Reflective Bible Study

At the conclusion of His teaching the disciples about washing each other’s feet, Jesus shares a powerful statement that applies to not only what they just experienced and heard, but this statement also applies to basically everything else Jesus taught them over the previous 3+ years of ministry. John ends this portion of his gospel by telling us Jesus concluded by saying, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” (v. 17)

The context of this verse is Jesus sharing about humbly following His example and washing the feet of other believers. In our discussion on this verse and promise, we must keep this context in our minds. At the most basic level, Jesus promises us that we will be blessed if we follow His example in our own lives.

Another teaching that is shared in this context is the one Jesus shares in the verse right before this one. In verse 16, Jesus tells His followers, “no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” When we move through life with the idea in our minds that we are humbly following Jesus who is greater than we are, it frees us up when we face rejection or hostility because we can lean on the truth that we have something better waiting in our future.

But also, when we look at some other details and truth shared in this event, we can see even more context for this promise Jesus shares. Further down in the chapter, Jesus tells His followers, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

We can take Jesus’ promise about blessing us for obeying His words and apply it to this new command as well. In some ways, this promise in verse 17 becomes a key for gaining blessing from every teaching Jesus shared.

However, with this promise, we must not begin thinking that obedience will always immediately translate into the blessing that we desire. God has many ways of blessing us and it would be foolish of us to limit what we are willing to call blessings. Also, we should not obey simply to get a blessing. While we can start here, we must not stay here because this path leads to legalism.

Instead, the frame we must use when looking at this promise is obeying Jesus because we are amazed at what He has done for us. Our obedience is a “Thank You” for having already blessed us. Any future blessing God wants to bring into our lives as a result of our obedience is simply extra toppings on the big way He has already blessed everyone who follows Jesus and believes in Him: The biggest blessing is the assurance and gift of salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. There is nothing God can bless us with that surpasses this, and nothing we can truly give Jesus that equals what He has already given to us.

The passage we will be looking at in this post is one that fascinates me. While walking along the road to Emmaus, two disciples, and these would be people who had followed Jesus for a year or more, walk with Jesus along the road and completely miss realizing who He was: “While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.” (v. 15-16)

These disciples longed to be with Jesus again, and they completely miss the fact that they were with Jesus again!

This tells me something interesting about ourselves as humans: We can blind ourselves to what is happening around us if we don’t believe the truth to be possible. These disciples did not believe that Jesus had rose from the grave, so recognizing Him as a traveler on the road would be impossible. It is only after they begin to understand what this “Traveler” was explaining from the scriptures that these disciples began to see how what happened to Jesus was what the Old Testament described.

However, this passage says that “their eyes were prevented”, which is another way of saying that God/Jesus hid Himself from them for the time it would take to explain the truth. Perhaps, if Jesus had simply revealed who He was, the disciples would have been too distracted by Jesus’ presence that they would have missed understanding what Jesus wanted to teach them from the Old Testament. This also means that sometimes God will hide Himself from us when He wants to teach us something.

Sometimes it feels as though the times when God is distant is when we want Him the most, and perhaps it is not that God is really distant, but that we are blind to His presence, and maybe it is because He wants to teach us something.

Sometime during the middle of Jesus’ ministry, John’s gospel describes a time when Jesus appears to be alone with His brothers. In this event, John records a startling detail that is profound when we look at it a little closer. John tells us that “For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” (v. 5)

This detail is significant for us to pay attention to because too often, those closest to us may be among the least supportive of us. While this is not always the case, plenty of cases can validate this statement. However, I think most times those closest to us don’t support us, they believe they are being helpful. Sometimes, help comes in the form of telling someone you love some difficult to accept things.

Perhaps we don’t feel supported by those we know love us because we know they don’t approve of something we do, some people we associate with, or a habit we have. Sometimes having a lot of history with a person is not helpful for building a stronger relationship because people can get caught up with each other’s faults.

However, the word John uses in this statement is the word “belief” and this is a little different than simply supporting someone. While believing in someone leads to supporting them and their decisions, believing in this context also means trusting, having faith in, and being loyal to the person in question. In this passage, John tells us that Jesus’ brothers – those He was closest to and had the most history with – did not believe in Him.

Jesus would have been aware of this and because of this lack of belief, trust, and faith, Jesus knows that it is better for Him not to travel with His brothers. While His brothers recognize that Jesus is special and that He can perform miracles, they miss understanding the purpose Jesus came and the counter-cultural way He saw Himself.

Reading this prompts me to think that sometimes it is better to take a step back in our faith – but not a step back in a literal sense, but a step back to then focus again on the big picture. When we look at the big picture and keep our eyes open for examples of God leading and blessing people in the world around us, we can avoid the trap Jesus’ brothers fell into because they had decades of history together – which included plenty of pretty normal events.

Part way through His ministry as He was traveling through the city of Jericho, Jesus meets a tax collector named Zacchaeus. Looking back on this event, the thing that is most remembered about Zacchaeus is the detail that he was short and chose to climb a tree to simply catch a glimpse of Jesus.

However, Jesus goes a step further and invites Himself over to Zacchaeus’ home. While the crowd grumbled and complained, Zacchaeus experiences a heart transformation, and pledges to give half his wealth to the poor and right any wrongs he may have committed in the past.

Luke concludes this event with Jesus saying a powerful blessing: “Salvation has come to this house today, because this man also belongs to the family of Abraham. The Son of Man came to find lost people and save them.” (v. 9-10)

In these two concluding verses, we see Jesus sharing another glimpse of His ministry on earth. Jesus came to bring salvation into the homes of those who will let Him in. Jesus came to adopt people who are willing into the family of Abraham to become one of God’s chosen people. Jesus came to find those who are lost, hurting, and needing help with the goal of saving them.

The context in Luke’s concluding remarks are focused in on the specific event of Jesus’ time with Zacchaeus. In an almost universal way, we can take these verses and apply them to any and every situation where someone comes to God, whether they had fallen away from God at some point in their past or even if they had never known God.

We can also take these verses and apply them to Jesus’ overall ministry. Jesus came to the earth because He wants to find lost people and save them. Jesus arriving on earth marked the start of God’s salvation being made known, and the start of God actively adopting people into His new spiritual “family of Abraham.”