We stopped last time with an integral part of Jesus’ departing instructions to His disciples: If ye love me, keep my commandments. We are about to find out that this is part of an if-and-only-if kind of logical statement. That is important for us to hear because we, human beings, are very good at compartmentalizing. So much so, that we can end up believing things that are mutually contradictory. But because we keep them separate, we cannot see the contradiction… or maybe we refuse to see it. Haven’t you ever heard someone say: “It isn’t personal, it’s just business…” as an excuse for acting mercilessly?

 Having set in motion the final act of His mission, Jesus told his disciples that His time to go had come; that He had little time left with them. Therefore, He needs to prepare them; and the first part of that preparation was giving them a new commandment: to love everybody the way He loved everybody. Of course, the culmination of that love – the cross – has not happened yet. So, they cannot possibly understand the full implication of that commandment. But, characteristically, they accept it as if they had understood and move on to that which seems easier to understand.

And it was night… That is where we left off in Chapter 13 of John’s gospel. Judas has left to carry out his full betrayal. The disciples have no clue; and no one is going to stop him. And we know from Jesus’ own words where this is all headed: He will be turned over to His enemies and killed. It certainly seems that the night, the dark, has won. Yet, Jesus sees it in a completely different light.

Last time, we ended with verse 17 where Jesus tells His disciples that they are blessed if they do what He has taught them by word and deed. But then He adds another revelation. Throughout His ministry He has told them many times that He is going to end up captured by His enemies and then crucified. And we are told that the disciples could not understand what He was saying… maybe they were assuming that He was using some sort of figurative language. After all, who would want to crucify the Messiah? Now He tells them, it’s about to happen.

I interrupted this Study at the end of John’s chapter 12. I stopped there because that is a natural stopping point in this gospel. The end of that chapter denotes the end of Jesus’ ministry to the people in general. From here on, we have a record of an intense, intimate, ministry to His disciples crammed into the short time He has left before He goes to the cross. For the balance of this study I am going to make my posts brief, single-themed, but post more than one a week.

I have always liked songs that tell stories. That is why one of my favorite Christian artists is Michael Card. In his collection of stories about the Life of Jesus, he has a song called Scandalon. It is the Greek word for a snare, the part of a trap that snaps to capture you. We get the word, scandal, from it. It is used in the Bible to describe an offense or a stumbling stone that can lead you away from faith. Yet, the plan of Salvation crafted by God the Father hinges on such a stumbling stone.