dare I add another verse? ‘She tried super-glue, & blue-tack too, some wall-paper paste & then Clag, She tried tying & drilling but results were not thrilling, So her sheep still have nothing to wag!’

If we have a shepherd who’s also our door why not avail ourselves of the protection He offers? If we have a door who’s also our shepherd - a Good one at that! - why not avail ourselves of the nurture He provides? If, instead, we choose to stray, we have a lot more than our tails to lose! Choose, though, to stay, & we have a lot more than our tails to wag! 

   

¹ In ‘Laugh or cry or yawn’, Cheshire, undated. 

JN 20: 19-31

Jottings on John…Easter 2…Revised 2017…

This was almost certainly the original ending of John’s Gospel. Then, some Christian Community, decides the story should go on a bit further into what we know as Ch.21! Which isn’t a bad theme for preaching this passage. Telling the story on a bit further keeps it up to date; keeps it in circulation; keeps it as alive as we are; as Jesus is!  

The locked door & the fear itself our passage starts with both stand for living on the wrong side of the resurrection. Despite our being told [v.18] that Mary M tells her male counter-parts she’s seen Him! It can be hard & hurtful, too, to convince others of personal religious experiences - even genuine ones! But let’s not give up & settle for, ‘Why bother?’! 

When Our Lord comes among them, He gifts those present with Peace, a Mission, & en-Spirits them to kick-start both Peace & Mission. Both need to be personal, not theories. That Thomas misses out & won’t believe what the others tell him must leave them as frustrated as Mary M must be at being un-believed! Maybe we’ve experienced that too when we’ve tried, with some sense of Mission, to reach out to someone in & with God’s Peace? But good can still come from such an unpromising (& unbelieving) start. Mind you, that door is still locked when Our Lord appears to them again a week later! The Peace the disciples have been gifted with on the first Easter night hasn’t kicked in yet; not enough to embolden them. Neither has any sense of Mission given them some sense of purpose yet, or so it seems. 

Tom, though, is with them this time. We’re not told he takes up Jesus’ challenge to put his finger into the nail holes on His hand; nor of putting his hand into the hole made by the spear. But the bit “Don’t be faithless, but faithful” makes its mark! Tom believes! On the spot! Jesus doesn’t knock Tom for being a doubter, coming to faith a different way; but He does hold up those who ‘believe without seeing’ as ‘blessed’.

What we're dealing with in this upper room is faith, another dimension from proof. To close our minds, or try to shut down someone else’s, is another form of lurking behind locked doors. Confusing Faith with proof can still be a gaoler in the locked rooms of hearts & minds. Jesus doesn’t expect us to dig our own tomb looking for proof that He’s been raised from His! 

Our own extensions of this story of Jesus as God’s Anointed One raised from death will be lived out, rather than written in yet another book. Being en-Spirited to Live God-in-Jesus out, in Peace & with a sense of Mission, is what truly gives us all ‘life in His Name’! 

JN 18: 37-38  & 19: 16-30  

Jottings on John…From the Good Friday Gospel… 2017 

Pilate’s question about Truth goes to the heart of Jesus' mission & kingship. At the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus has had to wrestle out in the wilderness with the Truth of Who He is. What kind of Messiah He’s to be. He’s been tempted to hand Himself over to devilish ways of being Messiah, but discerns there’s no Truth in that direction. Jesus commits to being God’s Truth. To God’s way of doing things or not doing them, & His own role in all this. 

Which lands Him now before Pilate. Pilate & all he represents is on trial as much as Jesus is. In his turn & in his own way, he now has to wrestle with Truth in this legal & moral wilderness Jesus is caught up in. Pilate’s "What is truth?" is a question many of us are asking today- or should be. Pilate represents those of us who, when faced with questions of truth, are too easily tempted to take his path of contemptuous, "Truth? What’s that? Who needs it?!” How are we shaping up to the Truth question?

Jesus tells Pilate, “Everyone who belongs to the Truth can hear my voice”, echoing what He’s earlier said to antagonistic fellow Jews [8:47]. Later, when Pilate refuses to change the wording over Jesus’ cross, this Truth-about-Jesus question may still be bothering him! Now he takes the stand he might have taken earlier. In what is being done to Jesus today, where is Truth for Him, for Pilate, for any of us, to be found? Vanstone¹ once put it: Jesus has now allowed Himself to be handed over & becomes the Object of what’s happening, rather than the Subject of the Gospels He’s been before. God’s Truth may call us to ‘hand ourself over’ from time to time, rather than lie in one way or another to maintain control over real-life situations.

A question of truth in another form arises incidentally here. The other Evangelists tell us a Cyrenian is pressed into service to carry Jesus’ cross, but JN insists He carries it Himself. Is it a theological point JN’s making, or just a different tradition current in his circle? I doubt it matters. It does bring to mind, though, the ‘alternative facts’ we keep hearing from some political circles. Can we really make up truth on the run, & as it suits us? Jesus, nailed to His cross, is the Essence of non-negotiable Truth. Whoever carries that cross to Golgotha, Jesus is nailed up on it! Are we living out Jesus Truth day by day as He does, come what may, nail us as it may? 

¹  W.H.Vanstone, The Nature of Waiting, DLT, 1982