“Backing up one’s claims”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Monday, December 23, 2024
John 5: 30-47 (Forward, p. 55) CEV p. 1106
It grieves me to have to admit this about our present-day world, but it has come to a sad and sorry state when almost every piece of public utterance has to be evaluated by a ‘fact check’. And this isn’t true only of public figures but is just as true with what is posted on social media such as Face Book. Continually, one needs to double check to see whether what has been said is really true.
However, in some ways, this is nothing new. Even Jesus felt the need to back up His claims in the face of those who didn’t believe or accept them. In today’s passage, Jesus puts forward five pieces of evidence to support or back up His claims:
a) Firstly, there was the testimony of John the Baptist. Yes, His opponents were content, indeed, glad, to ‘enjoy his light for a while’, but they never really accepted John’s message.
b) Secondly, there are the things that God the Father has given Jesus to do. These things proved that the Father had sent Him.
c) And then, there is the Father Himself: He also speaks of Jesus, but
then, sadly, woefully, they have never heard His voice.
d) On top of this, there are the Holy Scriptures. His detractors search them diligently because they think they will find eternal life in them, which is true, but they fail to notice that they speak of Jesus. As a result, they refuse to come to Him for eternal life.
e) And finally, there is Moses and what he had to say about Jesus. If they had believed Moses, they would have believed in Jesus.
So, basically, Jesus is saying that they are without excuse. All the evidence points to Him and to whom He is. All of it backs up or supports His claims. And yet, sadly, then and now, there are those who refuse to look at the evidence, and even when faced with it, refuse to believe. Such, it would seem, was Saul, Paul of Tarsus, and yet, even he could change. And so, there is hope for everyone. Thanks be to God.
Forward notes: “But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?” (verse 47)
“Many of us don’t want a God who comes into our everyday lives and interferes with our well-ordered and familiar messiness. Many prefer a God who is worshipped and adored from a distance; a God like that makes no demands on our lives.
“We get in Jesus Christ, God made flesh, one who endures the same hardships and pains, yearnings, and longings, that we experience. We want an extraordinary God, and instead, we get a God who calls the ordinary to do the extraordinary.
“As we turn our gaze toward Bethlehem, we are reminded that God is not distant or far removed but born into the messiness of our world precisely because we need a God who carries us through life rather than fishing us out of it. God carries us when we are weary, soothes us when we are worried, challenges us when we are comfortable, and uses us in our ordinariness to accomplish far more than we can imagine. May God, who dwells in the ordinary, transform us to bear witness to the extraordinary power of love.”
Moving Forward: “How will you be a witness to the power of love?”