This weekend in Michigan, a bunch of high school students who are leaders at their churches are spending time talking about faith and culture and leadership. The conference is called Converge2101. I was asked to create a video about online character. We decided to share it with you, too.
Some of us start writing to see what we think. As the words come, we begin to realize what was in our head. The words come in fits and starts and then in a rush. We grin and weep as we begin to understand our hearts.
John didn’t write that way, at least not for the works we know. He knew exactly why he was choosing the stories he chose. He sorted carefully through all the possibilities, all the memories, all the images.
And then he wrote twenty-one chapters for one reason:
…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 20:31)
For John, this is not a collection of interesting stories about Jesus. John wants the reader to come to understand that Jesus was about life, about hope, about God. And he will pick stories of miracles with that in mind.
In all the times I’ve read through the book called John, I haven’t considered the flow of stories as, well, as a flow. That’s because when it comes to the Bible, we pick out bits.
I’m good at telling the stories, pieces at a time. All of us (and I hardly ever say “all” about church stuff) who have watched football or baseball or basketball or Olympics or other large events have seen “John 3:16” on cardboard, which is just one bit. When we prove perspectives, when we embrace or condemn, we pick out bits.
John already picked out bits. He took the whole of his time with Jesus – which was, it seems, three years – and chooses a few pages worth of miracles and messages. With them he tells the story that gave him a life’s work and struggle.
Let’s see what he picked.
We’re spending Holy Week following Jesus.
On Monday, he spent much of the day in the temple courts telling stories. He talked about two sons. One said he wouldn’t go do the chores, and then went out and took care of them. The other said that he would do exactly as asked, but then didn’t get around to it.
He talked about a man who had a vineyard and then hired someone to take care of it for him. When the man sent servants to get the rent, in the form of grapes, the renters beat some, killed some, threw stones at some. Then the man sent his son. The renters killed him, believing they would end up inheriting the property.
Compelling stories. The first resonates with any parent. The second sounds like a story that would be made into a TV movie. They are part of the interesting part of Matthew.
However, they aren’t just stories. They had a point.
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. [Matthew 21:45-46]
It was exactly like writing a blog post, knowing that one of your readers will know from the details that you are talking about them. And knowing they understand what you are saying about them. And knowing that they will be able to tell from all the comments agreeing with you that they are in trouble. And knowing they’ll want to kill you.
Only Jesus knew that they really did want to kill him.
And Jesus knew that many after the pharisees would also look religious but not follow God from the inside out.
Right?
I talk with people. I usually understand what they are saying. In fact, I frequently translate what people are saying for the benefit of other people. I can translate from church to plain language. I can translate business to plain language.
Sometimes, though, I know all the words and I still can’t translate.
“it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”
That’s what Jesus says to John (the baptizing one). Jesus has come to the Jordan river where John is baptizing people. Jesus gets in line. John says, “Me put you under? You should baptize me.”
John’s exactly right. Dunking someone in a river is pretty vulnerable, for the dunkee. It’s a position of humility to be the one being washed. It’s what people who were acknowledging wrong did to show that they wanted to change their direction.
And John knew that the person he’d been talking about was Jesus: the really powerful, really authoritative, really significant person from the previous sentences.
So this made no sense. And then Jesus says, “it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”
What?
What does that mean, fulfill all righteousness?
David Turner, in a commentary I use, gives several possible answers that others have offered. Each tries to weave this sentence into the pages of the Bible that come before this sentence, or the pages that come after. Each reflects scholarship that leaves me humbly scuffing the dirt with my toe, a child in Bible study.
No wonder our eyes sometimes glaze when we try to explain the Bible to people trying to understand for the first time.
That’s okay. Sometimes you say, “maybe if I keep reading, I’ll understand.”
Because stories, like people, make more sense the more you know them.
