Life in a new place

Here I am, almost a month into my new experience of life in Geneva. As I expected, it is extremely different to what I lived over six years ago, when I lived here with my family. What’s more, it’s also quite different to my first year experience when I moved to Canterbury exactly six years ago, something one would expect when moving from a small city to an international centre that is several times the size of the first, in population, economy and horizontal as well as vertical development. The most important thing though, is that I am lacking nothing: I have a great house, a great course, great food on the table and great support from family and friends. God really provides all things.

Being something of a theologian, I have to bring everything back to God, sorry for those of you who don’t tend to do that, and at the risk of contradicting the fundamentalists, atheists, agnostics and Arj Barker*, I have to see God’s sense of humour in one aspect of my present situation… My inner workings are pretty weird, so sorry for leaking some of that out to you here, but recently I actually started worrying whether I had become a sexist; not in belief, which contrary to what some think doesn’t leave any place for sexism (I'm talking about Biblical theology), but in practice. See, about 5, 6 years ago, most of my friends were women. I don’t know why, maybe because guys are such jerks, but anyway, I realised how unhealthy it was for me to have all these female friends who would give me some chocolate, say “ooh…” and watch Friends with me whenever I was feeling down and went to find some good guys to hang out with, which I did, and have never looked back since, I mean, I love hanging out with dudes - not jerks - in fact, I’m so happy that God’s provision has gone as far as giving me some friends to watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship** with, here in Switzerland, where already in England hardly anyone had heard of it! I love being a guy! And I love growing as a guy, learning to become more of a man, not in the macho way, which I find fun to promote, but only as a joke. Anyway, I guess that I’ve landed on the complete other end of the spectrum and I started thinking recently: “Hmm, do I treat, or unconsciously think of women as less important, intelligent etc. than men?”, which I think is a good sign, because if I’m worried about it, there are great chances that I’m not a sexist. Truth is, I’ve spent so many years with so few female friends that I think I’ve forgotten how to relate to women in a real way. This also may come from the fact that many English girls are so incredibly closed and guarded against guys that it has made it extremely difficult to strike up any real conversations with them in my time out there. Russell Peters had it right, and I know others who would agree, when he said “What have the English men done to the English women? Whatever it is, it’s ruined it for the rest of us!"***

Anyway, what is so funny about that that you have to bring God into it? It’s not funny at all; oh, but it is, when you walk into my seminar classrooms and lecture halls, and all you see are… Women. Over the two years of Master’s students in my course, there are between 6-8 guys, amongst maybe 80 women. But in my department and year, I believe there’s only one: moi. Watch your thoughts! Joey: “Hmm, I’m worried I may have become sexist, I’m not really sure how to relate to women”. God: “Ok, here’s a class full of women, knock yourself out! It’ll definitely build character!” The Lord does work in hilarious ways. Now, I’m not about to put the “trans” back into “translation” just to fit in, but I am kind of failing to fit “bad-ass macho man” into the job description, even though I walk into class with my shaved head and goatee, muscles rippling etc. In the end, I’m just a nice guy and it’s hard to fool people otherwise. What I have concluded through this experience is that women are definitely more intelligent than men, since they all seem to go for languages, when so many guys shy away from such a glorious discipline ;)

In church, it’s the same thing, I’ve met an overwhelming amount of girls, which no doubt will make my dad happy, since I’m sure he’d like to eventually meet a woman I’m actually seeing, which, you know, I’d like to meet a girl I’m seeing as well, but hey, good things are worth waiting for, and once again, that’s something I’m having to exercise faith for. Speaking of faith and theology, God is hilariously challenging the nitpick in me, getting me to formulate my thoughts beyond the blur of “huhhhh…” at times, and teaching me to pick my battles, and words, carefully, because I tend to overreact to certain things. I miss a lot of my friends in Canterbury, I love them deeply, but I am so happy to be here, knowing and seeing already how God is shaping my character, picking out the ugly bits of me and replacing them with Grace.

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*Who some time ago debated in a rather humorous way against the question “Does God have a sense of humour?” which you can find on YouTube.

**And the last one was, oh so sweet! Seeing Dan Henderson and Richard Franklin fight so well among others…

***In another stand-up show that you can find on YouTube.

John 6

John 6

Unless otherwise mentioned, and it's never mentioned, all quotations that are biblical come from the ESV (that's English Standard Only Accurate Version) translation of the bible... Into English.

It's probably best you get your bibles to follow this, otherwise you're not going to know what I'm talking about. In my bible, John 6 is right after John 5. And before John 7.

(Those who don't have one at hand can go straight on to http://www.biblegateway.com/ for multiple translations in multiple languages.)

Let's get started!

6:1-15 This passage is interesting, obviously it is a famous story, but understanding its implications really shocks. Verse 14 helps us understand these implications:

The people realise that Jesus is the Prophet! This is the prophet with a capital P (though the Greek had no capitals probably, but the article helps us understand the "one-of-a-kind"ness of this prophet) spoken of by Moses in Deuteronomy 18. Though there had been many prophets since Moses, there was always an expectation of a prophet of the same calibre of Moses who would be a Messiah. Here, the people realise Jesus is this Prophet because of the sign he performs: a great crowd is hungry and in a desert place, and he is able to feed them with multiple bread and fish; this is like the manna that Moses prayed for and God sent, except that it is greater: it is barley bread and fish, much nicer :) and on top of that, they don't have to wait until morning to pick it up from the ground, it comes straight from the hands of Jesus! He is showing that not only he is a prophet like Moses, but he is a prophet greater than Moses! On top of that, he is showing that he is God, because though he prays to the Father, the food comes from him! On top of that, it is an abundant meal, pointing to the beginning of the season of the new covenant, an era of abundance in God, of Grace...

What we see then, is that in Jesus' ministry, what he was doing all the time was showing through spoken parables, acted parables, and outright fulfilment of prophecy who he is! It seems that everything he does in the gospels, whether intentionally or not, he is just revealing that he is the Messiah and telling people what has happened and what is about to happen, fulfilling ancient prophecy and then fulfilling prophecy that he speaks himself about himself (namely, his death, resurrection and ascension)!

The amazing thing is that he only does this after thirty years of hard work in carpentry, to sustain his family. He has already shown his character... He has been obedient in all things, endured life as a normal person, living for three decades among sinners and never sinning, leading his family since the death of Joseph (since he was the oldest son), and only then does he bring revelation and start his ministry... That is humbling, to think that even Jesus did not start his outward ministry until he was 30... He isn't just a guy who has great gifting but a lacking character! Praise Jesus, because he is all that he says he is and shows no inconsistency in any aspect of his life.

His ministry therefore is all about declaring who he is to Israel, and his disciples' ministry is about telling the world who Jesus is! That is the reason why we contextualise the gospel and preach the Bible, always telling people who Jesus is, whether they already know him or not! (In discipleship and in evangelism) We imitate him and take it further in a sense, because we don't need to go on the cross, so we spend the rest of the time building church, evangelising and discipling.

Another thing is that we see that Jesus is into megachurch! A crowd of thousands, he has no problem teaching them and catering for them! We see this fulfilled properly in Acts, where there are the crowds meeting to hear apostolic preaching, then meet in small groups in homes. Anyway, that goes beyond this passage!...

6:22-59 Following on the feeding of the Five Thousand and the walking on water, the atmosphere of this passage changes as Jesus turns up the theological temperature in his speaking and in response his hearers turn on the hostility, right after an awesome demonstration of his power!

Even though these people were caught up in a sense of wonder, which we see from 6:2, then because of his feeding them, and even mystery, wondering how he got from one side of the sea of Galilee (which was a lake, but still pretty big) to the other without a boat, which would have taken him about 35km round the lake, when actually he walked across, then seemingly teleported (6:21) to Capernaum Pier...

There seems to be a big divide concerning what the people believe the Messiah should be and the way Jesus thinks of his role, purpose and who he is... The immediate reaction of the people upon realising that Jesus is the Prophet is to make him the king in order to establish the Kingdom of Israel again (v.15); heavily influenced by zealot teaching. Then they ask him what works they should do to honour God (v.28); they show the influence of the Pharisees here, always talking about works. Jesus probably frustrated them, because he was different from what they were expecting and he just asked them to put their trust in him...

And here's the weird thing: in verse 14 it seems that many recognised Jesus to be the Prophet like Moses because of the sign he performed, but suddenly, in verse 30, they speak as if it had never happened. "What sign to you do? We want a sign like the manna!" I can just imagine Jesus' jaw dropping hearing that comment. If he was short tempered, he would probably have called them a bunch of idiots, I mean, every bible commentator in 2000 years will know that the feeding of the 5000 refers to Jesus imitating Moses! Of course, his character is perfect, so he doesn't do that, instead encourages them to look back at what happened and see that he is the one who gave them the bread and indeed, he is the bread sent from God vv.32-35 and they should trust in him. He encourages them, but he also uses rather ambiguous language, suggesting that he doesn't mind people misunderstanding what he is saying, because those whom the Father gives him, will come (v.37). It is also ambiguous for us theologically, because as in other passages of Scripture (like in Paul's writings), Jesus talks about the Father giving him people (so chosen and predestined, see v.37 & 39) and then also about people looking to him and believing (vv.40). He says "whoever believes has eternal life" (v.47) right after saying "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (v.44). It's confusing, but it talks about God's absolute and unquestionable Sovereignty in salvation, somehow including our personal, conscious, intelligent response...

But at the same time, the Jews were just showing their bad attitude, by choosing not to understand his words, which were clearly figurative (..."How can this man give us his flesh to eat?", v.52)
Here, he is not talking about communion as much as communion talks about this; what he is saying is that his perfection, his holiness, people will have to eat and drink it, trust him, believe him if they want to be saved. He is saying that there is no work they can do to do God's will (v.28), only believe in him who does it, so that they may be included into that righteousness. They need to say I belong to Jesus. The Lord's Supper is about sharing in Jesus' sacrifice, his flesh punished replacing ours, his blood flowing to cleanse ours, about saying, I'm at the table with Jesus, I'm in his family, that's where I belong, I belong to him!

He is also saying some amazing things, if you think about it; not only that he is greater than Moses and the Son of God (vv.32-33), but that the bread he has to give them is greater than that of the desert time...! (vv. 35, 49-51) He is saying that he has a better covenant, a better relationship to establish than the one of Moses, a greater grace from God!!!

And then he explains what he came to do, so that the original concept of the Jews is challenged: "And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh" (v.51). He is alluding to his sacrifice. And he explains how much greater this grace is: Eternal life!... Following D.A. Carson's thinking on Jesus' prayer in John 17, here we see Jesus' purpose in coming in the world: verse 57: "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me."
That verse seems very ambiguous, but if we explore it in depth there is such power within it! "I live because of the Father"... What could that mean? Is he saying that he is created? That he is in some way dependent on another being for sustenance? No. The reason he lives is for the Father; the reason he came to live in human form is for the Father, his eternal aim and objective is FOR the Father, to honour the Father, to glorify the Father. Jesus lives because there is a God, and Jesus is that God, and so is the Father and his life is about loving God; eternal life is about enjoying perfect relationship of glory, honour, love forever, just like God does within himself. The Father and Jesus' purpose in sending him/coming to earth is to glorify and honour each other, continuing their perfect relationship, but with the other aim of revealing this relationship, this love to men and welcome them into this, which is eternal life! And "whoever feeds of this bread will live forever" (v.58): whoever believes in Jesus, feeds on his words, on his truth, whoever gives himself, says "I belong to Jesus" they will also "live because of me."(v.57) Their life will become one of eternal love and glorifying someone else, namely Jesus, just like Jesus eternally loves and glorifies the Father. We get included into this awesome family!

This passage, as glorious as it is in the truths it uncovers, is a really powerful anticlimax to the previous one: as we see his might and power displayed and people being fed, we see the same people walking away because they didn't like what he had to say and didn't realise they needed to change, not him.
It is all the more telling about the state of the Jewish nation, when just two chapters before a whole village of hated, heretical Samaritans believed in him, and they only had the Samaritan Pentateuch (their Scriptures) to go by, while the Jews who even had the Prophets to read and check didn't accept him. All this goes to show that Jesus was right from the start not to entrust himself to these men, "for he himself knew what was in man." (John 2:25) The chapter shows how much man is inconstant and how even those who are supposed to understand the things of God, the religious, who seek righteousness, can completely miss the point: it's not you who finds Jesus and understands him, it's him who finds and understands you.

6:60-71 Interestingly, after that, he does give some final explanation to those still listening: I'm speaking about spiritual things. "The flesh is of no avail" (v.63). Are you offended? Are you going to stay offended if you see me in my full glory, ascended and mighty, but judge you for not believing in me? I think that's the sense of what he's saying. In a humorous way: "You're offended by this? Well, maybe I should just get outta here and cruise on back up to heaven, blazing with glory..."
And indeed, after this, many people leave him... But it wasn't a failure: he sifted the wheat from the chaff! Those who truly believed from those who were just in it for a fad.

It is so easy to miss the depth and power of a verse...: "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life"(v.63). The very words spoken by Jesus ARE spirit and life! He is expressing spiritual truths in physical terms so that unspiritual people may understand, though many don't, but this is much deeper than intellectual understanding. Words contain so much power in the Bible, but particularly John reveals something about the power of words in his Christology, starting from the beginning: Jesus is the Word (1:1). "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men." (3-4) As the Word of God, Jesus created all things, he holds in himself life which he can impart to others...
Expressing things of the spirit in words is a life-giving action... And we have received the words of Jesus and received his life and his Spirit, if we have believed in him. "For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me."(17:8)
Our job is very simple. Speak the words that Jesus spoke, explain in human terms the truths of God, hoping that others hear and believe... That is how Jesus did it, even though many did not believe. In knowing the truths, the words of Jesus, and living in them and speaking them, we will have his joy in obeying the Father fulfilled in ourselves... (17:11-13) That is just awesome... Words can only attempt to express the beauty of this truth.

Back to the dialogue:
... The disciples understood: "You have the words of eternal life!" (v.68) Peter says, "We get it, you're God, you're the one who gives life, I understood your talk just now, and I'm going to apply it to my life, right now, by staying by your side..." He calls him "the Holy One of God". Now, in the Old Testament, the only one who is the Holy One is YHWH (other "holy ones" - without "the" juxtaposed - mentioned would be the Messiah - which is interesting - in a couple of prophetic Psalms, and angelic beings, mentioned in Daniel)... Isaiah calls him the Holy one of Israel; the only other times when "The Holy One of God" is mentioned is with the demonised man who calls Jesus that! (Mark 1:24, Luke 4:34) So Jesus is God, sent from God! It is a brilliant theological statement! And as an aside, it confirms that even the demons believe that there is one God, and shudder (James 2:19). I love the internal consistency of the Bible!