Sunday School | John Part II

Introduction

Okay. You guys, you ready? Alright. So raise your hand if you were not in this room one week ago today. Like, what happened? So many people were not here. Okay. So what we're doing, you guys, as you know, we've been, hey, Shem, you weren't here? What did you do to your wrist, buddy? Swing accident. Those swings will get you. Yeah. That's good, though.

Okay. You guys are studying we're doing one week, theoretically one week per New Testament book. And last week we did John. But if you missed it, you're in luck because we're going to do it again. I'm not going to replay the same conversation we had, although maybe given the fact that, like, half of you weren't here, we might do a little bit of review.

John is — and if you didn't get it, Bob's passing them out. If you still need your John notes, they're both up here. John is here, and Bob is passing them around. We'd love you to grab these. If you haven't been around, we've been doing one week per book of the New Testament, but we doubled up on Romans and we're doubling up on John. We might double up on a couple more.

And your assignment last week, which like apparently six of you were here for, was to read the Gospel of John. John is 21 chapters. So you can read it three chapters a day and bang it out in a week. And what my plan today was to hear what you read. And we're going to still do that, but we might modify it a little bit.

Since so many of you weren't here, let me just I'll do like a five-minute recap of what we did last week. John is great because he's so clear about what he's doing. He says in the end of his letter, in chapter 20 verse 30, he says, Jesus did many other things, right, that I don't have time to write about. But I wrote these ones down for this purpose, so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you'll have life in his name.

So the whole book is it's written to be a persuasion. As he's writing to say, this I want you to know these things about my best friend. And then he builds his case. So the whole thing is organized as a persuasion piece. He loves to do things in groups of seven. He'll seven times, he'll have Jesus say, I am, which he's borrowing God's covenant name. Seven times, Jesus says, I am. The bread of life. I'm the light of the world. I'm the way, the truth, and the life.

He's building this case for the deity of Christ. As you read through John, you can watch for all the statements. I've got all these things listed here for you. He's given seven titles. He performs seven signs. Signs are what John calls miracles because miracles aren't merely acts of kindness, but they're communications. They signify. They message. They communicate something. They're telling the story about who he is.

And then John likes to use certain terms. There's a number of vocabulary words in John's Gospel that he uses over and over and over again. None more than his very favorite word. Here we go. You want two? Two. Two. Thank you. His favorite word is the center spread here. And what is it? What is John's favorite term? Believe. It's believe.

This is like bad design on purpose. Okay? I wanted to overwhelm you with just the sheer volume of times that John talks about believing. It goes over and over and over and over and over again. In John's understanding of the gospel message, believing is the whole game. That God loves it when we trust him. He wants us to walk with him. He knows that we can't see all things. We don't know all things.

There is a gap between what we know and what we're expected to do, and the bridge for that gap is belief. Trust me. Just trust me. And it just pervades the book. So if you read through John's gospel, well, some of you already did, I'm sure this week, but if you do it this coming week and you go and you go through John, just maybe highlight every in your actual Bible, just take a take a crayon and just highlight every time the word believe or belief or trust. They're all the same word in Greek. You can tell exactly what they are. I listed them here. And notice how many times he exhorts you to.

And then here's the thing, consider in your own life, where is your life marked by unbelief rather than belief? By fear rather than by faith? I found as I went through this, this was just a giant rebuke to me because I, in lots of ways, am not given to belief. I'm often marked by fear or mistrust. Okay? So that's a recap of what we talked about for an hour last week. Good enough? John to start. That's what he's doing.

Now I would love to hear — well, let me let me see. None of you were actually here last week. How many of you read this week at least five chapters of John? At least. A handful? A few? Anybody read 20 chapters of John? Anybody finish John? A couple. Robin Conrad finished John. Good job. Robin gets the gold star. Anybody else want to arm wrestle her for glory? It's purely Robin? Okay.

That's a little bit of a disappointing result. Okay. So what did you notice? Those of you that read some, I'd love to hear, what were some of the things that you saw that you captured as you read through John. It might be confirmation of the things that I talked about or might be things that I didn't mention at all. I'd love to hear. What are you seeing in this book from John's gospel.

Observations from the Readings

Chris, speaking specifically about all the instances of living without water. Like, if it's not him talking directly about living water, it's healing—those who are paralyzed, blind, deaf. Just showing water in amongst that whole thing. I'm sure, I don't know if it was in our class, we talked about he talks about he's the bread of life. Just he is the suffering. So, yes.

Okay. So what Chris is saying is as he just read through it, the thing that struck him was just how many times John is making the case that Jesus is God. I mean, it's just absolutely everywhere. Whether it's things that he is saying, what would you think I meant if I said to you, if I said, Bonnie, I am the bread of life? If I said to you, Bonnie, I am. Right? If you come to me, I will give you living water. Like, at some point, you're gonna have to be curious. Like, what are you talking about? Right? So the things that he says are kinda nuts. And then the things that he does—his ability to heal, to move towards people—John is absolutely making that case. And so your experience as you read it is, what's supposed to happen. I see like, oh my gosh, this is what he is saying. Not just what John is saying, but what Jesus is saying about himself. It's pretty extraordinary.

What else? Things you noticed as you read through John? I think catch you. Bob? To piggyback on what Chris said, the idea that he is making the case and he's using the word testimony or testify or witnesses. Like, yes. Like in a courtroom, you have to have these witnesses. And so he said, we're testifying. It's the Greek word martus or whatever. But it's a case we made because of all the four gospels, that's the hardest. I mean, man, servant, those are big deals, but to me, God is the biggest, and that's the case he's gotta make. That's right. So Bob is reminding us that each one of the four gospels, while they don't contradict each other, they have a different focus. Right? So Matthew is making the case that Jesus is king, Mark that he is servant, Luke that he is man. But you gotta argue, I mean, that John gets the good one. Right? John's job is to make the case that Jesus is God. And in order to do so, he's gotta bring his A game. And so one of his favorite words, I think, can I list a bunch? I think in the middle, yeah. So I listed some of the, in this top of the center, he likes—he repeatedly uses love, world, know, truth, life, glory, eternal life. And another one of those terms that he uses repeatedly is actually the Greek word martyr. But what it means is witness. Right? Testify. To give witness. To give testimony. John is treating it—he's kind of creating a solemn account that this what I'm telling you is true. Let me prove it to you. So it just pervades his letter for sure.

What else? Yeah, I'd love to hear what you got. Feel like he is willing to say the really confusing things and allow you and trust you to figure out what God is saying as you go. Yes. It's truly true.

Okay. So Lily is pointing out, if you were to read the Gospels and you're paying attention to them and you're thinking about, like, the timeline, so how much time do the gospels cover? Three. It's about three years. Why do, how do we, you know, by the way, how we know it's three years? Or where do we get that? You've heard that, but why do we say that? Yeah. Because Jacob was baptized into his three years. For four years, he was baptized. Three years later he, that's right. So it is. It's from his—you know, he begins his ministry and he's baptized. Three years later, his crucifixion and resurrection. That's exactly right.

And through that time, what's really interesting is if you wanted, if you added up the number of days recorded in the gospel accounts, you'd have a hard time saying, okay, that was 03/1965, another three sixty-five, another March. Right? But what John does that's really helpful is he likes to mark things according to the Jewish calendar. And so if you watch through the feasts in John's gospel, you'll see all the feasts. It's almost like we talk about Thanksgiving, and then I talk about a second Thanksgiving, and then I talk about a third Thanksgiving. You're like, oh, okay. Got it. It's been three years. That's what's happening in John's gospel.

John is the one who really gives us the markers because he likes to link things back to the Jewish feasts. Right? So it's about three years, but it's not three evenly distributed years by any means. If you go through, if you look at any one of the gospels, Luke, you mentioned Lily, Luke is really obvious. In Luke 9:51, he begins his march to Jerusalem. You can watch the way he divides up their time, and everybody, all of the gospel writers, they really love to focus. It's disproportionate on the last week of Jesus' life. But John one-ups that, and John spends the vast majority of his time, not the majority, but the largest single chunk, just disproportionately on the last night of Jesus' life. It's what we call the upper room discourse. And so out of the 21 chapters of John, the upper room discourse starts at, like, what? 13, 14? It starts right in there. So, like, a third of the book is the last day of his life.

Right? So you get a very dramatic focus there in John's gospel and all the things that Jesus says. I mean, he covers stuff leading up to it, but he really doubles down on the last night and gives us tons and tons of information that we simply wouldn't have had. Shem, you're exactly right, Shem. That he's so—what is John when John writes in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, what is he copying? Do you know what he's copying? He's saying that Jesus was God, and he created the world with God. That's exactly right. He was God. He created the world with God. And he's doing that in language that we're meant to hear Genesis 1:1. So John 1:1 and Genesis 1:1 are really similar. Right? Genesis 1:1 says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And John 1 says, in the beginning, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He's linking these. Just as Genesis tells us the start of all things, John tells us that the start of all things was about Jesus. Right? That's a great—his prologue. Call it the prologue, is the kind of this incredibly insightful setup to his whole gospel message. So, spot on.

Alright. Robin, what'd you notice when you read through it? Well, I was noticing something I hadn't seen before. And, you know, I know in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked if this cup can be asked for me. But earlier, when he is talking, I didn't realize that there have been two places where he just hasn't kind of struggled with. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And that's exactly right. So we tend to think of the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew, Mark, and Luke's framing of it. Really Luke's more than anything. The idea that Jesus was sweating blood in the garden—that's Luke's character, Luke's description of it. It's very human. It's very doctor-y. It's very medical. Right? But John's description of it is he's including this other supplemental information, where Jesus is wrestling through it. And in both the way that Luke frames it, excuse me, and in the way that John frames it, he's struggling, but he is resigned and resolved and resolute that he's gonna see it through.

So, John does that in lots of different ways. He'll take what the synoptics have given us, set that aside, and then fill out our understanding, for sure. Yeah. What do you got, Alan? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So this is—you'd have a hard time getting through any of John's writings without a very significant focus on love. The Father's love for the Son, the Son's love for the Father, the Father and the Son's mutual love for us—all of that just drives everywhere.

Probably the high point of that revelation, I would say, is John 17. Let's look at that for a second. So go to John 17. John 17 is what we call the high priestly prayer, although I'm gonna modify that in a few minutes. We'll get there. Not yet. But in John 17, this is one of those moments in the scriptures where the revelation gets a little bit out of hand, where you are just, you're peering over the event horizon of a black hole, into something like it's so extraordinary. And so let's scroll down to the end of it. Listen to what Jesus is saying. We're, like, overhearing what I would say I don't know. Bob, would you agree? I think this is the most intimate prayer we have of Jesus. Would you say? It's the Lord's prayer. It is truly the Lord's prayer—meaning, the Lord's prayer of Jesus. Is it, not the prayer Jesus teaches us? Yeah, exactly.

So, we'll pick it up. There's so much going on here, but we'll start at verse 20. My prayer is—this is the last night of Jesus' life. John 17 is very close to the end of the story. He's about to be crucified, and he's praying. And he says, my prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message. That them alone is his disciples. And then the ones that will believe through them is you. Right? It's us. That all of them may be one, Father, and now listen to the connection. Just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. I in them, and you in me, may they be brought to complete unity, to let the world know that you sent me—and hear this—and have loved them even as you have loved me. Do you hear that absurd equivalence that he is drawing there? That God would love me like, yeah, well, of course he does. He's one with his very nature. They are coeternal, coexistent. But then, the fact that I would get invited to that party, to be a partaker of it, and then granted sameness in that is ludicrous. Right? I mean, can you see? That's incredibly unreasonable.

And then he says, Father, I want those that you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory, the glory that you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Like, every clause of that is insane. That we get to be partakers of it, to see it—the reality of the intimacy that exists between the Father and the Son. And what that— I mean, among all the myriad of things that it conveys—is that whenever Jesus calls us to love others, to consider others' needs as more important than our own, all that he's doing is inviting us to do what he and the Father have been doing from all eternity. This mutual, mutually deferential, self-giving love that has defined reality before reality spilled out of that boundary.

That thing—the glory that you, before the creation of the world, the glory that you gave me, the way that you disclosed yourself to me, shared yourself with me, and invited me into intimacy with you—that thing that was going on for the billions and billions of years before we even began, before we ever decided to invent time—that, well, let's open the curtains and let them see that. Oh, and by the way, not just see it from the stands, but let them come onto the stage. And not just onto the stage, but let's let them enter into the dance—that they would come and be partakers with us of our mutual, deferential, self-giving love. Can we do that? Amen.

That's what’s happening there. And that is what you are invited into, so that you would, that we would swim in this river of love that has existed for all eternity between the Father, Son, and, ultimately, the Holy Spirit. Although the Holy Spirit is the love that exists between the Father and the Son, which is another whole weird thing, which we'll— we've talked about before, maybe we'll do that again at some other time. That the love between the Father and the Son is the Spirit of God who has come to live in you—that you might be a partaker of it.

So yeah, John 17 is deep, deep, deep water. It's well worth pondering, reading, and gleaning insights about their relationship. It's nuts.

Additional Insights and Cross-References

I just saw something for the first time myself reading, and it's, you know, when Jesus meets the woman at the well, he says, "Go, sin no more." Yep. He says, "See, you are well; sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you." So, it's kind of got a—if you continue to sin, yeah. I've never seen him do that before.

Yeah. The guy you're quoting from is John 4—the well-known passage of the woman at the well. John 5 is this guy that he heals that gets really saucy. And then John 8 is where he says, "Go—and sin no more," to the woman caught in adultery.

And the guy in John 5 that he heals, if you read through it, it's a sharp exchange. That's the guy that he's like, "Do you want to get well?" There's some accusation laid into this. I think the guy's a punk. And I think that Jesus is very graciously overcoming his attitude and rebellion. That's why he says to him, like, "Go and sin no more, lest something worse happen to you." Because this guy—even though God is merciful to him—definitely has an attitude problem, if you watch the way Jesus interacts with him. It's a pretty interesting sign—the sharpest of all Jesus' signs, certainly in John. Maybe of all his miracles, the one where Jesus expresses the most skepticism about the person he's healing. Which is good, because that gets included. Sometimes you might be cause to be skeptical about us, even as he's kind to us.

So, good. Okay, one or two more things you noticed in John? And then I'll show you the back of the page.

Robin? In the place where Peter cuts off the ear. Yep. And Jesus responds, "Shall I not drink the cup that my Father has given me?" So, I was looking up in different verses, and it had, "The Father has given me." Oh, 100 percent. And that he doesn't just choose death in our place—it's so much more—that he chose to become the wrath of God. So, I thought that was pretty significant.

Yes. So, what Robin is saying is, whenever you see Jesus talking about drinking this cup in the Garden of Gethsemane—without any ambiguity—the cup of God's wrath. This shows up repeatedly in the Old Testament as well. God threatens that he will cause the nations or individuals to drink the full cup of his wrath. It is an image used to convey the judgment of God, and it always culminates in death. So when Jesus is agreeing to drink this cup, well, first of all, when Jesus doesn't want to drink the cup, and when he ultimately agrees to drink the cup, it is definitely a divine judgment of death—the expression of his wrath. I mean, that's exactly what it means. That's always what it means. And it's striking. There's all kinds of implications to that. If we go through and just search for "cup" in the Old Testament using Blue Letter Bible, you'll see how the term gets used. When it's in this sense—this cup of judgment—it’s always wrath, and wrath that leads to death. The culmination doesn't lead to death; it accomplishes death for sure.

Let's do this. We got about fifteen minutes, so let's go to the back page—some other things that I think would be profitable for you. This was tough. This was my grab bag for John. There's so many things I wanted to say, but I'm committed to keeping these things relatively summarized.

Notice this: as you go through John's gospel, if you're looking for all these terms—you might look for "word," you might look for "world," you might look for "love," "believe." Another really important term in John's gospel is "eternal life." It shows up. I listed I listed them there. What is— a couple, you know, a dozen or so maybe. Famously, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world... — John 3:16

John 3:16 is the most famous verse, and it’s because John knew how to be succinct. John 3:16, we’ve hit. John 5:24, we’ve hit. John 10:10 says—how does John 10:10 go? “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.” All the time.

So, as you watch for it, be aware that John is consistently using language about eternal life—he wants us to understand that what we have in Christ is something that we do not have apart from Christ, and that is the capacity to be alive forever. He's going to say a number of things about eternal life. For example, in John 17, now this—how does he say it?—this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Right? This is the core of it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not of infinite duration. The very language of "eternal life" means a life that lasts forever. And what we get during that life that lasts forever is him. He's the prize. He's what makes it so great. Being alive forever without him wouldn’t be that great, but being alive with him—well, if I get to be with him, then I want to have him for as long as I possibly can, and forever should do it.

That’s what he’s saying. We get him and that forever. He says it over and over again, and he contrasts it with not being alive forever. He’ll say in John 5—listen how I mean—show up over and over, and not always even with "eternal." Sometimes he assumes it. In John 5, he says, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, and yet you refuse to come to me to have life”—by which he means eternal life. "You want it. You're seeking it, but you're not coming to me to find it." Anything else, including your knowledge of the book. Hear that.

Right? You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them, you possess eternal life. And he’s saying, "And you're wrong. It's me." The book's about me, but the life is found in me. So finish the game, right? He's going to say, he's going to talk about crossing over from death to life. He’s going to say, "Anyone who hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned." He's crossed over from death to life. For John, the whole thing is about this exchange—trade in death and come to obtain life that will last forever. It is massively important.

So, as you go through John, maybe watch for all the "eternal life" language. It's a big deal. Watch for these—there are a bunch of these. These are maybe a little more missable, but don’t miss them because they’re super important. Jesus will say over and over again, "I don't do anything on my own. I don't say whatever I want to say. All I do day and night is precisely what the Father has told me to do." I listed one for you in chapter 5. "Jesus gave this answer: I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does."

Okay? He's going to say that countless times. Watch for those and think about what pattern he's laying out. Could you say, Jason, could you say, "I do nothing except what the Father wants me to do"? Like, how are you doing? Not today. How's it today? What is it? 10:27. How have you done in the last two hours? Terribly. Terribly.

That's an extraordinary clip. I don't say anything. Did we just go into what happened? Did somebody lean on a button? Somebody leaned on something. It got very dramatic. There we go. Yeah. Cunt diff. You got that, baby. Good job.

Okay? Alright. Another feature: watch for this in John—that, and you may already know this—John is the most "tweetable" of all the gospels. Okay? He is really—he's ahead of his time in terms of being sound bite-friendly. Do you know this? The reason the most famous Bible verse is John 3:16 is because John knew how to be pithy. Right? So he loves to give you things in very, like, concise, quotable, memorable phrases.

John 3:16, we've hit. John 5:24, we've hit. John 10:10, we already mentioned. “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly”—all the time. So, as you watch it, you just gotta appreciate that, at a PR level, John is ahead of the game in terms of making this very quotable, very citable, very memorable. You'll see a bunch of those things.

The upper room discourse—that's what we've already mentioned—is this whole movement, chapter basically, it's 13 to 17—that's the last night of Jesus' life. It's a quarter of his gospel, and it's one day of Jesus' life. But really, how many hours are we talking? Four hours, maybe? I mean, it's a huge percentage to this night. That would be, like, if you wanted, if there's a portion of the Bible that you wanted to become really familiar with, John 13 to 17—you could do worse. Right?

What's in there? Just as you think about it in your mind, can you think of what's in 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17? Okay. Who else said that? The two of you thought. Bill, who said it? Yes. I mean, this is it. John 15: “I am the vine. You are the branches. If a man abides in me, he will bear much fruit. My Father is the gardener.” All of that, that whole discourse on the vine and the branches—if you're not familiar with that, just go look it up. It's John 15. John 15 is sublime.

That's in there. What else is in this upper room discourse? Water of life. Say it again? Okay. Water—that's going to be in John 7. He says, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.” I don’t think there's water language there. I might be wrong. So if you find it, tell me. But John 7 is the whole “if anyone is thirsty” passage.

Harry and Judy? No problem. The Holy Spirit. Okay. The central teaching on the Holy Spirit is in the upper room discourse. So, pretty much chapter 16—a little bit, it kind of drips through 14 and 15 into 16—but 16 is the primary teaching from Jesus’ lips on the Spirit. Spirit-filled life, who the Spirit is, what he's coming to offer us—that's all in the upper room discourse. It’s magnificently important.

Harry? Yes. Okay. So he's giving all these warnings. In the upper room discourse, Jesus is going to tell the disciples, “Hey, I need to let you know about a few things. If they hated me, they’re also going to hate you.” Right? It’s incredibly important and pretty tender language, all jammed in there.

What else? There’s another—maybe this I would say, I don’t know—certainly one of the top 10 most famous lines in John’s Gospel is in chapter 14. The way, the truth, the life. Exactly right. So he's talking to Thomas. He's like, "You know the way I am." Jesus is telling him he's going to go to the Father. Thomas is like, "We don’t even know the way. How can we follow you?" And Jesus is like, "Thomas, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s all in that conversation.

And, by the way, who's he talking to in the upper room discourse? Do you know what this is? The apostles. Okay. Good. And actually Judas is there for part of it, too. Right? So, of all things.

Yes. The foot-washing is all in there. Right? He's present there. Jesus washes Judas’ feet. It’s fascinating. Right? So, that entire conversation is all with the apostles. It’s not lots of our main Jesus discourses—that he’s saying to, like, us, to the hoi polloi, to the crowd. Right? But this is the inner circle—the twelve that are there with him.

Really intimate and tender things going on in that thing. Okay? One more from the upper room discourse that you remember? You're my friends. Yes. You're my friends. Yes. So, Jesus has this really tender thing. He's like, he begins and he says, "You call me teacher and Lord, and rightly so—for that is what I am." But he also changes the dynamic. He says, "Now, we live in a very one-up, one-down relationship with Jesus." Right? He is the king. We are not. He is better than we are in every respect. And he's like, "And yet, come on up, and let's be friends." It’s bonkers. Right? It's very—it's consistent with the John 17 statement—that you would love me like I love Jesus. You would treat me like a brother. What is happening here? It just doesn’t make sense.

Okay. So, extraordinary. Harry? The grief will turn to joy. Yes. Right? So he is telling them, the grief will turn to joy. Jesus warns them, in this upper room discourse, “I'm going to be crucified, and you're going to hate it,” but "it’s going to end well." Right? That grief will turn to joy. His reference to his death will lead to his resurrection. And so, stay in the game. There's so much stuff going on in here.

Judy? But there's, you know, there's a plan here, and it's going to be okay. Yes—that’s all exactly right. Exactly. There’s a great deal of reassuring language because he knows that tomorrow is going to be so crazy. Like, tomorrow, Jesus is going to have a really, really bad day. Right? But so are the disciples. Their whole world's about to come apart. Their whole—everything they thought was true is about to be challenged to the core. And so, Jesus, who's about to be crucified, is characteristically more concerned about them than about himself. Who does that?

Last thing I want you to see—notice what's missing. Whole bunch of things that are really interesting. This is the kind of the dog that didn’t bark if you know your Sherlock Holmes. It’s surprising the things that are not present in John’s gospel. Not a single parable. Not one story that Jesus tells. That's strange. Matthew, Mark, and Luke—especially Matthew, but all the synoptics—are filled with his stories, his parables. John doesn’t give a single one. It’s totally gone.

Jesus' baptism is not present in John's Gospel. That’s weird because John the Baptist is far more significant in John's Gospel than he is in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And yet, this one guy who does this one thing, he doesn’t do his thing in the Gospel where he’s most prominent. Isn’t that interesting? So, no baptism.

And this is the strange thing—I still find myself going back to this—about the high priestly prayer. John never uses the Greek word "pray" that all the other gospels do. You could say that Jesus doesn’t pray anywhere in the Gospel of John. Okay? Now, it wouldn't be entirely accurate because it shows Jesus talking to his Father. The high priestly prayer, we would characterize that as a prayer because Jesus is talking to his Father.

But here’s the thing—this is what’s so interesting. In the dynamic of Jesus—when we say "pray," you think: what do you think? The word "pray" means? To God, talking to God. Okay? Prayer is talking to God. But do you know what it actually means? There’s something else you’re doing when you are praying. Do you know the core of what’s going on here?

Listening. Listening to talk? It’s not even the listening. Yeah. This is interesting.

So, if I say, "Pray, tell," I’m asking you to tell me something. Okay? The core of the word "pray" is not just to talk to God but to approach God as a supplicant. It is to come below, to be beneath, and to say, "Would you please?" That never happens in John’s gospel. Why? Because they are equals. Because they are equals—that’s exactly right. So, what you find in John 17 is Jesus praying to God—well, hang on—depends on what you mean. Does Jesus talk to God? Yeah, they’re "besties." Of course he talks to God. But does he approach God from this position of a supplicant? He does not. Not a single time.

Because he is God. Because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And now, that idea that he is God's equal and he's therefore not coming hat in hand—like we do as the inferior subjects—is contrasted with the fact that Jesus says, "I don’t do anything the Father doesn’t tell me to do. I don’t say anything I don’t hear the Father say." There’s this weird juxtaposition—that he is not the inferior who comes with his fingers crossed; he is the equal who, in all things, has submitted himself to the Father. It’s a totally different posture. Does this make sense?

He comes as an equal who has voluntarily subordinated himself. That’s who he is, and that’s the picture that John is painting. You can see that partly because of the absence of his prayer.

The Lord’s Supper does not occur in John’s gospel. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all recount what we think of as communion or the Eucharist—or what else do we call it? The Lord’s supper, Lord’s table, whatever. It doesn’t happen in John’s gospel. You do see it, well, you can see the setting of where they are having the meal, but John doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, he replaces it, Bob, with chapter six.

Well, sort of. But here in the room, what with the foot washing—that’s right. So, what John shows us on that last night is not the meal they shared, but the foot washing, as Jesus took off his outer garment, wrapped a towel around his waist, and washed the disciples’ feet. That’s where we get—do you guys remember this? I don’t know if you know—what does the word "Maundy" mean in Maundy Thursday? What is it, Harrison? Command. What is the command? Love one another. Love one another.

So, what we celebrate on Maundy Thursday is the day the command was given, and the command given is "love one another." He actually says it three times. "Love one another." A new command I give you: love one another. And he frames that in the foot washing and doesn’t even say anything about communion. Others observe that, yes, he doesn’t talk about communion there, but he does talk about eating his flesh and drinking his blood back in John 6. So it’s fascinating to see theologically what John is doing, what he’s affirming, and how that should inform our understanding of the table.

But just notice—you don’t get the Lord’s Supper in the normal sense that you get in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And then finally, and this is such an odd little detail, Jesus does not ascend back to the Father in John’s gospel. And the only reason I mention that—the peculiarity—is that we often tell people to read John’s gospel. It is like our go-to evangelistic gospel. But what you gotta know is, if some, like—I worked when I was at Westchester, I worked with this kid. He came to Christ, and like every good Camp Crusade staff member, told him to read the Gospel of John, and he did. And he knew nothing. He just knew he came from a background with absolutely no Christian background. And so he reads John’s gospel, and then after he read it, he comes to me and says, "I have a question." He’s like, "What happened to Jesus?" Because he dies, he rises from the dead, and then the story ends. He says to me, "Did he die again, or what?" Because in his mind, like, it ends with—either he's dead or he's walking around in Israel somewhere. But he hadn’t—he hadn’t realized—no, no, he went back. It doesn’t show up in John’s gospel.

Right? So, we know things. As you’re reading John, just read it with those eyes, to say, what if I'm just grabbing this? What would you miss if you don’t know what Matthew, Mark, and Luke said? There’s a whole bunch of stuff that’s fascinating that John didn’t choose to include because he assumes that you’ve already read the synoptics. He writes later. John is the last one written. He’s assuming the knowledge of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then he’s filling it in with these other things. That’s what’s going on.

Okay? So, if you didn’t read it this week, you could read it this week. It’s 21 chapters. You could read, you know, three a day for seven days. We’ll watch for some of these things. It’s absolutely filled with treasure. Hope you’ll find it. And we’ll do more again.

Thanks.