Who is the devil?

At biblestudy, we are now reading the gospel of Luke and this week we read about how Jesus was tempted in the desert. This sparked a very interesting conversation... what is the devil?

is it a being?
is it like the holy spirit, but bad -- everywhere all the time?
is it simply the absence of God?

We thought about places where evil exists and think about what shape it takes. Our first images were the grotesque evils of man - the holocaust, wars, terrorism, genocide. But in the story, evil is confronting Jesus one-on-one. It is an individual experience of something that is pulling away from God.

We talked about the things that pull us from God - fear, greed, pride...

But it is an interesting question to ponder. What / who is the devil?

When life seems empty...

This week at bible study we read John 15. Jesus's last teaching to the disciples during the last supper. He says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."

A woman in our group has beautiful rose bushes in her backyard. And she called her dad about how to take care of them. His answer was to hack them until there's nothing left but a dead looking stump.

Reluctantly she hacked away till the beautiful, life-abundant bushes were nothing more than dead stumps. Afraid she had killed them, she looked out at them all winter, wondering if they would ever grow back.

In the spring, they grew. Bigger and more beautiful than the previous year.

Sometimes when life seems to strip down to nothing. When we lose our jobs, our health, our friends, our family, our favorite activities, when we have nothing left of us but dead dry stumps which seem lifeless. God is at work.

In those times all we have is God, and if we remain in him and let his love and spirit work in us, spring will come and we will arise and bear much fruit. Our lives richer and more beautiful because every unimportant and useless part had been chopped away.

So if God is pruning you. Live in it. Sing the blues. Read scripture. Pray. God will grow you again.

What is love?

At biblestudy, we read how Jesus started the last supper by washing his disciples feet. The message is pretty straight-forward (unlike many other places in John). Jesus said, "If I am your teacher and I am washing your feet. Then you also shall wash other's feet."

Jesus was showing them (and us) what love is. Love is giving. Love us humbling yourself to do something that is "below you." Love is getting wet and dirty and cold for someone.

We had quite a long conversation about Judas. He was there and had his feet washed along with the other disciples. We talked about fate and how much Judas knew or understood his role in fulfilling God's will for Jesus or if he was simply a zealot who was dishearted that Jesus wasn't the type of Messiah that he had been hoping for.

Either way, Jesus washing his feet signifies that love is even more than doing something nice for your friends. It is also giving, humbling yourself in front of those who have hurt you. Regardless of Judas's motivation for betraying Jesus, he was still one of his best friends who handed him over to die. Forgiving and loving friends who have hurt us may be one of the hardest lessons Jesus teaches.

Who is Jesus?

At the end of our Monday night biblestudy, Jeff threw out there that John paints a picture of who he needs / wants Jesus to be. The Logos, the infinite, the creator bound up in a man. Matthew paints a Jesus that is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. Mark gives us a Jesus that moves and shakes and makes things happen. Luke, a Jesus that flips the power structures on their head.

Each of the gospel writers hone in on and tell a story of a different facet of Jesus. They give us the Jesus they understood or sought.

It made me wonder, who do we want or need Jesus to be? How do we read those verses to pull out the aspects of Jesus that suit our understanding of the world? Do I blind myself to truth by not taking in the parts of Jesus's story that confuse or offend me?

and the blind shall see...

This week at biblestudy, we discussed John Chapter 9. Jesus heals the blind man. In sum, Jesus's disciples see a blind man and ask Jesus if he is blind because of sin. Jesus says no, spits on the ground and rubs mud in the guy's eyes and tells him to wash in the pool. The man goes, washes and is healed.

People are amazed and they take him to the pharisee's who question him about who healed him. It just so happened to be the Sabbath, a time when Jews weren't supposed to work. So the leaders got in a fight about whether the healing was from God or not. They ask the blind man what he thinks. The blind man says that he thinks it must be from God. They kick him out of the synagog.

Later Jesus finds the man and the man believes in him. Then Jesus says "I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind."

People were so worked up about how well they thought they understood God that they couldn't see God's work among them. The lesson struck me that when we think we know who God is and how God works we become blind to what God is doing because we stop looking for him. Jesus made things simple - miracles done out of compassion were a sign of God's work on earth - simple people could see this. But people who had a preconcieved notion of who Jesus was supposed to be missed it completely. What preconcieved ideas do we have about God? can we see God at work now?

Jesus of Montreal

Our biblestudy watched Jesus of Montreal last Monday. It's an older film (very 80s). The basic premise is that a group of actors discover who Jesus is when they are hired to perform the passion play. The director explores what type of things Jesus would do or be exposed to in today's society.

It was interesting to see how the actors began to parallel the life of Jesus and his disciples. It made me think that when we have an authentic interaction with God, it changes us, even if we don't fully believe or accept it.

It also begs the question. Who is Jesus?

Logos

"In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God." We've decided to give some focus to our bobblehead biblestudy and read John's gospel. We decided on John because it is a dense theology of Jesus.

Dense turns to be a good way to describe it. We spent about 2 hours or maybe longer and I think we got through 16 verses. I'll try to summarize discussion as best as I can.

The beginning of John starts with "In the beginning..." Unlike the other gospels, John makes a point to go back to creation rather than Jesus's human birth to start out Jesus's story. Some say this is because he is trying to fill in what the other gospels miss, others say because this was the first gospel. No matter the reason, it is an intriguing way to start a book.

John calls Jesus the "Logos" a Greek word maeaning "the reason" or "logic." Heraclitus wrote about the logos saying

"This LOGOS holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it."

We contine... "the word was with God, and the word was God.... through him all things were made." This reminded us of Genesis.

"In the beginning... And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light" God spoke, and there was light. The word was with God and the Word was God, through him all things were made. Somehow, this utterance of God through which creation came to be is in fact God.

Now. the part that blows our mind... "And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us." This utterance that was with God through which the universe was made became human. An eternal breath or sound or energy or logic was made human.

Our brains hurt at this point.