John 5-6
38 year invalid at the pool of Bethesda. "Do you want to get well?" Anything been holding you for 38 years? 38 months? 38 days? 38 minutes? Do you want to get well? Happened on the Sabbath and got Jesus in trouble with the authorities...again. "My Father is working straight through on the Sabbath. So am I." Now they were ready to kill him. Self-appointed religious police attacked Jesus on the grounds of Sabbath-breaking, instead of celebrating the healing. Murderous hostility was provoked, polar opposite of belief. By now, we ought to expect that, especially when God is at work. We ought even to expect it to come from the leadership of the religious status quo.
The Son can only do what he sees the Father doing. Father raises the dead and creates life; so does the Son. The Son gives life to anyone he chooses. Neither he nor the Father shuts anyone out. The Father handed all authority over to the Son so that the Son will be honored equally with the Father. "If you believe this an align yourself with the Father, at this very moment you have the real, lasting life and you are no longer condemned to be an outsider. You've taken a giant step from the world of the dead to the world of the living."
The time is coming when everyone, dead or alive, will hear his voice....Some of you never heard his voice, you never saw his appearance. You didn't take his message seriously.
You even miss me when you read the Bible, no matter how much you read it! "I'm not interested in crowd approval because I know you and your crowds. Love, especially God's love, isn't on your agenda. You're just jockeying for position with each other, ranking your rivals and ignoring God."
Huge crowd, attracted by miracles, followed him. Feeding of 5000 from 5 loaves and 2 fish. 12 large baskets of leftovers. "Jesus saw that in their enthusiasm, they were about to grab him and make him king, so he slipped off and went back up the mountain to be by himself. To re-center in his purpose, to fight the seductive power of admiration, to be reminded of who he was and whose he was. They wanted Jesus to free them from Roman rule. We can't make Jesus do what we think Jesus should do. We can't make him conform to our ideas of how he should rule. We can't dictate the terms of his office; we can only surrender to him.
Jesus walks on water (not Peter). "You've come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs--and for free."
Throw in your lot with the One God has sent. Give us more clues; when we see what's up, we'll commit ourselves. Show us what you can do. Moses did what you did. Are you any different?
I am the bread of life (water of life to woman at the well). "Don't bicker among yourselves over me. You're not in charge here." The Father draws people to me-that's the only way you'll ever come...not on your own. You are drawn here...Really listening, therefore learning, comes to me to be taught personally--to see it with their own eyes, hear with their own ears.
Can see in 6:53-58 where Catholic transubstantiation comes in...literal transformation of elements into body and blood...and even deciding who may receive it.
The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don't make anything happen. Every word I've spoken to you is a Spirit word, and so it is life-making. No one is capable of coming to me on his own; you get to me only as a gift from the Father.
After this, a lot of disciples left. They no longer wanted to be associated with him. "Do you also want to leave?"
Hebrews 8-10
"This time I'm writing the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts. I'll be their God, they'll be my people. They'll get to know me firsthand. Limitations to the Hebrew priest rituals, and how Jesus is/offers superior. Rituals and behavior don't get to the heart of the matter. But then the Messiah arrived...New covenant was put into action at Jesus' death, canceling old obligations and accompanying sins, and summoning the heirs to receive the eternal inheritance that was promised them. Salvation when Christ next appears.
God's way: we are made fit for God by the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus. Sacrificial system suggested there was hostility between God and humans. Christ broke down that system of hostility. It ripped open the curtain of separation and made a new way for us to address the Holy One.
Let's see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the Big Day approaching.
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