Reflective Bible Study

Part way through Jesus’ ministry, the gospels of Matthew and Mark tell us about a trip away from town where the crowd has run out of food again. While the earlier miracle where Jesus fed a crowd of more than 5,000 people did not seem to be prompted by any immediate need, the miracle in this event where Jesus feeds the crowd of over 4,000 people is prompted by a clear need.

Mark introduces us to this event and this need by writing, “About this time another large crowd had gathered, and the people ran out of food again. Jesus called his disciples and told them, “I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will faint along the way. For some of them have come a long distance.” (v. 1-3)

I find it amazing that Jesus is the one to prompt this miracle. The crowd in this event seems pretty dedicated to Jesus because while they may have planned to spend an afternoon or a couple days with Jesus, they were so dedicated that they had stayed well past their last crumbs of food. Jesus is the one who brings out the detail that some of these people might faint on their way back home.

If one of the disciples had included this detail, we might accuse him of being melodramatic, however, since Jesus said it, we can be more certain it was a realistic concern.

This brings me to big key thought I see included in these introduction verses: Jesus is aware of our needs even if we don’t realize He is aware. While the people were allowed to get hungry while being with Jesus, He never allowed them to starve to death because of Him. These people were dedicated to Jesus above even going to get food for themselves, and because of this dedication, faith, and devotion, they experience a food-multiplying miracle.

As John’s gospel shares about the last supper Jesus and His disciples experienced prior to His arrest and crucifixion, John opens the event with a very interesting phrase. At the end of verse 1, John tells us: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he [Jesus] loved them to the end.”

The first thing that happens next is that Jesus bends down and begins to wash the disciples’ feet. While this was not the extent of Jesus “loving His own to the end”, it was definitely a start. While Jesus had served His disciples in many ways up to this point, never before had He taken the role of the lowest servant who happened to have the responsibility of washing the feet of those who entered a home.

However, Jesus “loving the disciples to the end” doesn’t stop with simply washing the disciples feet. Pretty much everything that happens afterwards, from teaching the disciples, from promising them the Holy Spirit, from requesting their escape when the mob arrives, through all the torture all the way up to death on the cross, everything is an example of this one short phrase. Jesus loved “His own who were in the world to the end.”

When I read this line the first time, I realized something offensive: Jesus only says that He loves those who are His. Nothing in Jesus’ statement here implies that Jesus loved His enemies to the end. While there are other places in scripture that imply having love for those who you disagree with, we don’t see that here. However, if John uses the phrase “His own” to describe how Jesus is one of humankind, then we get the picture that Jesus loved all of humankind to the very end – which does sound like something in harmony with the rest of the Bible.

The other phrase that jumped out to me in this how this statement ends: Jesus “loved them to the end”. A quick reading of this verse makes me think that John wants us to focus in on how Jesus loved everyone through the entire experience of the cross, but is that what John means when he says “the end”.

I wonder if this subtle detail is a promise we can claim because Jesus did not end at the cross. While He died, he was only briefly in the tomb before God raised Him back to life. Because of this detail, I am inclined to believe that “the end” does not refer to the cross.

“The end” could mean the end of history, when God ultimately judges the world, but we run into the same challenge with this angle on this phrase: Those who God has saved and redeemed will be living for eternity, and that extends past the end of history.

The only angle that makes sense in my mind for this last phrase is that Jesus loves those who He has redeemed forever. No gap or break exists in His love for each of us who have accepted Him into our hearts. Jesus loved us through the betrayal, the rejection, the pain, the torture, and the cross and He chooses to love us (all of humankind) forever!

One of the most out of place illustrations Jesus ever has been said to share is the one in this passage. The illustration – since it is debated whether this is a parable or a description of something that actually happened – is not given any context, and it is unique from other teachings, stories, and parables Jesus told during other parts of His ministry.

One of the big ideas some people use to say this is more teaching about an actual event, and less a illustrative parable, is that Jesus never used a name in any of His parables. If this parable was written as “The Rich Man and the Beggar”, then we could see a parable in the making, but by including the name Lazarus, Jesus must be pulling a historical story into supporting His truth. This is what some people think about this passage.

But what if Jesus deviated from His normal way of telling parables as a way of setting up something that was going to happen in the future: the resurrection of His close friend whose name was Lazarus. This is a good counter-argument that still allows for Jesus to be speaking in parable form – but also tying the punch line of the story to something that was going to be very real in the coming weeks/months.

However, another thought that enters my mind is about how this parable describes the one character it names: Lazarus. Verse 20 says, “Lazarus was a beggar. His body was covered with sores.” Knowing Jesus, and how He traveled around healing people, it was unlikely that the real Lazarus would have been left to beg with sores all over his body.

While Jesus did delay His coming when Lazarus was sick, a close reading of the text about Lazarus’ death tells us that the news arrived to Jesus too late: He waited two days and Lazarus was in the tomb for four days when Jesus had arrived. Jesus could have left Lazarus begging with sores all over his body, but what would that say about God?

Jesus came to show us what God is like, and because of this, I really doubt that a close friend of Jesus would have been left sick while Jesus is actively healing everyone He comes in contact with.

However, if this was simply a parable and not Lazarus’ current situation, then the people hearing Jesus would have clearly understood this to be figurative. Only after Lazarus’ sickness, death, and resurrection would people have then begun to put the pieces together to see an incredible truth:

Not only is Jesus a healer and a teacher, and not only can He bring the dead back to life, but He also knows the future. Jesus tweaked with this illustration to predict a future event: resurrection. He even wrapped the theme around believing when seeing resurrection happen – foreshadowing Lazarus first, then Himself to follow. Someone like that is worth believing in, because we can then know beyond a shadow of a doubt that our eternity is safe with Him!

On the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested, the gospel of John spends a significant amount of space dedicated to the time between the last supper the disciples had with Jesus, and the time Jesus was betrayed and arrested. Part way through the last teaching opportunity Jesus had with the disciples prior to the cross, Jesus promises us that even though He is leaving, He will send us help. John records Jesus’ promise by saying: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper who will be with you forever. That helper is the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him, because it doesn’t see or know him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be in you.” (v. 16-17)

One big thing that I see in this description of the Spirit of Truth that Jesus promises us is that the world cannot accept Him because it doesn’t see or know Him. In contrast, Jesus tells the disciples that they will be able to know this Helper because He will live with them and be in them.

This prompts me to wonder if Jesus was simply promising this helper to those original disciples, or if Jesus’ promise extends beyond the first generation of believers. Tucked at the end of verse 16, is the timeframe for this promise. Jesus tells us that the helper that the Father sends to them “will be with you forever.” (v. 16)

Skeptics might say that the emphasis for this promise was on those original disciples, but Jesus uses the word “forever” which is significantly longer than “for the rest of your lives”, which is another time span that Jesus could have said.

I believe Jesus uses the word forever because as long as there are Christians alive on earth and who are sharing their faith with others, they will have help from the Spirit of Truth. The world doesn’t see or know God’s Holy Spirit, and because of this, the world cannot accept the truth about God, but this is because the world is not interested in Jesus.

As followers of Jesus, we have been called to live in a way that makes the Christian life look attractive to others. We are called to share our faith with those God brings into our lives. And we are called to depend on and learn from the Spirit of Truth as we go about our daily lives living for God.