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Summary
What was He Thinking?
John 13-16 spans just a few hours. These are our Lord’s last words spoken to His disciples in the Gospel of John. He uses the imperative tense just three or four times — “Don’t stress; abide; have courage.” Yet, there are many conditional statements, like, “If you ask in my name, I’ll do it; if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” P.S. — “The Devil is coming; I’m leaving; apart from me, you can do nothing.” It’s a bit terrifying, and the disciples appear to have very little control over the conditions. What was Jesus thinking?
John 16:32, “’Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own [idios: pertaining to self, private], and will leave me alone.’” In the garden, they ate the fruit, hid their “privates” from each other, and hid their souls from the Voice of God walking in the garden. Why did God plant that tree in the middle of the garden? What was He Thinking?
John 16:33, “’But have courage; I have conquered the world.’” What a strange thing to say right before you’re crucified. And even more bizarre are these “last words” spoken to these “disciples.” Why did Jesus pick these guys and not fire these guys? Why didn’t He leave behind an organizational system? Why didn’t He lay out the “Plan of Salvation”? Why did he leave it to Bill Bright to write the “Four Spiritual Laws” and to Billy Graham to author “The Sinners Prayer”? What was He thinking?
These are the last words of Jesus spoken to His disciples as a group before His crucifixion in the Gospel of John. Last words — and yet, He doesn’t stop talking; He just stops talking to them. Next verse: John 17:1, “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father…’”
In The Revelation given to John, we get to overhear God the Son speaking to God the Spirit, in the seven churches, about what it means to conquer. In John 17, we get to overhear God the Son speaking to God the Father about us. This is what they are thinking. And they want us to “know.”
John 17:1-18:2 (greatly abbreviated), “’Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.’” [He just told us in 16:15, “All that the Father has is mine.”] “’And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent… Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world [kosmos], so I have sent them into the world [kosmos]. And for their sake, I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word… The glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one — I in them, you in me — in order that they might be having been perfected into one, so that the world [kosmos (Flatland)] may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me… I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’ When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples.”
This is such an ominous scene. John will keep mentioning “gardens.” The Passover lambs (over 250,00 according to Josephus) were slaughtered at the temple at 3 p.m., and Passover began at sundown. The Blood would flow out of the temple, down the Kidron, through its junction with Gehenna, and then on to the Dead Sea — the lowest spot on the surface of the earth. John’s readers would have known that as Jesus prayed these words, crossed the Kidron, and entered the garden just east of Eden where He would be betrayed by the Chosen, He would’ve crossed a literal river of lamb’s blood. What was He thinking? Well… John 17.
Jesus wasn’t thinking about 1.) Who would make the cut. 2.) Dishing out more “knowledge of Good and evil” practical application points and organizational systems. OR, 3.) A plan that they can choose to follow. That must be why He’s praying: It’s not their choice; they’re not free to choose.
I think we can’t begin to think about what He’s thinking about without the three pictures that I refer to all the time which very few Modern Western Christians think about. I think we normally think that 1.) We are the author of our own story, and that’s why we’re judged. 2.) Jesus suffered so we don’t have to suffer, and that’s the plan — to never sacrifice. And 3.) We have “free will,” which implies that Free-Will doesn’t have us (We think it’s possible to disagree with God and win the argument).
The first picture is of the timeline: six days of chronological time completely surrounded by a seventh day which enters the sixth day at the point of the cross. Jesus prayed, “I in them, you in me, in order that they might be having been finished into one.” Without something like the timeline, we would think our Lord’s prayer was just a “figure of speech.” God is writing a story, and it’s not finished in spacetime, and yet it is finished in eternity, and NOW He finishes it with His Word in and through us, and so we become who we are, what I am is doing — the Body of Christ, one Body.
The second picture is just that: a body. Life is a story, and Life is Love. “In this is Love,” wrote John, “that he sent his son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” So, Jesus prays, “I consecrate myself.” But He continues, “…that they might also be consecrated.” The Jews knew that all life came from God and that the life was in the blood and that God gave the blood to “make atonement.” So, whenever the Israelites ate meat, they were to bring the blood to the Tabernacle. Worship was all about blood flow, and God must’ve seemed blood thirsty. But when we draw the outline of a man around all those worshippers at the temple, sacrifice no longer looks like death but life — no longer a picture of pain but ecstasy, even rapture. It’s one for all and all for one, one story in all stories, and all stories in one. It’s the seventh sign that is the substance: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
If Love is a law, the Life dies, and the temple turns to stone. If Love is a life, the Life must rise from within us; it must be freely chosen; this is the Logos (logic) of Love. God is Love, and Love is Free-Will (If there is free-will, God is Free-will). So how can we freely choose the One who is always freely choosing us?
The third picture is of the man hanging on the tree in the middle of the garden. In verse 3, Jesus prays, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Life is a Story. Life is Love. “The Life” is “The Good.”
“God planted a garden in Eden in the East. The tree of Life was in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil… ‘Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day you eat of it, dying you will die.’”
It sounds like knowledge is evil, but as Jesus crosses the river of blood, and enters the garden, east of Eden, He prays, “This is eternal life that they know (present tense) you and me.” Jesus seems to think that knowing is The Good and The Life. So maybe there’s one tree and two ways of knowing.
One is evil, the other is good; one is death, and the other is life. One is bondage, and the other is freedom.
Why the trauma? Why the tribulation? Why the confusion? Why that tree in the middle of that garden? What were you thinking, Lord?
The Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, told of a young king who spied a peasant girl working the fields. From a distance, he fell in love and longed for her to return his love in freedom. He had the power to bring her back to his palace by force, but that would be rape, and her love would not be free. He also had the wealth to dazzle her with all that adorned his soul: his money, his knowledge, and his fame. But he realized that he would never know, and she would never know if she had freely fallen in love with him. Rich and powerful people create false people all around them for none of the people around them will disagree with them. But the king wanted a real bride, not an illusion, not a robot, not “AI.” So, the king emptied himself, became a peasant, and romanced this girl in the midst of tribulation, longing for rapture.
If you have ever romanced someone, you know that nothing is as effective as bleeding for them, especially if the one you romance is the one that made you bleed. And if you have ever been romanced, you know that you don’t take credit for your decision to be romanced. You don’t stand up at your wedding banquet and say, “I decided… it was tough, but I decided to love my bride.” Instead, you say “I was smitten… She captured my heart.”
Kierkegaard claimed that there was more to our story. If we choose God, it’s only because we were chosen to choose, for God makes everything, and certainly the most important thing, that is our chooser — our free will. Kierkegaard goes on to argue that we can’t seek what we don’t know, and we can’t seek what we already do know, so all seeking must be remembering.
On the tree, in the middle of the Garden, Jesus delivered up His Spirit. I think that must be the same Spirit that God breathed into the dust in the beginning, which we each imprison in the Sanctuary of our own soul. And that night at Supper, hHe had broken bread and poured the wine, saying, “This is my blood,” and “Do this in Remembrance of me.” They all knew: The breath, the spirit, the life, was in the blood. You were made with something in you that recognizes that something in the blood. AND have you ever stopped to think that you might be romanced by God all the time?
He said, “I am the Light.” The light shines in the darkness. That’s where we fall in love with the light. He said, “I am the Truth.” You can take the truth in any statement, twist it, use it, and crucify it for your own purposes. Or you can surrender to Him and become an honest person. He said, “I am the Life.” You can take the life in any moment, kill Him, and use Him as if He were a thing. Or, you can surrender to Him and give birth to Him, which is “the Life” in you — who it is that you truly are.
With every decision, you may crucify the Word of God (The logic of Love). Or perhaps with every decision the Word of God is rising in you already. If it is the former, you will be proud and lonely as hell; it’s bondage. If it is the later, you will be grateful, lose yourself, and find yourself in the great dance that is the kingdom of God; it’s freedom. And, once you hear this news, there is no point in worrying about your choices, because apart from Him you can do nothing. You, on your own, have never chosen Him, and He has always chosen you. And He wins the argument.
So, what was He thinking? He was thinking about you. You are the picture in his wallet. He was thinking about you and all things with you, lost and found in an eternal symphony of Love called Life — Eternal Life. Have Courage.