Daily Liturgy and Scripture

Who Jesus is matters, and he goes into a few reasons to believe in this verse. For something to be verified as true, it required two witnesses. Who did Jesus  have? Both John and God the Father. Believing that he was the Savior was crucial in Jesus's day and remains so today.

As Jesus talks about his closeness to God the Father, we begin to see something a little more clearly: Jesus looks like God, because he is God. God has always looked like Jesus, and that's some pretty good news. As Jesus was defined by his love and compassion, so must God the Father look something like that as well.

In this week of Epiphany, we are fortunate to have two more great examples of people outside the Jewish world who come into the story of Jesus. The woman at the well becomes the first non-Jewish evangelist, and the royal official from Cana becomes the recipient of a miracle. Jesus had certainly come as part of God completing the promise to Abraham, but Jesus didn't limit himself to the Jewish nation. Just as the promise to Abraham was to increase his family, so the purpose of that covenant-- to bless the nations-- was finally coming to fruition with God's direct work.

Here on the day after Epiphany, when we remembered non-Jews who came to Jesus after his birth, it is a great follow-up to come back to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. The Samaritans lived in a land that was once part of the Jewish nation, but broke away and then got gutted by the Assyrians. Still, many in that northern area wished to worship God, but Jerusalem remained the place of worship according the the central Jewish church. Jesus extending worship to her meant nobody would control worship but God. The Spirit would come, and did. Now we, like that woman, can all worship God at the level ground of the Cross.

Epiphany is a reminder that though Jesus came to the Jews, he was not only the Savior of the Jews. He is here for us all. Worship is also not reserved for the Jews, but for anyone who will come.

What kind of Kingdom has guys who show up and then purposely humble themselves? Those who understand that there is something more at work than the egos of men. God’s purposes are not ours, but when we understand God’s purpose, it can transform our own. So it was with John in his yielding to the Saviour.

Nicodemus may have come in the night as a sign of respect to Jesus, as opposed to debating him in the open market as some of the Jewish leaders had been known to do. Whatever his intentions, Jesus certainly gave him plenty to think about. The impression was deep, because Nicodemus would later assist Joseph of Arimathea in preparing Jesus's body for burial.

Jesus certainly did not come as a dour, lifeless person. He came to bring joy, and making wine for a wedding is certainly a great example of that. Of course, being the author of life, that wine was also going to be the best! That is the way Jesus works: life to the fullest, more than we could have imagined.

Just as God did not make Eden to exist without the fellowship of people, so Jesus did not come to be a one-man show. He called disciples, ordinary men who would play an important role in his ministry. This is kind of a wacky thing for God to do, including us. But there’s Jesus, God made man, walking among men, sharing the Kingdom by calling regular guys like Peter and Andrew to join him.

The Gospel of John was the last gospel written, and John starts with an agenda: Jesus was God, part of the Trinity from the beginning. As we also read Genesis 1 today, particularly the plural way that God refers to God’s self (in “our” image), we remember that Jesus was always God remains God, and was God from the beginning.