Jeff Englund

February 23, 2019February 22, 2019

Jesus Time – John 11: 9-10

Jesus answered, ”Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”

Are there twelve hours of daylight? The answer to that is, “… it depends.” It depends on where you are on the planet and what time of year it is. In Anchorage, Alaska there is only about one hour of daylight during the months of December and January. In June and July, there are about twenty-three hours of daylight. Jerusalem is about the same latitude as Ensenada, Mexico; just south of the border. That far south the seasonal shift is much less noticeable, but it is still there.

February 22, 2019February 21, 2019

Timing – John 11: 7-8

…and then he said to his disciples, ”Let us go back to Judea.”
”But Rabbi,” they said, ”a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”

If I close my eyes and picture myself sitting among the disciples with Jesus, I imagine that we are camped near the bank of the Jordan River, near where John the Baptist appeared out of the wilderness and started preaching. In my mind’s eye, it is morning. The sun is peeking over the eastern horizon and some of the disciples have been up since very early. A fire is going in the middle of the camp and as the few disciples who are still asleep wake-up, they gather around the fire where a breakfast of small fish is cooking. Someone passes around a rough-hewn wood plate with dates on it and I take one to eat and pass the plate on.

February 21, 2019September 22, 2019

Non Sequitur – John 11: 5-6

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days,

Ordinarily, these two sentences would not go together. If they were written about anyone else, they would be a contradiction, a joke. Imagine someone writing a story that included the lines:

Dick loved Jane more than life itself. When Dick heard Jane was sick he…

(A) … rushed to her side.
(B) … thought about going to see her. 
(C) … stayed where he was two more days.

Obviously, if Dick loves Jane he is going to want to be there when she needs him. He is not going to be indifferent to her feelings. Yet Jesus operates with a different kind of love and a different kind of viewpoint.

February 20, 2019February 19, 2019

Dying – John 11: 1- 4

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, ”Lord, the one you love is sick.”
When he heard this, Jesus said, ”This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

This is the story of the man, Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. John begins by giving us a proper introduction to Lazarus; where he lives, who his relations are, and that he is well known to Jesus. Then John tells us that Lazarus is sick.

You and I know what it is like to have a cold or stomach flu. People in Jesus’ day probably suffered from similar ailments. This sickness was different. Lazarus was ill enough that his sisters thought his life was in danger. Why else would they have taken the trouble to send a messenger to Jesus? In short, Lazarus was dying.

February 19, 2019February 18, 2019

Place – John 10: 40-42

Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. There he stayed, and many people came to him. They said, ”Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true.” And in that place many believed in Jesus.

One of the many things we take for granted is our place in the world. Place, as an abstract concept, is important because it is the reference point for everything that happens to or about a particular person at a particular moment in that particular place.

February 18, 2019February 18, 2019

A Kind of Pill – John 10: 37-39

“Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.

What do you look to your father for? Help; guidance; discipline; comfort? What you see in a father probably depends a lot on the kind of father you had, if you were fortunate enough to have a father in your life.

What kind of father is God? In the Old Testament, he is the one who allows Job to be tested, who tells Noah to build the ark and then floods the world, he calls Abraham to the Promised Land, gives him a son in his old age, then tests him by asking that he sacrifice his son. The Old Testament God leads the Israelites into Egypt and then out again. He gives them his law; He gives them a place to live; He is faithful to be patient with them and faithful to punish them.

February 17, 2019February 16, 2019

Competition – John 10: 34-36

Jesus answered them, ”Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? “

To tell the truth, I have been dreading this passage. Jesus is standing before a crowd of Jewish leaders arguing with them. They want to stone him because Jesus “claim(s) to be God.” Jesus response is, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods [human judges representing God, not divine beings]’? (Amplified Bible)

February 16, 2019February 15, 2019

Mere Man – John 10: 33

“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, ”but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

In 1959 a man named John Griffin did something quite unique. He lived in an America that was still segregated by race. As a white man, he was aware of the injustice of racism, but he wanted to know more about its effect, so he underwent treatments that turned his skin black, and then he traveled the deep South for six weeks to explore what life was like on the other side of the race line. The effect of the skin treatment was so startling that he didn’t even recognize himself in the mirror.

Have you ever wondered how Jesus felt giving up life in heaven to become a man? To be transformed from the most powerful being in the universe, in all of existence really, to a human that the Bible describes as a man of common appearance:

February 15, 2019February 14, 2019

Courage – John 10: 31-32

Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, ‘’I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”

Some things never change. People talk about bad behavior online all the time and how violent the arguments sometimes get, but really …

In Jesus’ day, there was no “Facebook” or “Instagram” or online chatrooms to engage in. Everything was face to face, and instead of just ANGRILY TYPING EVERYTHING IN CAPITAL LETTERS!!!!!! the people back then actually picked up rocks to throw at Jesus.

February 14, 2019February 13, 2019

Oneness – John 10: 30

“I and the Father are one.”

What does he mean by saying, “one?” A quick look in Strong’s Concordance suggests that the English translation here is every bit as clear and oblique as the Greek. One means one. It can mean ‘one’ as in one thing, or it can mean ‘one’ as in whole, or complete.

“I and the Father are one.”

In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, in the second chapter and the twenty-fourth verse God says, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” What does that mean, “one flesh?” Is that the same kind of thing that Jesus is talking about or different? It is mentioned again and again in the New Testament as an example of oneness.