Jesus Time
Before We Gather by Zach Hicks
| Scripture
Read John 6:41-51
| Devotion
Many wonderful devotions, teachings, and sermons have been dedicated to unpacking what are called the “I Am’ statements” of the gospel of John. Throughout the first half of that gospel, Jesus makes these shocking claims: “I am the bread” (6:35, 41, 48, 51); “I am the light of the world” (8:12); “before Abraham was, I am” (8:58); “I am the door” (10:7, 9); “I am the good shepherd” (10:11, 14); “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25); “I am the way” (14:6); and “I am the vine” (15:1, 5).
The reason these statements are shocking and provocative is because Jesus is claiming the most sacred name of God, “I Am,” for himself. This name, often translated into English as “Yahweh” or in older English Bibles as “Jehovah,” is signaled every time our Bible translations capitalize the name “LORD.” It’s the special name God gave when Moses basically said, “You’re the God who is about to redeem us, so what do you want us to call you?” God responded, “Call me, ‘I Am”” (Ex. 3:13-14). And Jesus clearly was saying, “That same God yes, that’s me.” In Jewish culture (unless you really are God, of course), that’s heresy and blasphemy.
Still, one of the ideas less often observed about many of Jesus’ “I Am” statements in the gospel of John is their significance in the context of Jewish worship and how that significance applies to Christian worship. Especially in chapters five through ten, Jesus’ “I Am” statements coincide with certain Jewish feasts and festivals clearly signaled by John.
For instance, when Jesus says. “I am the bread of life” (6:35), we need to rewind to the beginning of the same chapter to under- stand the context in which he’s saying it. John 6:4, says, “the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.” Not only, then, is Jesus connecting himself to the manna in the wilderness (6:31) and, in claiming to be the bread, is he making a statement about. his divinity, but also he’s claiming to be the center of their worship practice. “Do you see that Passover bread-that symbol of God’s redemption of your ancestors from slavery? Yes, that bread is about me,” he claims.
Even less obvious to us is the significance of Christ’s claim, “I am the light of the world” (8:12). We know from a chapter earlier that Jesus made this claim when “the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand” (7:2). Though we wouldn’t know this, a first-century Jew would: one of the important rituals enacted during the Feast of Booths was a lighting ceremony every evening, where four huge lamps were lit. But on the last night of the feast, the main lamp would remain unlit, symbolizing that Israel still awaited salvation to come. And onto this scene steps Jesus, claiming to be the light of the world.
We could look at a few more instances where Jesus continues to point to Israel’s annual feasts and festivals to make the bold claim, “That’s about me!” But the point is coming into focus. God’s design is that our sense of time should revolve around the per- son and work of Jesus Christ. No wonder ancient Christians felt compelled to develop an annual worship calendar that moved from anticipation, to his nativity, to his childhood, to his ministry, to his death, to his resurrection, to his ascension, and to his sending of the Holy Spirit!
If we’re honest, we don’t typically feel time this way. We feel time much more according to the rhythms of the school year-with sum- mer breaks and fall kickoffs. Our annual rhythms may still echo, like faded fifth-generation photocopies, some semblance of Jesus’ rhythms. In a certain sense, Christmas is still a big deal culturally
in many places. But by and large, we tend to feel time being punctuated far more by the Hallmark calendar or the anchor holidays of our nation than we do by the rhythms of the life of Christ.
In the gospel of John, Jesus challenges this. He says, “I don’t just want your daily time, I want your yearly time.” Everything is about Jesus. Or as the Scriptures say, “For from him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom. 1:36). Still, this doesn’t have to put a burden on Christians that we all have to engage the church calendar year. Some of us may come from traditions that have some understandable concern about that. What this presses us to reckon with, though, is that worship should be a place that, among other things, re-centers our sense of time on Jesus, overwhelming us with his sovereignty and lordship. It offers us an invitation to enjoy another facet of our “in Christness.” Even as the earth takes another spin around the sun, we can enjoy the comfort and security of our own centered revolutions around God the Son.
| Prayer
Aim your prayers in this direction:
- Because people come to worship with many burdens related to time (“How am I going to get it all done?” “How much longer do I have here?”), pray that the Holy Spirit would help believers put those concerns and burdens into perspective today.
- Pray a bold, long-term prayer that God would shape the hearts and minds of the people in your church more according to Jesus’ life and work and less according to any competing rhythms of culture.
- Pray that the person and work of Jesus would so overwhelm the gathered worship service today that time’s center would be reestablished and provide an anchor strong enough to hold your flock until the next time you gather.