Most people I know enjoy a
celebration. We are in the midst of a
Christian celebration at the moment as we continue to celebrate Easter, as we give
thanks for the resurrection of Jesus. We
like to celebrate birthdays, wedding anniversaries and a whole host of other
things. It is not all that long ago that
we celebrated Christmas. We celebrate by worshiping, by giving thanks, by singing and dancing and feasting and enjoying
the company of others! A celebration is
a time of great joy.
Our passage opens at a time
of celebration, what was then called the Festival of Dedication but is better
known today as The Festival of Lights or Hanukkah. It was and is a time of thanksgiving. It took place and takes place in December,
very near to our own Christmas celebrations and is just as joyful.
Jesus had come to Jerusalem
to celebrate the festival, a man who threw his whole heart, soul and being into
thanksgiving. That is probably why he had come to the Temple, to Solomon’s Porch. Instead of being able to worship he was
surrounded by a crowd of Jews who challenged him, “How long will you keep us in
suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell
us plainly.”
Why did they ask this
question? Did they genuinely want to
know, or was it yet another attempt to trick Jesus? Both are possible! They may have genuinely wanted to know if
Jesus was the Messiah. If that was the
case they would have been expecting a warrior who would use force to free the
Jews from Roman rule and establish by might God’s kingdom on earth. This, as we know, is not the kind of Messiah
that Jesus was. They may have been
trying to trick Jesus into making a statement that could be twisted either into
a charge of blasphemy in their own courts or a charge of insurrection to bring
to the Roman Governor. Either way Jesus
could not answer them directly.
Jesus answer is that he has
actually told them who he is, not directly by proclaiming, “I am the Messiah,
the Son of God!” but by the things he had done and said.
Jesus said, “The works that I
do in my Father’s name testify to me.”
Whilst Jesus consistently refused requests that he do a miracle upon
demand to prove his authority from God, he points towards the signs he has
given, like turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana, feeding at least
five thousand people and healing the blind, as proof that he does indeed carry
the authority of God. As William Barclay
wrote, “every one of his miracles was a claim which shouted out that the age of
God had dawned, that the Messiah had come.”
Jesus’ words, too, pointed
towards his identity. Moses had promised
that “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your
own people; you shall heed such a prophet.”
In Jesus’ time this was seen a Messianic prophecy. In Mark’s gospel we read that the people
said, “What is this? A new teaching –
with authority.” Again, as Barclay
writes, “The very accent of authority with which Jesus spoke, the way in which
he regally abrogated the old law and put his own teaching in its place, was a
claim that God was speaking in him, that in him the incarnate voice had come.”
Jesus then tells them very
directly, “You do not believe me, because you do not belong to my sheep.” By being determined to oppose Jesus because
he didn’t fit their idea of what the Messiah should be, because his words and
deeds challenged the traditional religion they had always followed; they could
not hear the truth of Jesus’ words and deeds.
How many people is that true
of today? Jesus’ words and deeds are
still so challenging in the 21st century that many, many people
still refuse to hear or understand them.
Even those in the church try to water those words and deeds down, to
make Jesus less that he truly is. They
try to claim that Jesus was just a great spiritual teacher, or the greatest
prophet or even the man who was closer to God than any human has ever been, but
not God incarnate, fully human and fully divine. Yet if we are true disciples of Jesus we will
hear his voice and recognise his authority, the authority of the man who is
God.
As Jesus goes on to assure
us, there is great reward in being one of his sheep, in being a disciple of
Jesus: that reward is eternal life and it is a reward that can never be taken
away from us.
Jesus said, “I give them
eternal life and they will never perish.”
Each one of us who hears Jesus’ voice, who follows our Good Shepherd,
has received the gift of eternal life. It
is not something we get in the future, we have eternal life right now, here,
today. We can have the absolute
assurance that we “will never perish!”
Yes, we will have to pass through death, but we can be absolutely
assured that death is not the end but the beginning, it is just a passing from
this life into the glory of everlasting indestructible life: an existence so
wonderful that we truly cannot begin to even imagine it.
This eternal life that has
been given to us can never be taken away from us. As Jesus said, “No one will snatch them out
of my hand. What my Father has given me
is greater than all else and no-one can snatch it out of the Father’s
hand.” The Apostle Paul gave a similar
assurance in his letter to the Romans, “For I am convinced that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able
to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Sometimes Christians wonder
if they have done something so bad that God cannot forgive them; that they have
somehow given up their gift of eternal life.
This passage assures us that this can never be the case. Once we belong to Jesus nothing and nobody
can every take us away from him because his power is the very power of God the
Father. Nothing can separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nobody can snatch us out of the hand of Jesus. If Jesus is our Lord we are his forever, we
have eternal life now and it can never be taken from us.
This does not mean that we will never know times of struggle and temptation. This does not mean that we will never know times of trouble, hardship or even persecution. Those who preach that once we become Christians all will be well, that we will have trouble free lives filled with material prosperity are preaching a false gospel. Jesus himself promised us only suffering in this life when he said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” That is not to say that we will only experience suffering as Christians, but it is saying that being Christian does not protect us from suffering and may indeed bring it upon us. But we can be sure, from our passage this morning; that any time we suffer Jesus is with us, helping us, supporting us and strengthening us and that nothing can ever tear us away from him! Even if we think we have been pulled away from Jesus we have not, he is still with us and all we need to do is remember that.
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