John 2:22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
There used to be a time when books were written with footnotes, end notes, and marginal comments. Some texts even had special symbols that would be placed in the text itself that would signal special meaning. You had to look in the Forward to discover what those symbols meant.
In these days of digital texts things, things are very different. We hyperlink everything. You can just hover over a text and extra information just pops up. No need to turn pages, front and back, and even pull a book of a shelf or go to a university to look up the originally cited work. It is all there with just a few clicks of the mouse or finger.
And on top of this, the narrative style of literature has changed over time. Conventions of communication that were standard years ago are now uncommon. We never had emojis when I was growing up. We could afford to write more than 144 characters. We used things called paper and ink to write letters, put them inside an envelope, addressed and placed a stamp on it. Then it was placed in a mailbox and sent to the recipient.
We had landline telephones. Some even had ‘party lines’ on their phones where several families shared the same phone number. We actually had our news delivered to our door every day, and it was made of recyclable paper! Just to let you know, gossip still existed.
John, the author of our text today, is sharing events from Jesus early ministry. He has just given an object lesson about the location of God’s presence in the Kingdom. It used to be centered in the Temple in Jerusalem. But Jesus tells us that the Temple will be destroyed and he will become the center of God’s activity here on Earth.
And at the same time Jesus tells us that He Himself will be killed and come back to life. In 70AD the Temple was destroyed and Jesus had fulfilled the role that the Temple used play in the life of God’s people. People could now go directly to the LORD apart from a physical place. Access was universal because of what Jesus had done.
So our text today is John’s explanation of what happened over time, not what was understood at that moment. He gives us insight into the process of growth in the disciples themselves as they came to understand more fully who Jesus was and what He accomplished. It is his footnote added to the text, his insight about their insight.
John can do this because he writes as one who is outside the story itself. He is writing about the events, not as one in the events. So often our stories today tell the events from the viewpoint of someone inside the story. We experience what the characters experience as we read.
John, on the other hand, is reporting on the story. He is looking back and writing from that perspective. And he is writing with a very specific purpose. He wants those who read to believe that Jesus is the Messiah and that we can have life in Him, so he tells the details and the commentary toward this purpose.
Notice that they came to believe two things. They believed the Scriptures, the Old Testament, and they believed what Jesus had said. This dual enlightenment needs to happen with us as well. The whole Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, are meant for us. They provide a record of God’s intervention on man’s behalf. They provide a roadmap to God’s solution for our problem.
And that is why we need to do the second thing: believe what Jesus said. Do you?
The Arnold Journey 