If Jesus is the Answer; then What is the Question?
On this the last Sunday in Easter we Sum up the entire Christian Message and the question is Why?
Even at this late date Jesus' Disciples are still caught in the Jewish quest for a Messiah that would rescue the people Israel from their worldly oppressors. They ask this question even as Jesus is lifted up into his Heavenly Kingdom.
Everyone who has used a search engine knows that to get the results you want you have to ask the right questions. I dislike forced answer polls because I find that those who formulate them ask questions that will receive the answers they were looking for in the first place.
In today's Gospel we have the answers, what we need to establish is what was the question.
The synoptic Gospels supply various accounts of the details of Christ's life but it is John who from the beginning struggles with the WHY?
Joh 1:1 In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Joh 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Joh 8:7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."
Joh 8:31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
Joh 8:32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Joh 12:26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
Joh 12:35 So Jesus said to them, "The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.
Joh 12:36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light."
Joh 12:44 And Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me.
Joh 12:45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.
Joh 12:46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
Joh 14:1 "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
Joh 14:7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
Joh 15:12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Joh 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Joh 21:17 He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.
Psa 34:8 O taste and see how gracious God is: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one and eternal. They have always existed without beginning or ending. God's saving grace has always been available, it was not won for us by a single act at any given time and place. Jesus did not become man to redeem the world, he came to make manifest God's love that knowing him we might know God. To know God is to Love God and feel the assurance of his Love as expressed through Jesus Christ. To experience God's love is to feel the need to share it in loving our fellow man.
Knowing God goes beyond Knowledge, Emotion and Experience to a sense of oneness of being. To know God is to have eternal life. We were imbued with this sense of indwelling at our baptism. We refer to it as receiving the Holy Spirit. We are in the world but we are not of the world. As members of the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus' body on earth, the church, we have already entered eternity and with that assurance we can face the vicissitudes of life with equanimity, patience, and fortitude.
If God be for us, who can be against us.
This is not a magic amulet that protects us from the evils of this world; it is the assurance that whatsoever betide us God is always our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Therefore will not we fear.
Though others may slander, make sport of us or attempt to demean us we need not reply in kind because we live in the eternal assurance of God's Love. We make manifest God's Love in our loving response to those around us. God's work, our hands. While we live on earth we experience God's love first hand through the support of the priesthood of all believers, his body, the church.
Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost:
Mat 28:20 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
On this the last Sunday in Easter we Sum up the entire Christian Message and the question is Why?
Even at this late date Jesus' Disciples are still caught in the Jewish quest for a Messiah that would rescue the people Israel from their worldly oppressors. They ask this question even as Jesus is lifted up into his Heavenly Kingdom.
Everyone who has used a search engine knows that to get the results you want you have to ask the right questions. I dislike forced answer polls because I find that those who formulate them ask questions that will receive the answers they were looking for in the first place.
In today's Gospel we have the answers, what we need to establish is what was the question.
The synoptic Gospels supply various accounts of the details of Christ's life but it is John who from the beginning struggles with the WHY?
Joh 1:1 In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Joh 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Joh 8:7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."
Joh 8:31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
Joh 8:32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Joh 12:26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
Joh 12:35 So Jesus said to them, "The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.
Joh 12:36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light."
Joh 12:44 And Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me.
Joh 12:45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.
Joh 12:46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
Joh 14:1 "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
Joh 14:7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
Joh 15:12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Joh 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Joh 21:17 He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.
Psa 34:8 O taste and see how gracious God is: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one and eternal. They have always existed without beginning or ending. God's saving grace has always been available, it was not won for us by a single act at any given time and place. Jesus did not become man to redeem the world, he came to make manifest God's love that knowing him we might know God. To know God is to Love God and feel the assurance of his Love as expressed through Jesus Christ. To experience God's love is to feel the need to share it in loving our fellow man.
Knowing God goes beyond Knowledge, Emotion and Experience to a sense of oneness of being. To know God is to have eternal life. We were imbued with this sense of indwelling at our baptism. We refer to it as receiving the Holy Spirit. We are in the world but we are not of the world. As members of the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus' body on earth, the church, we have already entered eternity and with that assurance we can face the vicissitudes of life with equanimity, patience, and fortitude.
If God be for us, who can be against us.
This is not a magic amulet that protects us from the evils of this world; it is the assurance that whatsoever betide us God is always our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Therefore will not we fear.
Though others may slander, make sport of us or attempt to demean us we need not reply in kind because we live in the eternal assurance of God's Love. We make manifest God's Love in our loving response to those around us. God's work, our hands. While we live on earth we experience God's love first hand through the support of the priesthood of all believers, his body, the church.
Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost:
Mat 28:20 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
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