When the World Goes After Jesus (John 12:12-19)

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The Gospel According to John is remarkably unique when compared to the other Gospels of the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record so many of the same incidents in the life and ministry of Jesus that they are known as the “Synoptic Gospels.” The word “synoptic” means that they “see together.” John provides more unique incidents than any of the others. He was writing this Gospel decades after the others were completed, and had the ability to fill in details and information that the others had omitted. Therefore, when John records the same incidents that the Synoptic Gospels record, it is because these events are extremely significant in redemptive history. The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on the Sunday preceding Passover is one of these events. So important are the events of this final week of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry that nearly half of John’s Gospel is devoted to it. We call this week “Passion Week,” because this week culminates in the suffering, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And the week begins here at this point in John 12, and continues to the end of the book.

In the passages leading up to this one, we have been seeing the growing antagonism and animosity toward Jesus, culminating in the decision of the Sanhedrin to apprehend and execute Him. In 11:53, we read, “From that day on they planned together to kill Him.” But so far, the plan is futile. Try as they may to silence Jesus and intimidate His followers, we can see their exasperation in verse 19 as they say, “You see that you are not doing any good.” In other words, “This is useless! It is getting us nowhere!” Why are they so frustrated with the futility of their plan? Because after seeing the demonstration of the people celebrating the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem, they have concluded, “Look, the world has gone after Him.”

Certainly there is a bit of hyperbole here. At no point in history has the whole world gone after Jesus. But the public response to Him was overwhelming upon His entry into Jerusalem. And since that time, multitudes have continued to go after Him. Many have believed and trusted in Him as Lord and Savior. Others are merely intrigued and curious about Him. But one thing is true, and has been since He came into the world: the world simply cannot ignore Jesus Christ. So it will continue until He returns. Indeed, the world is going after Him. In the account of His entry into Jerusalem, we see a glimpse of what this looks like when the world goes after Jesus.

I. When the world goes after Jesus, their expectations will be challenged (vv12-15).

A few years ago, I was in Louisville for a meeting and a friend texted me and said he knew of a place we could go that had the best steaks in town. So, I loaded up a car full of pastors and we drove over to this place – it was a hole in the wall on the bad side of town – and we went in and said, “We’re here for the best steaks in town!” The waitress just looked at me funny and chuckled as she said, “We don’t serve steak.” I asked, “Did you used to serve steak? My friend said you had the best steaks in town.” She said, “We’ve never served steak. We are famous for our fried chicken.” Everyone at the table was looking at me like, “What have you gotten us into?” But we ordered the fried chicken and it was excellent. In fact, it was so good that I’ve been back several times since. But, there was that initial disappointment that was a little hard to get over. We had our minds set on steak, and all they offered us was chicken. Our expectations were challenged.

There’s a similarity in that story with the one we have just read. The people coming out to meet Jesus and cheer Him on as He entered Jerusalem had high expectations of what He was coming to do. They had gone to great effort to gather the palm branches that they would wave and spread out on the roads as He entered. The palm branch was a symbol of the nation of Israel and it was a symbol of victory. They indicate that the people expected Jesus was coming in to bring victory to the nation over its political oppressor, the Roman Empire.

Then they began to shout, “Hosanna!” That’s a familiar word for most Christians; we hear it often in our songs and sermons and Sunday School lessons. But what does it mean? If you look it up in Greek, you find the Greek word underlying “Hosanna” here in our English Bibles is “Hosanna.” That’s not helpful. Basically, the English translators just transliterated the word, meaning that they simply made the Greek word an English word. So what does the Greek word mean? Well, it actually comes from Hebrew, and when the word was written in Greek, the Gospel writers essentially did the same thing. They just carried over the Hebrew word. In Hebrew it is Hoshiya-na, and it means something like, “Save us now!” In the Old Testament, it is found in only place: Psalm 118:25. What is interesting here is that they go on to exclaim the rest of the words from Psalm 118:25-26: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” This passage had come to be one of great significance for Israel as they awaited the Messiah. It was a plea for God’s deliverance, and then a praise, by faith, that the deliverance for which they asked is, in fact, coming. It is as if they are saying, “Lord, we pray that you will save us, and we bless the name of the One who has come in Your name to do so!” But then they go on to add words that are not in the Psalm – “Even the King of Israel.” And here is where their expectations go astray.

It is clear from their jubilant praise that they expected Jesus to come in as a warrior-king, metaphorically riding on the white war-horse, to overthrow Israel’s oppressors. Their minds were set on a political king, who would establish a political kingdom by military might, to rescue them from earthly oppression. But this is not how Jesus came. Ironically, He came in riding, not on a white stallion, but on a young donkey. The donkey is not a symbol of power and triumph, but a symbol of humility and servanthood. And it is this picture of the coming King mounted on a donkey that Scripture had foretold about the coming Messiah. The ruler who would come from the tribe of Judah was promised in Genesis 49, who would tie his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, before washing his garments in wine, and his robes in the blood of grapes. It was this imagery that was captured in the prophecy of Zechariah that John quotes here. While the people were expecting one kind of King, this King came, in the words of Zechariah, “righteous, and having salvation, humble, and moutned on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zech 9:9). At the sight of Him coming, the people of Jerusalem (the daughter of Zion) should not fear, but in the words of Zechariah, should rejoice greatly and shout in triumph.

They were rejoicing and shouting in triumph, but with the wrong expectations. They were rejoicing and shouting in triumph because they thought that Jesus was coming to throw off the oppression of Rome. But in fact, Jesus was coming as the righteous and humble king, to serve humanity by ransoming His people from their sins, at the cost of His own life-blood. He was not what they wanted, but He was what they most desperately needed! Better to die under Roman oppression with sins forgiven before God through His atonement than to die as free men while still enslaved to sin. And so if these would truly go after Jesus, they must have their expectations challenged and see Him, not as the King they wanted, but as they King that that needed.

It is still the case today. If the world would go after Jesus, they must have their expectations challenged. It is with great shame that the leading spiritual export of the United States today is that theological garbage known as the “Prosperity Gospel” which proclaims that if one will follow Jesus, he or she will be free from sickness, free from poverty, and will be able by faith to simply name it and claim it, whatsoever they ask. Around the world, multitudes are led astray, rejoicing to welcome a Jesus that will make their wives fertile, and make their livestock healthy, and make their incomes greater, and their children successful. Here at home, it is on every television station and in a vast majority of books sold under the heading of Christian literature. And it is a lie! What is more deceptive is the subtle variety of this that creeps into even Bible-believing evangelical churches. People are told that if they follow Jesus, their business will succeed, their marriage will be better, their children will always obey, their golf game will improve, and so-on, and so-on. They are promised that nothing bad will ever happen to them, and if it does, then it is evidence that one’s faith is weak. Friends, I plead with you to adjust your expectations accordingly when you go after Jesus! He has not promised to make you healthy, wealthy, popular and beautiful – that is, at least not in this life. The Bible promises suffering and hardship for the people of God, and we are not suddenly immune to the pressures and problems of life in these fallen bodies in this fallen world. I believe it is true that life here-and-now is better by far with Jesus than without Him, but I also believe that it is “through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). It is better to leave this world, beaten and broken by the hardships and sufferings of life, and know that eternal life with Jesus awaits because He has come to impart salvation through His shed blood to rescue us from sin and its eternal penalty. How much worse off is the one who has it all here and now, and departs this world to enter eternal condemnation in hell because they were not saved from their sins through the blood of Jesus? 

He came to be the King, but He had come to be a King in a way that the people did not expect, or even want. That is why, before this week is out, some of this very crowd crying “Hosanna,” will begin to cry out, “Crucify Him!” They were not willing to receive the Jesus who did not meet their expectations – the One who was not exactly what they wanted, but who was what they most desperately needed. This brings us to the second point here in the text …

II. When the world goes after Jesus, they must see the greatest demonstration of His glory in the cross (v16)

When Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt, he had one burning desire in His heart. He longed to see the glory of God. After experiencing the presence of God in the burning bush, seeing God bring judgment upon Egypt through the unfathomable plagues, seeing Him part the Red Sea to bring His people out of bondage and wipe out their enemies, seeing Him lead His people by a visible pillar of fire by night and cloud by day, after seeing countless miracles, and meeting with God on the top of the mountain where He received the Law inscribed by God’s own hand, Moses could still look toward heaven and cry out, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” Do you long for the glory of God? I imagine that in the heart-of-hearts of every human being who has ever lived, there has been this insatiable yearning. Every desire that we have for things that are beautiful, things that are majestic and splendid, things that are truly great, is ultimately rooted in our desire to behold the glory of the Lord. David prayed, “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that shall I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.” He longed for God’s glory to be displayed.

Maybe you have been in worship services before, when the music was beautiful and the praise was emotional, and the hairs on your arms stood on end, and you thought, “We have beheld the glory of God!” If there was ever a time of public, corporate worship such as this, it was on the Sunday when Jesus entered into Jerusalem. Their exuberance and celebration would make most church’s Sunday services look like an insurance seminar. There was singing, there were tears, there were hands lifted high, there was an emotional fervor. But this is not where Jesus’ glory was most greatly displayed. Notice if you will in verse 16 that the disciples did not yet fully understand all that was taking place there on that day. They didn’t understand the cries of “Hosanna!”, the massive public celebration, the calls for Jesus to be their King, and most of all they did not understand the donkey. And then notice this key phrase half-way through verse 16: “But when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him.” It is pointing to something yet future. Jesus had not yet been glorified. But soon, He would be. And when He was glorified, everything changed.

So, when and where was Jesus “glorified” in this ultimate sense. There are indicators throughout John’s Gospel. In Chapter 7, when Jesus spoke of living water that He could give, John says, “This He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (7:39). Later in Chapter 12, Jesus will say, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (12:23). In Chapter 13, as Judas leaves the upper room to go cash in on his promise to betray the Lord unto death, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him ” (13:31). So, when and where is Jesus most “glorified”? It is clear that His glory is most expressly demonstrated in His death and resurrection.

That’s not what you expected is it? It is not what anyone expected either. It is in the betrayal, the suffering, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus that He shines with the greatest glory. It is centered on the cross – the things leading up to it, and the things that follow after it are included, but the cross stands at the center of it all. The reason why the cross is the focus of the greatest demonstration of the glory of Jesus Christ is because the cross is the reason for His coming into the world. He came to die on this cross to rescue us from sin and reconcile us to God. In the cross, the mercy, the love, the grace, the power, the wisdom, and the holiness of God-in-Christ are put on grand display. Here He bore our sins, so that in God’s holiness, the penalty of sin could be paid in full; while in God’s mercy, sinners could be saved. Here He poured out His life and His love, through His blood, that you might be brought near to God for eternity. Here, He made it possible for you to be cleansed of sin and covered in His righteousness, that you might be filled with His Spirit, and transferred into His Kingdom as the adopted sons and daughters of God.

Is the cry of your heart to behold the glory of God? You will find it displayed nowhere more clearly than in the cross of Jesus Christ. If you would go after Jesus, look to the cross upon which Christ died for you, and there you see the glory that your heart desires and that you were created to behold! The cross of Christ must become the center of our lives, the focus of our very existence. It is only as we see all of life and all of history through the glory of Christ manifested upon the cross that the things of this world and the world to come begin to make sense. The disciples didn’t understand what was going on around them, until Jesus was glorified. Then, filled with His Spirit, they perceived the purpose and plan of God in the things that they witnessed and experienced. The same will be true for us. It is only as we see the cross that we behold the glory of Christ, and all other things are illuminated by the brilliant light of His glory. 

Now we come finally to verses 17-19, where we find this …

III. When the world goes after Jesus, it will be because His people have testified faithfully to Him (vv17-19)

Every now and then Donia and I will go to a great restaurant or find a shop that we love, and we tell our friends about it. Pretty soon, we go back, and it is more crowded than it was before. Soon thereafter, we go back, and can hardly get in the door. So, we’ve learned a lesson. Now when we find some place we really like, we say to each other, “Let’s let this be our little secret.” That way no one will ever find out about it, and the crowd won’t get too big. Obviously, this is not how the people who had experienced the power and grace of Jesus felt about Him. On the contrary, they couldn’t stop talking about Him. And it was through their testimony that we find that the world was going after Jesus.

There are two groups of people that comprise this multitude that have gone after Jesus. Verse 17 tells us about one of the groups. These were those “who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead.” Verse 18 tells us about the other group. These are those who “went and met Him because they heard that He had performed this sign.” Now how did they hear that Jesus had raised Lazarus? Because verse 17 says that the group that was with Him when He did it “continued to testify about Him.”

Surely, the Lord in His omniscient wisdom, His omnipotent power, and His complete sovereignty, could have chosen to bring the world to Himself by any means whatsoever. And given His manifold perfections, we must trust that He chooses to always and only do that which He deems to be the best thing. And beloved, what He has chosen to do, by His grace and mercy, is to entrust the winning of the world to Jesus into our hands. Each of the four Gospels, and the book of Acts, record for us in five different ways the final words of Jesus to His disciples before He ascended into heaven. And in each of those writings, we find those last words to contain what we call “The Great Commission.” That it is recorded in five different ways must only mean that He spoke it to them in different ways over and over again as if to drill into their heads that the spread of the good news of Jesus Christ has been entrusted to His church. How will your family members and friends go after Jesus? How will those who live within this nation who are yet unsaved go after Him? How will the unreached multitudes go after Him – the over 251 million people who live among 3,052 people groups that have no access to the gospel, and the 4 billion who live among 6,546 people groups with limited access to the gospel? My friends, they will only go after Jesus as we who know Him and have experienced the power and grace of His salvation continue to testify about Him. We must go and make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19). We must go and tell others that He who died for them is risen from the dead and will receive them (Mark 16:6-7). This gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins must be proclaimed to all the nations, and we are the witnesses who must proclaim it (Luke 24:46-49). As the Father sent the Son into the world, so He has sent us into the world to testify of Him (John 21:20). We have received power because the Holy Spirit has come upon us, and we are His witnesses in our own community, in our nation, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). The book of Revelation tells us that Jesus was slain to purchase for God with His blood those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Rev 5:9), and we see the vision there of His throne surrounded by those from every nation and tribe and people and tongue (7:9). It will happen. God has declared it. And He has determined that the means by which He will bring the world to go after Jesus is through the ongoing testimony of His people. We must proclaim the glory of King Jesus and His bloody cross until He comes. Then the world will go after Jesus.

Spurgeon on "Sudden Bereavements"

Twice in recent months, I have had the privilege of viewing some of the items in the Spurgeon collection now housed at Midwestern Seminary. At the latter of these two events, the Southern Baptist Convention in Baltimore, the Seminary was giving away posters bearing one of Spurgeon's more notable quotations:

"If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies." 

Being somewhat of a researcher by nature, I decided to go find the source of this quotation and read it in its larger context. I have read the full quotation in the past, but never "plowed the entire field" from which "this flower was plucked." A quick search led me to Spurgeon's sermon numbered 349, "The Wailing of Risca," delivered December 9, 1860 at Exeter Hall. The "Risca" to which Spurgeon's title refers, is a Welsh town that was once known for its rich coal deposits. On December 1, 1860, 140 miners were killed in an explosion in a mine there. A week later, Spurgeon delivered this message. In it, he recounts some of the details: 

Last Saturday week some two hundred or more miners descended in health and strength to their usual work in the bowels of the earth. They had not been working long, their wives and their children had risen, and their little ones had gone to their schools, when suddenly there was heard a noise at the mouth of the pit;—it was an explosion,—all knew what it meant. Men's hearts failed them, for well they prophesied the horror which would soon reveal itself. They wait awhile, the foul gas must first be scattered, brave men with their lives in their hands descend into the pit, and when they are able to see with the dim miner's lamp, the light falls upon corpse after corpse. A few, a handful are brought up alive, and scarce alive, but yet, thank God, with enough of the vital spark remaining to be again kindled to a flame; but the great mass of those strong men have felt the grip of death. Some of them were brought up to the top with their faces burned and scarred, with their bodies disfigured by the fire; but many are discovered whose faces looked as if they sweetly slept, so that it was scarcely possible to believe that they really could be dead, so quietly had the spirit quitted the habitation of clay.

As I read on, I came to the context from which the now famous quotation ("If sinners be damned ... ") was taken. And I must say, I was greatly blessed and helped by the great preacher's words. In speaking to a community of souls who had been shocked by the tragedy of sudden grief, Spurgeon's words are fitting for all who have been touched by tragedy, suffering, and grief. The entire sermon can be found online here, but allow me to share this extended portion of it. This is the first of three "points" that Spurgeon delivered in the message, which he heads with the phrase: "I. Our first sorrowful theme is SUDDEN BEREAVEMENTS." I have underlined for emphasis several salient quotations and major ideas that were most beneficial to my soul. 

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Alas! alas! how soon may we be childless; how soon may we be widowed of the dearest objects of our affections! O Lord, thou hast shown to us this day, how soon thou canst blast our gourds and wither all the fruits of our vineyard. The dearest ones, the partners of our blood, how soon can death proclaim a divorce between us—our children, the offspring of our loins, how soon canst thou lay them beneath the sod. We have not a single relative who may not become to us within the next moment a fountain of grief. All that are dear and precious to us are only here by God's good pleasure. What should we be to-day if it were not for those whom we love, and who love us? What were our house without its little prattlers? What were our habitation without the wife of our bosom? What were our daily business without our associates and friends to cheer us in our trials? Ah! this were a sad world indeed, if the ties of kindred, of affection, and of friendship all be snapped; and yet it is such a world that they must be sundered, and may be divided at any moment.

From the fact that sudden bereavements are possible—not only to miners and to women whose husbands are upon the sea, but to us also—I would that we would learn profitable lessons. And first let us learn to set loose by our dearest friends that we have on earth. Let us love them—love them we may, love them we should—but let us always learn to love them as dying things. Oh, build not thy nest on any of these trees, for they are all marked for the axe. "Set not thine affections on things on earth," for the things of earth must leave thee, and then what wilt thou do when thy joy is emptied, and the golden bowl which held thy mirth shall be dashed to pieces? Love first and foremost Christ; and when thou lovest others, still love them not as though they were immortal. Love not clay as though it were undying—love not dust as though it were eternal. So hold thy friend that thou shalt not wonder when he vanishes from thee; so view the partakers of thy life that thou wilt not be amazad when they glide into the land of spirits. See thou the disease of mortality on every cheek, and write not Eternal upon the creature of an hour.

Take care that thou puttest all thy dear ones into God's hand. Thou hast put thy soul there, put them there. Thou canst trust him for temporals for thyself, trust thy jewels with him. Feel that they are not thine own, but that they are God's loans to thee; loans which may be recalled at any moment—precious benisons of heaven, not entailed upon thee, but of which thou art but a tenant at will. Your possessions are never so safe as when you are willing to resign them, and you are never so rich as when you put all you have into the hand of God. You shall find it greatly mitigate the sorrow of bereavements, if before bereavement you shall have learned to surrender every day all the things that are dearest to you into the keeping of your gracious God.

Further, then, you who are blessed with wife and children, and friends, take care that you bless God for them. Sing a song of praise to God who hath blessed you so much than others. You are not a widow, but there are many that wear the weeds, and why is it not your lot? You are not bereaven of your spouse, but there is many a man whose heart is rent in twain by such a calamity,—why is it not your portion too? You have not to follow to-morrow your little ones to their narrow graves—early flowers that did but bud and never ripened, withering alas! too soon. Oh! by the sorrow which you would feel if they were taken away, I exhort you to bless God for them while you have them. We sorrow much when our gifts are taken away, but we fail to thank God that he spared them to us so long. Oh! be not ungrateful, lest thou provoke the Lord to smite very low the mercy which thou dost not value. Sing unto the Lord, sing unto his name. Give unto him the blessing which he deserves for his sparing favors which he has manifested towards you in your household.

And then permit me to remind you that if these sudden bereavements may come, and there may be a dark chamber in any house in a moment, and the coffin may be in any one of our habitations, let us so act to our kinsfolk and relatives as though we knew they were soon about to die. Young man, so treat thy hoary father as thou wouldst behave to him if thou knewest he would die to-morrow. When thou shalt follow him to the grave, amidst all thy tears for his loss, let there not be one tear of repentance because of thine ill behaviour to him. And you godly fathers and mothers, to you I have a special message—your children are committed to your care; they are growing up, and what if after they be grown up they should plunge into sin and die at last impenitent! Oh, let not the fierce regret sting you like an adder,—"Oh that I had prayed for my children! Oh that I had taught them before they departed." I pray you so live, that when you stand over your child's dead body you may never hear a voice coming up from that clay, "Father, thy negligence was my destruction. Mother, thy want of prayer was the instrument of my damnation." But so live, that when you hear the funeral knell, for a neighbour even, you may be able to say, "Poor soul, whether he is gone to heaven or to hell, I know I am clear of is blood." And with double earnestness be it so with your children. "Yes," says one "but I have thought of teaching my children more of Christ, and being more earnest in prayer for them bye-and-bye," but what if they should die to-morrow? "Yes," says the wife, "I have thought of speaking to my ungodly husband, and trying to induce him to attend the house of God with me, but I was afraid he would only laugh at me, so I put it off for a month or two." Ah! what if he dies before you have cleared your conscience of him? Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

In the light, then, of sudden bereavements, let not another hour pass over your head, when you have reached home, before you have freed your conscience of the blood of your children's souls. Gather them together around you this afternoon, and say to them, "My dear children, I have learned to day that you may die; I knew it before, but I have had it impressed upon my mind by a solemn incident. My dear children, I cannot help telling you, that as you must die, I am anxious that God's Holy Spirit should graciously lead you to repent of sin and seek a Saviour." And then, when you have told them the way to salvation in simple terms, put your arms about their necks, and bid the little ones kneel down and pray, "O God! upon their infant hearts, stamp thou, the image of thyself. As they are in the image of the earthy, so make them in the image of the heavenly, that at the last I may be able to say, 'Here am I, and the children thou hast given me.'"

A Life Transformed by Jesus (John 12:9-11)

Audio 

In 2010, a biography entitled Unbroken brought a man named Louis Zamperini into the public eye.[1] His story is a fascinating one, and later this year, it will hit the big screen in a major motion picture. What is it that is so captivating about the tale of this now-96-year-old man? As a young immigrant boy in California, he gained a reputation as a troublemaker. He was so good at outrunning police officers, that one officer told him he needed to use his speed for something good, like athletics, to keep him out of trouble. He did just that, and qualified for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. During that Olympiad, Zamperini roomed with Jesse Owens, was invited to a personal meeting with Adolph Hilter, and was apprehended by the Gestapo for climbing a flag pole on a government building to steal a Nazi flag (which they let him keep when they released him). During World War II, he was a bombardier on a B-24 Bomber that crashed into the Pacific, killing most of the crew. Zamperini and two other crewmen survived for 47 days on a liferaft, even being shot at from a Japanese aircraft as they drifted. Eventually they were captured as Prisoners of War by the Japanese. He endured torture in the prison camp for three years until the war ended. Any one of these details of Zamperini’s story worthy of attention. But it was what happened after the war that really makes his story remarkable.

In 1949, a young upstart evangelist named Billy Graham had begun preaching in his first crusade in Los Angeles. Louis was an alcoholic, suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and his marriage was falling apart. Tormented by his dreams and memories of Prison Camp, he fantasized about tracking down his tomenter and killing him in cold-blooded vengeance. At her wits end, Zamperini’s wife attended the Billy Graham Crusade, and there she met Christ. She came home and begged her husband to attend the crusade with her. Zamperini recounts the tale: "I was a mess.… I fell apart after the war. I was a drunk. I suffered terrible nightmares and was having marital problems. But my wife was a determined woman who dragged me down to see Graham. I walked out mad the first time. I didn't want to hear that I had sinned. Just to shut her up, I went back." And when he went back, Louis Zamperini gave his life to Jesus Christ and his life was radically changed. He says, “That night when I got home from the Crusade, it was unbelievable. I didn’t have a nightmare, and I haven’t had one since.” His marriage was restored, and he and Cynthia stayed together until her death in 2001. Louis began to travel the world speaking to audiences about his faith in Christ. He became a missionary to Japan, and found opportunities to preach the Gospel to the very guards who had tormented him, whom he had once dreamed of killing. Louis Zamperini is a wonderful, living example of a life transformed by Jesus![2]

His story is no less remarkable than that of Lazarus in John 11-12. And it is no more remarkable than the story of any sinner whose life has been transformed by Jesus Christ. Like Lazarus, we have been brought from death to life through Jesus. In Ephesians 2, Paul reminds us,

You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph 2:1-7)

If you are in Christ, you have been raised from death to life, in an even greater way than Lazarus. You and I were dead in trespasses and sins, going through life according to the way of this fallen world, marching to the drumbeat of Satan, and fulfilling, or at least trying to, every sinful desire that we had with no regard for the things of God. But God saved us by His mercy, His love, and His grace, and made us alive in Christ. And now He intends to use our transformed life to bring glory to His name. Lazarus becomes a great role model for us in this, and here in our text we see the effects of a life transformed by Jesus. These things were true of Lazarus. Our prayer should be that these things would be true of us as well. So what are these effects of a life transformed by Jesus?

I. A life transformed by Jesus catches the attention of others (v9)

Have you ever crossed paths with someone who had changed remarkably since the last time you saw them? A few weeks ago I ran into an old friend I had not seen in over 20 years. He hardly recognized me. Let’s just say I’ve put on a few pounds since I saw him last. But there was one other thing that took him by surprise – I was at a Christian conference. The last time I saw this guy, I was a hard-hearted unbeliever. At first he was very confused to find me there, but I was glad to share with him how Jesus had changed my life.

Now, in our text today, we read about a group of people who came to the home where Jesus was having dinner. It seems understandable that they would want to come and see Jesus. They have heard amazing stories about this Man, and some of them had heard Him teach and seen Him do miracles. Now, word is going around that He’s in town and they want to see Him. That makes sense, doesn’t it? But notice in verse 9, “they came, not for Jesus’ sake only.” They also came “that they might also see Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead.”

Imagine the conversation. “Wow, Lazarus, you really look great. The last time I saw you was, let’s see, oh yeah, at your funeral when you were dead and wrapped up in grave clothes and placed in a tomb. You have really changed a lot since then!” He sure has! His life has been radically transformed by Jesus Christ! He’s been raised from death to life! And if you know Jesus, your life has been transformed in the same way. And that ought to catch the attention of others.

Does anyone who has known you for a really long time ever say things like this to you? Do they ever say, “You know there’s something different about you. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but ever since a certain time, you’ve just changed.” Maybe they notice that you talk about God, about Jesus, about the Bible more now than you ever did. Maybe they notice that you’ve cleaned up your vocabulary, changed some lifestyle habits. You’re doing strange things now, like hanging around the church a lot. They notice that there is a peace and joy in your heart that you never had before. Your attitude and outlook on life is changing. You are talking about things you are praying for, and how God has answered. You’re loosening your grip on the things of this world and clinging more tightly to a steadfast hope in Jesus. Maybe you haven’t even noticed the change that much in yourself, but it has caught the attention of others. When you’re not around, they are talking amongst themselves, “Hey, have you noticed this about our old friend? What’s going on with them? Something’s changed about them.” Yes indeed, something has changed. Your life has been transformed by Jesus Christ.

You know, the transformation process is ongoing throughout our entire lives. God won’t be finished changing you until you get to heaven, but the process has already begun. Sometimes, the progress is slow, and we can get discouraged as we wrestle with thoughts and habits that we want to put behind us, but they keep rearing their ugly head. Here’s something you can do if you are wondering about your progress in the Christian life. Find someone who has known you a long time, maybe since before you were a Christian, a friend or a family member, and say, “Can I ask you something? I want you to be very honest with me. Can you see any difference in my life today from all those years ago?” They may notice changes that have taken place in your life that you don’t even notice yourself. And if they don’t notice any changes, let that be a cause for you to reexamine your faith in Christ. If He isn’t changing you, then something is wrong. Maybe you were not really saved when you thought you were. You might think, “Oh that would be a terrible thing to realize!” No, actually it is a wonderful thing to realize, because you could see the need to turn urgently and desperately to Christ here and now and be truly saved! But if Christ has saved you, He is transforming you! He has begun a work in your life that He will be faithful to continue and complete.

He’s still working on me, and He’s still working on you. The change that is taking shape in you is evident to others, even if you don’t notice it in yourself. John Newton, that great pastor and hymn-writer who gave us, among many others, “Amazing Grace,” was at one time, before he became a Christian, the captain of a slave-trading ship. After years of growth and transformation in the Lord, in his old age, he said, “Though I am not what I ought to be, what I wish to be, and what I hope to be—yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was—a slave to sin and Satan!”[3] Can you say that of yourself? I’m not what I ought to be or what I want to be, but thanks be to God I am not what I used to be! Can your friends and family members say that about you? A life transformed by Jesus catches the attention of others. They can see that you were once dead, but have been raised to life by Jesus Christ. You are being transformed, and they notice it.

II. A life transformed by Jesus leads others to faith in Jesus (v11)

I hope it is OK to say this here without being judged too harshly: I love watching movies. And when you go to see a movie, you have to get popcorn right? I think it is a law. For $27 or something like that, you can get a little bag of popcorn that has 12 pieces of popcorn and 9 unpopped kernels down in the bottom. But for 10 cents more, you can get a tub of popcorn that large enough to hold baptisms in, and they slather it with that gooey butter and all of that salt. Popcorn never tasted better than when you’re watching a movie. Now, why do movie theaters sell popcorn? Well, in case you didn’t know, they make very little profit off of your movie ticket. They make their greatest profit off of two things: popcorn and drinks. They know that if you eat that big tub of salty popcorn, by half-way through the movie, you’re going to come back out to the lobby and pay $39.50 for that barrel of soda that it cost them 12 cents to serve you because the salt has made you thirsty! That’s pretty smart of them, isn’t it? They make a huge amount of profit on one very simple principle. Salt makes people thirsty.

Jesus Christ said two things that are related to that very simple principle. First, when He was speaking to the woman at Jacob’s well in John 4, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). He has a soul-satisfying, living water that He can give to thirsty souls which, unlike any other fountain in this world, can quench the thirst forever. That living water is Himself. Nothing else in the world provides everlasting satisfaction. You know that. You’ve tried. You’ve drank from other fountains, as it were, seeking satisfaction, and you got thirsty again. But Jesus satisfies forever. He is living water. But Jesus also said to His followers, “You are the salt of the earth” (Matt 5:13). There are many points of application to these words, but certainly one of them is this: Salt makes people thirsty. Your transformed life is being used by God to awaken a spiritual thirst in people that only Jesus can satisfy. Your life catches their attention, and then, amazingly, God uses you to bring others to Himself.

It is happening here in the text. Notice in verse 11 that “on account of him [Lazarus] many of the Jews were going away and were believing in Jesus.” They were going away from their empty religious traditions. They had tasted of them and drank deeply from that well for years, and it left them entirely unsatisfied. Their religious upbringing had done nothing to help them with the real problems and issues they were facing in life. They have offered sacrifices a plenty, they’ve memorized rules and tried hard to keep them, they’ve gone through one ritual after another. And inside, their souls are as arid as the Sahara Desert. But then they notice Lazarus – a guy who was dead just a few days ago, and today is eating dinner at a table with Jesus Christ, who raised him from the dead. Here is a man whose life has been transformed in a way that none of them have experienced! And here is a Savior who made it all possible. Is it any wonder that, because of Lazarus, many of them were turning away from their former beliefs and turning to faith in Jesus?

When I think about how God brought me to faith in Jesus, I think about some wonderful people that He placed in my life at just the right time. I began to notice something different about them that I did not have, but I desperately wanted. They had a love, a peace, and a joy in their hearts that I had never seen before. It wasn’t that they were perfect – I saw them sin often with my own eyes. But I also saw them wrecked by their sin, and repenting of it before the Lord with brokenness. I heard the delight in their voice as they talked about Jesus as if He was a living person who was in the same room with them. They didn’t grumble and complain about their church. They loved going to church, and wouldn’t miss it for anything. They loved their Bibles, and read them on their own time, even when they didn’t have to, and they loved talking about the Bible. And as they talked about it, it was like they were giving me CPR. They were being salt in my life, and I was getting thirsty for the living water that Jesus Christ can supply. So, like these in our text, I can say that “on account of Nate, and on account of Mike, and on account of Dick and Judy, and Paul, and Steve, I went away from my old way of life and belief, and believed in Jesus.” They were as surprised by it as I was when it happened. But God wasn’t surprised. This is the way He chooses to operate. He uses the salt of a life transformed by Christ to awaken a thirst in other people’s souls that can only be quenched by Jesus.

And you will find that it happens to you. You’ll be spending time with someone, just living your life for the glory of Christ, and speaking of Him and His Word as you interact with them, and one day, they will say to you, “Friend, you have something I don’t have, but I really want it.” And you will have the glorious privilege of leading them to Jesus. Because of you, they will believe in Him. So, a good question to ask yourself is, “Can others tell that the difference they see in me is because of Jesus?” Is Jesus creating in you something that is attractive to them, something that they want for themselves? Now, if you are a cantankerous curmudgeon who is always grumbling about stuff that bothers you, they probably don’t want that. They already have enough of that. But, if they see the sweetness of Jesus flowing through you in words and deeds that express faith, and hope, and love, and joy, they will want it. If you will make it your singular aim each day, for God to use your transformed life to bring someone else to faith in Him, it will happen. There is nothing God wants more for you than for your life to be used for His glory in bringing others to faith in Jesus. I don’t know that God has ever let this prayer go unanswered: “Lord, please use my life today to impact someone for Christ.” Can you pray that prayer? If you can, God is able to answer it in ways that you have never dreamed possible.

Now, you may have noticed that we skipped a verse. Well, we can’t do that. We need to back up to verse 10 and see one more effect of a life transformed by Jesus.

III. A life transformed by Jesus invites opposition from others (v10).

When your life is being transformed by Jesus, you are raising a gigantic banner for Christ over your life. Your life is becoming a gigantic flagpole for Jesus, and you know what happens to big flagpoles? They get struck by lightning. Not everyone you meet is going to be delighted about your newfound faith in Jesus. We don’t do a very good job covering this in our new believer discipleship courses. We talk about assurance and Bible Study, and Baptism and prayer and all that, but we don’t usually say, “Oh, and by the way, there are going to be some people who hate you now because of this.” We don’t say that, but we should. Just look at Lazarus.

In verse 10, we read that “the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death.” At first glance you might think that is a typo. You might think that it’s supposed to say “they planned to put Jesus to death.” Well, they did plan that, but notice the word also. They also have their sights trained on Lazarus. Why? Because he is leading people to Jesus. They just thought that Jesus was the only problem they had to eliminate. No, Lazarus presents another, two-fold problem for them. First, he is living proof – literally, living proof – that Jesus is Who He claims to be and that He has the power of God to save and transform lives. That’s a problem, because they are trying to convince people that Jesus is a fraud. Lazarus walking around breathing air, eating dinner, and being alive is proving that Jesus is no fraud. But then also, he presents another problem. Notice that it is not the Pharisees who want to kill him, but the chief priests. Now, the chief priests are mostly Sadducees, and the Sadducees do not believe in the resurrection – not now, not ever. (That’s why they were Sad-You-See … ba-dum-dum). This is a core tenet of their worldview and belief system, and here is this guy who is proving them wrong because he is in fact alive after being dead. That’s a problem.

Jesus warns us that this will be the case for many of us. He says in John 15:20, “A slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” The Bible has some very specific promises about suffering for your faith in Christ, namely, expect it. First John 3:13 says, “Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you.” You present the same problem to those who oppose God as Lazarus did. They say God isn’t there and Christ is not the Lord and Savior. And yet, here you stand, a life transformed. How can you explain it? Your entire life has been turned upside down. You don’t do the things you used to, and you don’t even want to! You are doing things that you used to think were strange, like praying and going to church and listening to long sermons. And a few of you even enjoy it! Strange people! How can you explain that? It is only the transforming power of Christ, and your life is a witness to them that they are lost and wrong and that their soul is in peril. They are mad at God for existing and mad at Jesus for saving sinners, and mad at you because you are living proof of it. You contradict their entire worldview, and they want you to just sit down and shut up. And in the worst cases, they will shut you up if they have to.

I always wondered, how do you threaten Lazarus? “We’ll kill you.” Lazarus would just say, “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. What else have you got?” What about you? They say, “OK, you have crossed the line for the last time, and this means death.” Well, what are the promises of Jesus? “I am the Resurrection and the Life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” What’s that? You want to send me to be with Jesus forever? Not a problem! Paul says in Philippians 1:21 that to live is Christ and to die is gain! You can’t threaten a Christian who believes his Bible and longs to be with Christ. They can try, but they just can’t shake you.

Right now, the eyes of the world are on Meriam Yahia Ibrahim, a 27-year old mother in Sudan, who has been charged with apostasy for converting from Islam to Christianity. She is on death row. She gave birth to a baby girl last Tuesday, and is expected in coming days to receive 100 lashes, and once her baby is weaned at age 2, she has already been sentenced to death by hanging. They are telling her, “Renounce Christ, and you can live.” She has said that she would rather die than to forsake her faith in Christ. We are rightly outraged by this, and people are saying, “Call your Congressman and ask them to lobby the State Department to do something.” There’s nothing wrong with that. You can do that. But you should also pray. God can do what the State Department cannot. God can strengthen her faith so that she will cling to Jesus even if she is put to death. And God can use her transformed life to bring many in that nation that is held hostage by false religion to Jesus. We want to see her free. She wants to bring glory to Christ, by her life or by her death. And the steadfast resolve of her transformed life is powerfully testifying to the whole world that Jesus is better than life!

You can expect opposition if you follow Jesus. That is a promise. It might not be death threats, but it could be. It might just be mild inconveniences. It might mean severed relationships, a lost job, a dent in your income, a mark on your resume, or something like that. But when you embrace suffering for Jesus – and it is important that we clarify, for Jesus – you are demonstrating the evidence of a transformed life. Some people will hate you for that. You need to expect that. But, others will take notice, and by your living witness, even God forbid by your dying witness, some will be drawn to Jesus.

When the Apostle Paul preached the Gospel in Athens, Acts 27:32-34 says, “some began to sneer, but others said, ‘We shall hear you again concerning this.’ … But some men joined him and believed.” That’s how it goes with a transformed life. Some will take notice. They’ll say, “We’re not sure what it is that is going on with you, but we want to know more.” Some will be led by your life’s testimony to embrace Jesus for themselves. And others will just sneer, and oppose and attack you. That’s what they did with Jesus, that’s what they did with Lazarus, and that is what they will do with you. Many will notice, some will believe, and others will oppose. Those are the effects of a transformed life. May God grant that our lives would produce those same effects as we live this transformed life that He is working in and through us.

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[1] Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (New York: Random House, 2010).

[2] Details drawn from various online sources: http://www.louiszamperini.net/?page=bio; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Zamperini; http://billygraham.org/story/louis-zamperinis-story-of-survival-and-redemption/; http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/02/local/me-then2. Accessed May 29, 2014.

[3] John Whitecross, The Assembly’s Shorter Catechism Illustrated: Illustrated by Appropriate Anecdotes (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1876), 57. 

A Wonderful Fragrance and a Horrible Stench (John 12:1-8)

Audio 

Most of us remember that tagline from the commercials that spoke of  “a Kodak moment.” It is a moment that deserves being captured on film for preservation. A couple of weeks ago, as my wife and I were walking her dog (I don’t own a dog, but she does), we missed a really great Kodak moment. The dog stopped suddenly on the side of the road to take care of important business, and while she was doing her business, she was sniffing a flower in front of her. I really wish I had captured the picture. It was a moment of great contrast. On one end of the dog was a fragrant aroma, and on the other end of the dog was a horrible stench. That image deserved to be captured and preserved. It was a Kodak moment, but I missed it.  

In our text today we find a similar Kodak moment that has been captured and preserved for us. As we read it, we can see it in our mind’s eye in rich color and texture, and the account leaps off the page in multi-sensory detail. We can smell the wonderful fragrance of extravagant worship in Mary’s act of anointing the Lord Jesus with her costly perfume, and we can detect that gut-wrenching, pungent stench of Judas’s hard-hearted and hypocritical grumbling. Nowhere in Scripture is there a greater contrast of human responses to Jesus Christ than we have preserved here in this text.

Let’s set the stage of the scene. In Chapter 11, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, which prompted many to believe in Him, while many others were calcified in their hatred toward Him. With a death-warrant looming over His head, Jesus withdrew from Jerusalem. But as Chapter 12 opens, the re-engagement begins as His hour draws near. He has returned to the environs of Jerusalem for the final time. John tells us in verse 1 that it is six days before Passover. So, on a Friday evening as the Sabbath begins, Jesus has re-entered Bethany, just two miles from Jerusalem proper, and reunited with Lazarus and his family. As the Passover breaks on Saturday evening, a meal is held in His honor – a celebration of thanksgiving for restoring the life of Lazarus. Tomorrow, He will enter Jerusalem for the last time on what we observe as Palm Sunday. It is in this context that we see this great contrast of the wonderful fragrance of extravagant worship and the horrible stench of hypocritical grumbling. It is to those thoughts that I would like to devote our attention.

I. The wonderful fragrance of extravagant worship (vv1-3).

The word “extravagant” has a range of meaning. It can refer to something that is so excessive as to be wasteful or to something that is beyond what is reasonable. When I say “extravagant worship,” I do not intend to use either of those meanings. But the word “extravagant” can also mean something that is exceedingly high in value, price, or cost. And when it comes to our worship of Christ, extravagance is not unreasonable. Because the Lord Jesus has been extravagant in the outpouring of His grace, it is entirely reasonable for us to be extravagant in the outpouring of our worship. Not a drop of His blood nor a measure of His grace was wasted in our redemption, and not a pound of our worship is wasted in rendering to Him the worship that He is due. Extravagance is called for, but rarely evidenced. Our worship, when compared to the extravagance of which the Lord Jesus is worthy, may be more often characterized as miserly and stingy. But every now and then, we see a glimpse of Jesus receiving the extravagant worship that He deserves. And we see it here in the act of Mary.

We see her extravagant worship demonstrated first of all in the meal itself. Now, you say, “What is so extravagant about providing a meal for someone?” Indeed, in that culture and others where hospitality is cherished as a virtue, failure to provide a meal for someone who had traveled so far would be highly taboo. But this was not just a meal for a visiting traveler. This meal was for Jesus Christ: a wanted man and a fugitive. The order had gone out in verse 57 that if anyone knew His whereabouts, they were to report Him to the authorities. Not only did this group not report Him, they in fact hosted and publicly celebrated Him. After all, this is the Jesus who has given them back their loved one from death. Here at the table sits one, Lazarus, who just a few days before was dead and in his tomb, but who now (because of the power and grace of Jesus) is alive and well again! You see, extravagant worship recognizes the extravagant power and grace of Jesus and does not consider the consequences as it is poured out from a faithful heart filled with love and gratitude for Him.

If you know Christ today, then you have this in common with Lazarus: you were as dead spiritually as Lazarus was physically when the Lord Jesus called you to life in Himself. He has raised you up! Should we not rejoice and celebrate with extravagant worship? Someone will tell you, “Hey, you know, you should tone it down with all the Jesus-talk. You don’t want to be a fanatic. You’re going to upset someone and cause trouble.” Well, it is not our goal to cause trouble or to upset anyone, but we’ve been brought to life from the dead! How can we not make much of Jesus in extravagant worship? If you aren’t overflowing with extravagant worship because Jesus has given you life when you were dead in sin, check your pulse and make sure you are really alive! Come what may, extravagant worship can’t be contained, no matter the risks or dangers. Extravagant worship doesn’t consider the consequences.

Then notice that extravagant worship doesn’t consider the cost. This is really the point that John wants us to see here – Mary’s sacrificial outpouring of this “very costly perfume.” It’s made of pure nard, he tells us. The spikenard plant from which this perfume was made grows up in the higher altitudes of the Himalayas in Nepal, Tibet and Northern India. It was imported from there in that day, and was therefore very expensive. Mary’s got a lot of it – if you can picture a soda can, that’s about how much perfume Mary’s got, according to the original meaning of the weight and measure here. That’s a lot of perfume, a this is a very costly supply. The other gospel writers tell us that it is kept in an alabaster vial, so even the container was very valuable. We read in verse 5 that it was worth 300 denarii. A denarius was the average worker’s daily wage, so 300 denarii would be about a year’s salary for the average person. The latest research I could put my hands on placed the national average income for Americans today around $40,000. Do any of you have perfume worth that much? And here, as Jesus reclines at the table with His friends, Mary does the unexpected and the extravagant. She pours that very costly perfume out all over Him. John says she anointed His feet. Matthew and Mark say that she anointed His head. There’s no contradiction there. We’re talking about a soda can full of perfume. She has poured it all over Him from head to toe. Mark says she broke the vial, indicating that she spent it all on Jesus, even the container it came in. And then, in great humility and devotion, she begins to loosen the tresses of her hair (something very scandalous in that day), and she wiped His feet with her hair. Picture this precious woman on the ground before the outstretched feet of Jesus, massaging the perfume into His calloused feet with her hair. I dare say no one ever gave Jesus the worship He deserves more than this dear soul did. Extravagant worship never considers the cost, because Jesus is worthy of all we can give Him.

What is your most valued possession, the thing you treasure most in your life? Is it your home, your financial portfolio, your career, your reputation, your children, your family? Maybe something else? Could you give it away for Jesus? You say, “What do you mean? Jesus would never ask me to give those things up for Him!” Well, in fact, Jesus asks you to give everything up for Him, and He is worthy of it. He doesn’t really want your stuff, He wants your heart. But He says that where your treasure is, there your heart is also (Lk 12:34). If He is not your treasure, He will begin to call you to loosen your grasp on whatever is. In many cases, the question is, “How can I give this to Jesus in such a way that He can be glorified in it and through it?” Can Jesus be glorified in your home, or in your career, or by your finances, or through your family? He isn’t asking you to place the blade on the neck of your firstborn, but He’s calling you to hold nothing back from Him. If the day should ever come that God would call your children or your grandchildren to serve Him in a far-away and dangerous land, are you willing to give them to Him? If He should call you to walk away from your career and walk by faith into His service, could you do it? If He were to call you to make a bold stand for Him that could jeopardize your repuration, or your livelihood and lifestyle, could you do it? The list could go on and on. These are costly expressions of worship, some may even say extravagant! But extravagant worship does not consider the cost, because the extravagant worshiper knows that Jesus is worthy. Mary gave an unthinkably costly gift to Jesus in an outpouring of worship. Are we willing to do the same?

Extravagant worship doesn’t consider the cost and it doesn’t consider the consequences. And when it is poured out on Jesus, a wonderful aroma fills the air. Verse 3 says that the whole house was “filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” The fragrance of her act of worship permeated the whole place, and she arose and went about serving, her hair wafted the aroma and kept it lingering long after her act of worship was completed. I’ve known a few folks like this in my life – not many, but a few. When you are around them, you just feel like you’ve been near God Himself because their lives put off this heavenly aroma of extravagant worship. I like being around those people. I want to be one of them. In the Law, the various sacrifices and offerings that were burnt on the altar of God were said to put off a soothing aroma before the Lord (e.g., Exo 29:25, et al.). I want my life to be like that. Jesus wants all of our lives to be like this! In Romans 12, the Apostle Paul says, “Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” Pour it out as a soothing aroma, a wonderful fragrance of extravagant worship. Think not of the cost or the consequences. Jesus is worthy, in view of the excellencies of His great mercy and grace, and His power which has been revealed in us as He saves us and transforms us from that old way of death in which we formerly walked. Let us not be miserly in our worship of Him. Let us be extravagant and pour it all out for Him because He is worthy of extravagant worship! Let everyone around us smell it in our lives – the wonderful fragrance of extravagant worship.

Oh, how I wish the passage ended there! But, sadly it doesn’t. It goes on, from this beautiful story of this wonderful fragrance to tell the sorry tale of …

II. The horrible stench of hypocritical grumbling (vv4-6)

One of our college students is presently over in West Africa, and this past week, she’s been texting me lots of pictures of the places she’s been visiting. I have been to some of those places myself. One of them was particularly memorable for me. She sent me a picture of a beautiful beach with a row of colorfully hand-painted fishing boats lined up along the shore. I remember that scene well. Soft white sand, palm trees lining the shore, and people frolicking about in the crystal-blue water. But the air on that beach is filled with a gut-wrenching stench, because there on the beach is a huge pile of garbage where everyone in the city dumps their trash, including human waste, rotting food, remnants of dead fish, and a host of other little nasties. Its kind of like what we have going on here in this scene in our text. There’s this beautiful scene of extravagant worship, but all of a sudden it is shot through by the horrible stench of hypocritical grumbling over in a corner of the room. It must have been all that the dinner guests could do to hold down their meal as this noxious odor began to fill the room from the mouth of Judas Iscariot.

There is a lot that can be said about Judas Iscariot, none of it is good, and much of it is said here in this text. But before we delve into the sorry details of this scoundrel’s heart, let it be known well that Judas Iscariot was one of the Twelve. He’d spent every waking moment of the last three years in the company of Jesus Christ. He’d seen every miracle and heard every blessed word that fell from the lips of our Lord. He’d earned enough trust among his peers to be given the responsibility of being their treasurer. The dark secrets of his unbelieving heart were known only to him, and not to anyone else. When, at the Last Supper, Jesus said, “One of you is going to betray Me,” there wasn’t a soul in the room who said, “I bet He’s talking about Judas.” They all said, “Lord, is it me?” In their minds, they could envision themselves betraying the Lord before Judas would. Judas stands as a stark warning to the Church of Jesus Christ. In Acts 20, the Apostle Paul warned the Church at Ephesus, “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert” (Acts 20:29-31). Where do these savage wolves come from? They come in among you, and arise up from among your own selves. They are in the church, and Judas was by no means the last of them. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of opening the newspaper and reading about another pastor who’s tarnished the name of Jesus because of his unbridled lusts and his love of money! I’m tired of reading blogs to see how another spiritual leader has made shipwreck of himself and his flock by falling into false teaching! And, as Chaucer said so well in The Canterbury Tales, “If gold rust, what shall poor iron do? For if the priest be foul, in whom we trust, what wonder if a layman yield to lust?”[1] Let us not be surprised, brothers and sisters, to find the same kind of Judas-heart hiding in the crowd of hundreds of church members in our day if there was one even among the circle of twelve disciples who walked with the Lord Jesus. But, like Judas, given the time and the opportunity, they will reveal themselves through their hypocritical grumbling. The horrible stench is impossible to mask.

Have you ever caught whiff of something that, at first, you can’t tell if it smells good or bad? I grew up on collard greens. The first smell of collard greens cooking brings me back to my childhood and I think of how pleasant it is. But the longer I smell it, the more noxious it becomes. It smells like someone is boiling dirty socks! And that is the way it is with the hypocritical grumbling that we see in Judas here. This kind of hypocrisy offers pretentious arguments. Judas says, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” That smells pretty good with the first whiff, doesn’t it? He kind of has a point. A lot of good could be done with the proceeds of that sale. But there is a subtle kind of lie underneath this statement. It whispers beneath the words that Jesus really isn’t worthy of extravagant worship. There’s some other cause, some other need, some other issue that should trump the priority of Christ and the worship that is freely poured out on Him. And friends, you will hear this kind of pretentious argumentation from time to time as well.

In just a few weeks, we’ll be voting on the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This is a critical year. With the departure of the Chinese Church from our facility, we are looking at an immediate loss of 15% of our annual income. A budget of over a quarter-million dollars is simply not practical for us, and there are differing opinions of what needs to be cut and what needs to be raised. But the fact of the matter is that it cannot be business as usual. In our upcoming budget discussion, there will likely be some who speak passionately about the need to cut one item so that others can increase, and vice-versa. But friends, we must ask ourselves what the business of the church must always be about. We simply cannot sacrifice the advance of the Gospel, the discipleship of our members, and the worship of our Lord Jesus in exchange for pet projects and the luxuries of Christian comforts. We have to keep the main thing the main thing, and the main thing is the worship of Christ and the evangelization of the nations beginning in our own community and extending to the ends of the earth. We simply cannot meet every need or supply every wish. My prayer is that we can articulate a war-time budget that demonstrates that the priorities of this church mirror the priorities of Jesus Christ. Let us not employ pretentious arguments that subtly declare that Christ or the Gospel is not worthy of all that we can give.

This kind of hypocritical grumbling that we see in Judas here offers pretentious arguments, and it conceals a sinful and selfish heart. In the accounts of Matthew and Mark, we are told that several of the disciples were thinking exactly what Judas was saying. Some of these guys really did care about the poor! They had learned from Jesus about the need to touch the untouchable and to care for the “least of these.” That was true for some of them, but not for Judas. Behind his words there was a sinful and selfish heart. Verse 6 says that he was not concerned for the poor. As the treasurer of the disciples, he used to steal money from their treasury for himself! Here’s a year’s salary being poured out – more money than Judas had seen in a long time! If only that much money could be put in the offering box, he could pilfer a little for himself off the top and no one would ever notice or miss it. But make no mistake about it, the only person Judas saw benefiting from the sale of this perfume was himself.

This kind of self-centered sin rears its ugly head in the cause of Christ from time to time. Of course, there are those crooked imbezzlers who make headlines, and likely more that never get caught. But often there is a more subtle way this works. Some have pet projects and personal interests that they seek to fund and fuel at the expense of other areas of ministry. Some oppose a strategic and necessary change because they personally benefit under the status quo. Some selfishly fight to preserve their favorite personal interests while more pressing things suffer. How many Kingdom focused ministries suffer because resources are pilfered for the building of private and personal empires? Every time we discuss sending a team overseas on a mission trip, someone will say, “Why should we invest the funds to sending a team overseas when there are so many needs here?” The assumption is that it is “either/or.” In point of fact, we are sending people across oceans, and across streets on mission, and very few of those who voice this concern are involved even in the local work. In some cases, these objections are raised naively and with pure intentions, but be not deceived. Sometimes there is a sinfully selfish heart underlying the stratagems, not unlike that displayed in Judas Iscariot here. The stench of it is hideous when it permeates the church of Jesus Christ.

Finally, this kind of hypocritical grumbling confirms the true condition of the heart. John barely gets the name of Judas Iscariot off the end of his pen before he can hold back no more and include the tragic reality of his hardened heart. “Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him.” It was already in his heart to do it. He had very likely been wrestling with it for some time. He had his hopes fixed on power, prestige and prosperity in the courts of King Jesus as He seized the throne of Judea and chased out the Roman oppressors. But then Jesus started talking about being crucified, about shedding His blood to save people from sin, about a Kingdom that was not of this world, and Judas quickly began to lose interest. Visions of dollar signs had danced in his head, but with this display that he considered to be an extravagant waste, the camel’s back was broken. The concrete the flowed through his heart set permanently, and the decision was made to turn Jesus over to be put to death. No surprise that he did it in exchange for money, for money was his god.

The Bible says that “the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Tim 6:10). The Lord Jesus had said within Judas’ hearing, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Mt 6:24). Mammon is an ancient word for riches or wealth. It is no sin to have money, but it is a sin for money to have you. If you treasure it too greatly and cling to it too tightly, it will overtake your heart and crowd out any room for Jesus. It is far better to treasure Christ above all, as Hebrews 13:5 says, “Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.’” In other words, make sure, above all else, that you have Christ, and if He is all you have, be content with Him and nothing else. He will never leave you or forsake you. But if you love money, or (let’s face it!) anything else in the world other than Him, you will leave Him and forsake Him. Judas stands as a stark warning to us of this danger. The hypocrisy that prompts his grumbling here in the wake of an act of pure and extravagant worship fills the air with a toxic stench.

What is the aroma that your life emits? Is it the wonderful fragrance of extravagant worship that is poured out in love and faith and gratitude in view of the life giving mercy, saving grace, and transforming power of Jesus? Or is it the horrible stench of hypocritical grumbling? Mary is known to us forever as the hot-hearted, extravagant worshiper of Christ. Her fragrance fills the air with every mention of her name. And Judas, well his name is never mentioned in the Gospels without the sorry epitaph that he is the one who betrayed the Lord in exchange for money. With every mention of his name, there is this pungent odor of hard-hearted and hypocritical betrayal. They say that scent is the strongest sense tied to our memories. So how will you be remembered? What aroma does your life emit? The sweet and fragrant aroma of extravagant worship, or the horrible stench of hypocritical grumbling?

[1] Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, 1:502-504. Online at http://www.canterburytales.org/canterbury.php3?display?2?1?496?0?15?1????1. Accessed May 22, 2014. 

The Great Turning Point (John 11:54-57)

Audio  

As we analyze the structure of John’s Gospel, we find four major sections. In Chapter 1, we have a prelude and introduction. From Chapter 2 through Chapter 11, we have a description of Jesus’ earthly ministry, focusing primarily on His radical teachings which are authenticated by His miracles or “signs.” Some have called these chapters “the book of signs.” And then from Chapter 12 through Chapter 20, we have the passion narrative – the account of Jesus’ final week from His entry to Jerusalem to His death and resurrection. Finally in Chapter 21, we have a postscript and conclusion. So, on that way of reckoning, the end of John 11 then marks the great turning point (and in some sense, the half-way point) in this Gospel. We will read no more about Jesus’ profound encounters with spiritual seekers. There will be no more public discourses about His nature or His mission. And there will be no more miracles, at least not until the ultimate and final one in this Gospel when He rises from the dead. Henceforth, His face is set like flint toward Jerusalem and the cross, where He will do what He came to do – give His life as a ransom for many. Thus, these brief verses that we have read today are of great significance as they close out the book of signs and the record of Jesus’ public teaching and miracles, and open the book of His passion – His suffering and death in our place for our sins. The Apostle John, writing under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit, has written these words as the turning point of the book, and these words also parallel the great turning point that occurs in our lives. These words show us our great need for a Savior, they probe our spiritual motives, and they challenge our level of devotion. Let’s look at the verses and unpack those ideas.

I. There is a great human need for a Savior (vv54-55)

It is a really amazing phenomenon about the human race: inherently we are a very religious species. Every civilization that is unearthed by archaeologists has left behind an abundance of evidence of their belief in religious things. In fact, even those who claim to be irreligious or anti-religious, are in fact very religious. They hold to their tenets by a kind of religious faith as much as (or in some cases even more than) the most committed Bible-believing Christian. We are a religious species of beings, due in large degree to the fact that we are made in the image of God, and therefore are hardwired to inquire about spiritual things.

The interesting phenomenon of human religiosity goes even further than this. As C. S. Lewis so wonderfully points out in the opening chapter of his book Mere Christianity, there are two curious things found in every human being who has ever lived: “First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way.”[1] To put the matter in biblical terms, we are aware in our own hearts that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). So there is this nagging sense in every human heart that we must do something about the sin that is present within us.

For some, they decide to tinker with the scales. They say that there is no objective standard of morality. This is why Paul addresses those in Romans 1 whom He says have “suppressed the truth in unrighteousness.” That is, by dismissing the standards of morality, they liberate themselves to live as immorally as they please. We see this on grand display today in our culture. Others will retreat to doing good deeds to assuage their guilty consciences, in hopes that at the final day, God might weigh their good deeds against their bad deeds and find that they have done more good than bad and thus earn His approval. This is the foundational hope of all devout Muslims. Still others will turn to religious rituals in order to find release from their sins. Maybe there is a cleansing ritual, a sacrifice, a vow, a prescribed order of penance, a payment, or the like which can wipe the slate clean for them. In all of this, we see evidence of the great human need for a Savior.  

Here in our text, we find just such a group of Jewish people. They are coming into Jerusalem to observe the Passover. Passover was one of three Jewish festivals in which people were expected to travel, if possible, to Jerusalem. Every year, it was estimated that at least a million people came into the city for the occasion.[2] Of course, they were coming to commemorate God’s redemption of His people from bondage in Egypt. You will recall how the book of Exodus describes it. After Moses had confronted Pharaoh with the demand to release God’s people, and after the judgment of one horrible plague after another, there came this final, fateful night in which the death angel would sweep through Egypt destroying the firstborn of every household. But, God had made a provision to spare Israel this calamity. If they would smear the blood of a spotless and unblemished lamb over their doorpost, the destroyer would see the blood of the lamb and “pass over” the homes of the Israelites, who were saved by the blood of the lamb. And then, Moses would lead them out of slavery and into the land of promise. Every year, even to the present day, this is a high holy day for Israelites as they look back on God’s great act of redemption. The recollection of those events of the Exodus call them to worship God anew with thanksgiving and expectation.

But in our text, we read of a group of people who are “early arrivers” for the feast. Passover is a week away yet, but this group has come early, as verse 55 tells us, “to purify themselves,” so that they will not be refused entry to the temple area for the Passover observance. There were all kinds of defilements that would render a person ceremonially unclean. They included having contact with a dead body or because of a bodily discharge that they had suffered, or because they had come into contact with a person, or the belongings of a person, who had been defiled by these things. All Gentiles were considered unclean, so anyone who had contact with Gentiles was deemed unclean as well. These people have come because they are aware of their need to be made right before the Lord because of their personal uncleanness. If they were honest with themselves, there wasn’t a Jew in Israel, including the priesthood, who could say with integrity that he or she was clean enough to worship the Lord without being first purified. In that regard, they are not unlike the rest of the entire human race. We know that there is a defilement within us that would bar us from the presence of God. We know that something must be done about these sins and these defilements, but do we know what help or hope there may be? For these people, they are coming to their priests, who have prescribed certain rituals that they can go through involving sacrifices, offerings, washings, and the like, before they can celebrate the Passover.

While multitudes are coming into Jerusalem to be cleansed of their impurities, notice in verse 54 where the Lord Jesus is going. He is going in the other direction. He is heading out to the wilderness, to a place called Ephraim, where He intended to stay until the appointed time for Him to enter Jerusalem. You see, the Lord Jesus does not need to go to the Temple or to the priests to purify himself. Listen to the testimony of Scripture concerning His moral impeccability:

• He “knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21).
• He was “tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15).
• He was “holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens,” and “does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, … for His own sins” (Heb 7:26-27).
• He “committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth” (1 Pet 2:22).
• “In Him there is no sin” (1 Jn 3:5).

These and other verses reveal to us that the Lord Jesus was entirely free from the defilements of sin in His infinite holiness and righteousness. He did not need to undergo purification, unlike the multitudes of people who were flooding into Jerusalem in advance of the Passover. Rather, Jesus is able to provide purification in a far greater and more ultimate way to those who are in need of it.

Because Jesus is the perfectly righteous and sinless Son of God, He is uniquely able to be the Savior that humanity needs. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. When a human being dies, in a very real sense, he is dying for his own sins. But the Lord Jesus had no sins of His own for which to die. Therefore, He is able to be a substitute and a sacrificial Lamb, a Lamb of God without spot or blemish, to take upon Himself the sins of the world and bear them beneath the just judgment of God for our cleansing and purification. In the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, our sins receive their full penalty under God’s wrath, and we are forgiven because we are cleansed by His blood. And in exchange for our sins, God covers us in the very righteousness of Jesus, so that He sees us, as it were, not in the foulness of our sin, but as if we bore the sinless holiness of Jesus Himself. And by the sanctifying work of His Holy Spirit who indwells us, He is actually shaping us to reflect that holiness over the course of our entire lives. What He has declared us to be positionally in Christ, He is shaping us to be practically like Christ. There is no magic ritual, no man-made religion, and no moral reformation that we can undergo which has the ability to purify us. Our only hope for purification is found in the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. As Peter writes, “You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Pet 1:18-19).

Jesus is the greater purification that we all need. But He is also the greater Passover. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:7 that Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed. You see, in Christ, God is delivering us from a greater bondage than that of slavery in Egypt. He is delivering us from the bondage of sin and the destruction of death. Jesus is God’s Lamb, whose blood must be applied over the doorpost of our heart if we are to be saved and brought out of sin’s captivity and into the life that God has promised us – life abundant and eternal. The people of verse 55 have come to Jerusalem to purify themselves in order to observe the Passover, but some of them have walked right past the only One who can purify them. In a short time, the Lord Jesus Himself will come into Jerusalem to become our Passover in order to purify us from our sins and deliver us from sin’s slavery. He is the greater purifier and the greater Passover – the Savior that the entire human race needs to rescue and deliver us.

Now, this brings us to the second point, which we see in verse 56 …

II. There are various motives for seeking Jesus (v56)

I have been in ministry long enough to live through several church fads. One of the ones that is, thankfully, dying in our day is the “seeker sensitive movement.” At its peak, the leaders of this movement were saying to churches that we needed to be extremely sensitive in our preaching and our worship planning to not offend anyone and to not talk so much about things like sin, hell, wrath, blood, and things like that. After all, we don’t want to turn someone off to Jesus when they may genuinely be seeking Him. There are only a few dozen problems with that line of thinking. The most obvious one is that Paul says in Romans 3:11 that there is “none who seeks for God.” In the spiritual deadness of our sins, we would much prefer that if God really is there, that He would just mind His own business and leave us alone. If there is a true seeker, it is God-in-Christ. Jesus said that the Father is seeking true worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth (Jn 4:23), and Jesus said that He had come to seek and to save that which is lost (Lk 19:10). But also, if one would claim to be truly seeking Jesus, and yet would be turned off by the mention of things like hell, sin, wrath, and blood, we would have to wonder why on earth they were seeking Him? What is it that they hope that Jesus could provide for them, if not redemption from sin through the shedding of His blood, which saves us from the wrath of God in an eternal hell? By this and many other experiences, we’ve come to understand then that people are often seeking Jesus, but for widely varying motives.

Let’s take the group of people about whom we read in this passage. Verse 56 tells us that they were “seeking for Jesus” and they were wondering if He was going to show up at the Passover at all. Now, why were they seeking Him and so curious about His travel plans? Is it not obvious? They have heard that this is the One who has the power to raise dead people back to life and open the eyes of the blind. Maybe they want Him to do something for them, or at least to see Him do it for someone else. They want to be entertained, or to receive some physical or material benefit from Him.  

Others, perhaps, have other motives for seeking Him. They have heard the report circulating that the Sanhedrin has a warrant out for Jesus, and they are wanting to see some action. They are like those people on the interstate who slow down and rubberneck at the incident on the side of the road that has drawn the police cars, ambulances, and firetrucks onto the scene. They don’t want to get involved or do anything to help, they just want to see what all the excitement is about. Undoubtedly there were some in this crowd who just wanted to see some action, but to see it from a safe vantage point without becoming personally involved.

And then of course, there were those religious officials who had issued the warrant for Jesus. They too were seeking Him, and wondering if He would show up, because their hearts were intent on destroying Him. They are poised to ambush Him as soon as He shows His face. So there are all kinds of people seeking Jesus with all kinds of motives, both here in our text, and in our world today.

The heartbreaking thing about all of this is that with all these people seeking Jesus, no one was seeking Him for the right motive – that they might turn to Him in faith and repentance and be saved! And the same is true today. There are skeptics who feign interest in Jesus, expecting Him to do something amazing to earn their belief in Him. What an arrogant perspective, to think that the God of the universe must amuse and impress you in order to earn your approval, as if He needed it in the first place! Then there are those who are just sort of morbidly curious about religious matters. They have no desire to become involved or entangled with Jesus; they just like to observe the action from a distance. They like the music, the pageantry and tradition, the oratory, the testimony, but it is all for their entertainment purposes. And then of course, there are those critics, whose only interest in seeking Jesus at all is in order to debate about Him and to offer their opinions about Him, as if they think that they can stand in judgment over Him, rather than the contrary. What a rare thing it is to find someone who is seeking after Jesus for the right reasons: because they are broken over sin and find Him as their only hope of salvation and eternal life. That is because, as we stated earlier, that left to our own sinful devices, none of us ever would seek Him on those terms. We would much prefer to just be left alone by Him. But thanks be to God, Jesus can be something of a meddler in our affairs. If anyone ever does seek Him for the right reasons, it is only because the Lord Jesus has first sought after him or her, and begun to do that divine work of stirring up conviction and desire in their hearts, drawing them gently to Himself. If there is ever any true seeking of Jesus, it is a response to His greater seeking of us.

If you are a Christian today, give thanks to God that He moved upon your heart and provoked you to seek after Christ. It was not of your own doing, but His. For reasons known only to Him, God chose you in eternity past to be the special object of His divine grace and brought you to Himself in Christ. You sought, because He was seeking you. It may be that He is doing that work in the heart of someone present today. All of a sudden you find yourself with an insatiable hunger in your heart to know Christ. Maybe it is what brought you here today. Maybe you have been like one of these others that we have mentioned for a very long time, and you inexplicably find yourself now aware of your need to know Christ personally as the One who can save you from your sins. Give thanks to God for that work of grace that He is doing, and come to Jesus by faith in response to His drawing. Maybe you aren’t like that at all. Maybe you have no interest in Him whatsoever. I would wonder why you are here, and you may wonder as well. But could it be that the Lord is doing something in your heart that even you do not fully comprehend? Maybe the kind of faith in Christ that I am describing today seems foreign and impossible for you. Have you ever considered asking the Lord to impart that kind of faith to you? The Bible says that saving faith is a gift from God (Eph 2:8-9), and I know of no other gift that God would rather give you than that. I don’t know that anyone has ever prayed that prayer and found God unwilling to answer it. I dare say that if you even desire to pray it, it is evidence that God is already answering it. Isaiah said, “Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near” (Isa 55:6).

Now, finally, let me close with this last point here in the text in verse 57 …

III.  There is a call to severe devotion to Christ (v57)

The orders have gone out: If anyone knows anything about Jesus, he or she is to speak up and testify as to His whereabouts so that that the Pharisees and chief priests can apprehend Him. Do you doubt the historicity of this account? Well, in fact, it is corroborated by at least one outside source, and a surprising one at that. In the Babylonian Gemara, which is a Jewish commentary on a Jewish commentary of the written and oral teachings of Judaism first put into written form around 500 AD, we read this:

Tradition reports that on the evening of the Passover Jesus was crucified, and that this took place after an officer had during forty days publicly proclaimed: This man who by his deception has seduced the people ought to be crucified. Whosoever can allege anything in his defense, let him come forward and speak. But no one found anything to say in his defense. He was hanged therefore on the evening of the Passover.[3]

While the details vary somewhat from our biblical account, and we have good reason to trust the biblical details moreso than these, we do see that even the Jews acknowledge that there had been an appeal made for people with information about Jesus to come forward and speak about Him. The Gemara specifies that they were seeking people who would come to His defense, and even as the Bible acknowledges, no one did. But it is not a far stretch for us to believe what is written here in our text, that the appeal was also for those who had evidence to condemn Him or to locate Him to come forward as well. But let us return to the point that there was not a soul to be found who was willing to speak a word on Jesus’ behalf. Surely some could. Surely there were many who had believed in Him, many who had been healed by Him, many who had seen Him do wondrous signs. Where were they? They were nowhere to be found. Maybe they were afraid. After all, in John 9, when the formerly blind man who had been healed by Jesus spoke on His behalf, he was excommunicated from the synagogue and his entire family was threatened. In John 12:10, we read that the chief priests were even conspiring to kill Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

We must conclude that those who could speak a word on Jesus’ behalf were silenced by intimidation. And so are many followers of Jesus today. It will come as no surprise for you to hear me say that this world is becoming increasingly intolerant of Jesus Christ’s radical and exclusive claims. I don’t know how long the Lord will tarry His return, or if we will ever see a change in trajectory in our culture, but on the present course, I do not find it hard to imagine that some of us will live to see the day when this very gathering could be viewed as a terrorist cell. The rhetoric that we are hearing in our day is akin to that of verse 57 – If anyone knows anything about Jesus, we dare you to speak up about Him.

But friends, times like these are when the mettle of our devotion to Christ will be tested, tried, and proven. Will we choose to obey Christ or Caesar? When the early church was threatened to remain silent about Jesus, the response from the church was clear: “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Ac 4:19-20). Need I remind you that every apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ suffered greatly for their faith and their proclamation of the good news that Jesus is Lord? We have not been promised a safer journey. The threats and intimidation that we face today pale in comparison to what our brothers and sisters around the world face, but the future may find us in the same circumstances that countless Christians have endured over the centuries. But we must give heed to God at all costs and never stop speaking about what we have seen and heard and know to be true of the Lord Jesus Christ! He demands it of us, and the world itself requires it of us. If we are to be obedient to His commission to the church, we must speak up and speak out at all costs. And if the world is to be saved, we must speak up and speak out at all costs. The enemies of the cross dare us to speak a word on His behalf. The perishing multitudes around the world who have never heard the Gospel are begging us to speak a word on His behalf. This is no time for shallow devotion. It is a time for severe, death-defying devotion that embraces the risk for the sake of the glory of Christ and the salvation of the world.

Is there anyone here who knows anything about Jesus? You are summoned to testify on His account. It is not safe. It is extremely risky. But it is absolutely necessary if we as His Church are to be found faithful and if the nations are to know of His glory and grace. You have been called to severe devotion. Do you know anything about this Jesus? Speak up and make it known.

At this great turning point in John’s Gospel, we are reminded that there is a great turning point in our lives as well. At this great turning point, we are presented with the universal human need for a Savior from sin. And we are presented with the Savior, Jesus Christ, our Passover, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We are reminded that many motivations prompt people to seek Him. But none will find Him if the Church is silent. We are called to severe devotion. If you know Him, speak of Him. 

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[1] C. S.Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins,2000), 8.

[2] AndreasKostenberger, John (Baker ExegeticalCommentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 354.

[3] Cited inJames Montgomery Boice, The Gospel ofJohn: Volume 3, Those Who Received Him, John 9-12 (An Expositional Commentary; Grand Rapids:Baker, 1999), 911.