Gospel of John

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When You’re Looking for a Sign

February 10, 2014 By Michelle 24 Comments

The day my sister-in-law’s father died, she pulled into the driveway of her parents’ home wrung dry with grief and witnessed a full rainbow arched right over the roof of the house. It was, she told me later, a sign from God, a sign of hope, peace and comfort in the midst of sadness and dispair.

Just a few weeks later, as my mother-in-law lay dying in a hospital bed in her family room, I looked for a rainbow, too. I looked every day, scanning the cloudless Nebraska horizon for signs of rain. I wanted that rainbow so badly. I wanted a sign from God that he was near, that he hadn’t abandoned us in our grief.

One late afternoon I watched as clouds gathered and the rain came pouring down onto the hot concrete. It was a sun shower; the conditions were ripe for a rainbow. I leapt up from my office desk, ran down four flights of stairs and out the back door and stood in the parking lot in the rain. I walked around the whole perimeter of the building, scanning the sky from every angle.

There was no rainbow that day or any other. And quite frankly, I was mad about that. Would it be so hard? I remember griping to God. Would it be so much skin off your nose to give me a little sign, a little peace, a little reassurance here, please?

I remembered those hard weeks and the days I searched for a rainbow when I read the lesson for this week. At first Jesus’ response to the Roman official who approaches him with the request to heal his child seems abrupt, even harsh.

“Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?” Jesus asks the Roman official. The man’s son is dying, and Jesus seems to be giving him a hard time.

The Roman official persists, asking Jesus a second time to heal his dying son, and Jesus responds by telling the man that his son will live.

The difference between the Roman official and me is that the Roman official takes Jesus at his word. He believes what Jesus says is true, without proof and without any concrete assurance. Jesus doesn’t accompany the man home to heal his child in person. He simply gives the man his word, and the man believes him. I, on the other hand, wanted the sign, the proof that God was present in the midst of my pain.

I don’t have anything against signs from God. I believe in them, and I believe that sometimes God does send us special messages this way. But the more important lesson here, I think, is the understanding that we don’t need a special sign from God, because we always have his promise in his word. This is what the Roman official knew, and what I so often forget.

“I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” Jesus tells us. I don’t need a rainbow to know God is with me when I walk through the valley of fear and grief. I don’t need a sign or proof that he cares. He’s already told me; it’s right there in the Bible, in black and white. That promise is all the proof and assurance I will ever need.

Questions for Reflection:
Do you ever look for signs from God? Do you ever wish He would offer you proof, once and for all, that He is with you?

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When You Find Yourself Drinking from the Wrong Well

February 3, 2014 By Michelle 25 Comments

Ever since I read the story of the woman at the well this week, I’ve been singing the refrain of that old song from 1980, “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.” Do you remember that one (you can stop reading right here if you were born after 1990)? It’s a country song – the hit single from the movie Urban Cowboy with John Travolta and Debra Winger.

I was looking for love in all the wrong places. Looking for love in too many faces. Searching your eyes, looking for traces. Of what… I’m dreaming of…

Are you singing it yet? Got the tune rolling around in your head? I’m sorry.

Think about it though. This song is about the woman at the well, the woman with five husbands. Hasn’t she been looking for love in all the wrong places? Hasn’t she been looking for love in too many faces? And isn’t this exactly what Jesus tries to tell her when he speaks about the living water?

“Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again,” Jesus explains. “But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” (John 4:13)

Jesus knows all about the woman at the well. He knows she’s had five husbands (her latest a lover, not a spouse) – and he knows she’s been searching for sustenance and fulfillment in all the wrong places and faces. She’s been looking for life everywhere else but the only true place she’ll find it: in Jesus.

That’s why she continues to thirst, Jesus says – because she’s drinking from the wrong source. She’s got the wrong well.

I get it, I do. I may not look to men for fulfillment, but I look elsewhere, just like the woman at the well. My well plunges deep into the desire for recognition, achievement and success.

I often look to the outside world to tell me I matter, and when I do, I come up thirsty and empty every single time.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to the woman at the well after she ran back to the village to proclaim the Messiah’s arrival. Was she cured from that moment on? Did she stop looking for love in all the wrong places? Did she abandon her pursuit of worldly love and fulfillment to drink fully and deeply from the living water?

Somehow I suspect she was a lot like you and me. I suspect, like you and me, she strayed and resorted to her old behaviors from time to time. But I also know that if she did wander, God patiently and faithfully led her back to the living water again and again, just as he does for you and me.

Questions for Reflection:
What well are you drinking from – where are you looking for fulfillment and sustenance? To material pursuits? To a relationship? To status and achievement? To an addictive behavior?

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Born Again to See

January 27, 2014 By Michelle 20 Comments

One of the very first things I noticed about Nebraska when I moved here twelve years ago – in addition to the oppressive sky and the militant grasshoppers – was the pervasive wind. On our second day in Lincoln, I remember stepping onto the driveway and being smacked head-on by a gale-force wind that nearly knocked me off my feet.

I’ve never liked wind. All the blustering and blowing and out-of-control feel of it makes me uncomfortable, even a little queasy at times. The wild, unpredictable nature of wind scares me; it makes me feel small and powerless.

At first glance, the reading for Sunday seemed pretty straightforward. When Jesus explains the requirements for entering heaven to Nicodemus, he mentions only two. “I assure you,” he says, “no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.” (John 3:5).

Sounds black-and-white, right? To enter heaven, you need to be baptized (born of water) and you need the Holy Spirit. This is what I was taught as a child: I received the Holy Spirit at baptism and was saved.

However, in typical Jesus-fashion, he complicates matters in the next few verses when he introduces the notion of wind into the equation:

“Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life,” Jesus says. “So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.” (3:6-8)

What seemed to be a very specific, exclusive process for gaining admittance into heaven a moment ago has now been exponentially broadened with Jesus’ mention of wind. The Greek word for spirit, my Bible’s footnotes explain, can also be translated as wind. So, Jesus seems to be saying, “The Spirit blows wherever it wants. You might hear it, but you can’t tell where it comes from or where it’s going next. You can’t explain it, and you can’t control it.”

The problem, Jesus tells Nicodemus, and us, is that we want to explain it.

We want a nice, neat equation to explain who will get into heaven and how exactly they will get there. We want the “this plus that equals heaven,” and we want to be able to determine who’s in and who’s out based on certain criteria.

Frankly, we like it this way because it’s easy, and because it comforts us to know we’ve met the criteria for entrance into eternal life. Baptism plus the Holy Spirit equals my admittance into heaven – I’m good!

But Jesus tells us it’s not quite that black-and-white, not quite that knowable.

Think about the qualities of wind again for a moment. Wind is pervasive – it blows wherever and however it wants, touching everyone and everything in its path. Wind has no boundaries; you can’t contain it or limit it or even escape it, and you are powerless in its face. These are the qualities of wind that frighten and overwhelm me, but these are also the qualities of the Spirit that make it so mysterious, powerful and inclusive.

I love this about Jesus. He takes what looks like a simple, black-and-white equation – “Do this and that and gain entrance into the Kingdom of God” – and he turns it on its head. He tosses wind, the unpredictable, wild, all-pervasive wind – the Spirit – into the mix, and suddenly our nice, neat definition of who gets into heaven and who doesn’t is now a muddled, mixed up mess, beyond rational explanation, beyond any limitations or definitions or boundaries.

It almost doesn’t make sense, right? Until, that is, we realize we’ve been seeing much too small.

It almost doesn’t make sense until we realize that Jesus’ way is so much bigger, broader and inclusive than our black-and-white, got-it-all-figured-out-with-the-one-right answer way.

You’re thinking too small, too limited, Jesus tells Nicodemus…and us. You need to be born again to see, born again into my bigger, broader, all-encompassing everlasting life.

Questions for Reflection:
So what do you think about the Spirit as wind in these verses? Does your understanding of the nature of wind help you understand the Holy Spirit a bit better? Do you think there are certain requirements for salvation?

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When You Think a Bible Verse Doesn’t Apply to You…Think Again

January 20, 2014 By Michelle 20 Comments

I have a bad habit of assuming certain Bible verses don’t apply to me.

Take the story we read this week, for instance, about the day Jesus cleared the Temple of the merchants and money changers. First of all, the scene itself is difficult to picture. Jesus, whom I typically think of as even-tempered and mild, fashions a whip – a whip! – out of rope and uses it to chase the transgressors out of the building. He scatters the coins onto the floor and then, consumed with anger and disgust, he turns over the tables, one after the other. This is a side of Jesus we haven’t seen before and won’t see again in all of Scripture. This is a side of Jesus I don’t want to mess with.

So what’s my reaction to these verses? “Whew!” I say to myself. “Glad I’m not as bad as the money changers! Glad I’m not the one abusing God’s Temple.”

Every time I’ve read this passage in the last three years, this has been my response. I assume because I’m not selling goats in the church lobby that I’m okay, I’m good – these verses don’t apply to me. But this week when I read this story, I discovered something I’ve never seen before in the verses that immediately follow the scene in the temple:

“Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in him. But Jesus didn’t trust them, because he knew human nature. No one needed to tell him what mankind is really like.” (John 2:23-24)

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that these two verses immediately follow the scene in the Temple.

Suddenly this story wasn’t only about the merchants and the money changers, it was about all of humankind. Suddenly I knew this story was about me.

The truth is, my inclination, my human nature, is to put material concerns – wealth, status, achievement, recognition – ahead of God. I do it time and time again. When I covet someone else’s house, I put money before God. When I yearn for someone else’s position, I put status before God. When I desire more blog readers and a bigger platform, I put achievement and recognition before God. I struggle with my priorities. I struggle to put God first.

Jesus was angry with the merchants and money changers because they dishonored his Father’s house. But on a deeper level, he was angry with them because their motives, actions and priorities dishonored God himself. They put worldly concerns – wealth, status and recognition – ahead of God, and that, I know, is something I’m guilty of, too.

Questions for Reflection:
What do you put ahead of God? Can you think of how you might better arrange your priorities so that God comes first?

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: For the Times You Pray First-World Prayers

January 13, 2014 By Michelle 37 Comments

A few nights ago I had insomnia. Bad. So bad, in fact, I ended up on the living room couch at 2 a.m., staring out the window at the frost-covered branches lit brilliant in the moonlight. Both Brad and I suffer from insomnia, so four nights out of seven, one of us is usually on the couch. I cringe to think of what the kids might be saying to their friends and teachers about the state of our marriage.

But I digress.

I prayed on and off as I stared out the window that late night – not about starving children, not about ill loved ones, not about sex trafficking or any other of the world’s myriad horrific problems…but about my current book project. I’m in the middle of writing a proposal for a new book idea, and it’s due at the end of the month. I’ve been sleeping, waking, eating and breathing this book project for days now, and to say it’s been causing me anxiety would be an epic understatement.

Still, my enormous anxiety over this new book project pales in comparison to most people’s problems, right? It’s what you would call a “First World problem.” I’ll be honest, I feel pretty pathetic when I pray to God about my First World problems. Sometimes I even preface my First World prayers with a disclaimer. “I’m sorry, God,” I begin. “I know this is dumb, I know this isn’t even a ‘real’ problem, but…”

Ever do that? Ever sheepishly apologize to God for prayers you suspect are a little bit lame?

But then I read this week’s lesson about the wedding at Cana, and I was reminded that Jesus cares about everything, even the small, inconsequential worries that keep us up at night.

It’s true, he thought twice about remedying the wine shortage. When his mother Mary brought the problem to his attention, Jesus basically told her to put a lid on it. “Dear woman,” he said, “that’s not our problem. My time hasn’t come yet.” (John 2:4) But then he changed his mind. Jesus turned the water into wine — and not any old Two Buck Chuck, but the very best wine, the Henri Jayer Richebourg Cote de Nuit. He saved the host from embarrassment and he saved the day.

A wine shortage at a party isn’t exactly a life-and-death problem. It’s what we might call a First World problem today. But in the end, it wasn’t too small of a concern for Jesus, because no concern is too small for him.

Jesus loves us and cares about us. He weeps with us when we grieve; he celebrates with us when we rejoice. No concern is too small, no problem too paltry to lay at his feet.

So go ahead. Don’t apologize. Bring every one of your worries to Jesus. He’s listening.

Questions for Reflection:
Do you believe in your heart that God cares about even your smallest problems? Do you ever reserve your prayers for the big issues or feel guilty about praying for small things?

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Thank you — I am so grateful that you are here!

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Gospel of John

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