A Lenten Devotional: John 7:14–31, 37–39
First Presbyterian Church Ann Arbor was gracious enough to publish my Lenten devotional on John 7:14–31, 37–39.
Scripture
“About the middle of the festival Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. The Jews were astonished at it, saying, “How does this man have such learning, when he has never been taught?” Then Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine but his who sent me. Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own. Those who speak on their own seek their own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is nothing false in him.
“Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you looking for an opportunity to kill me?” The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is trying to kill you?” Jesus answered them, “I performed one work, and all of you are astonished. Moses gave you circumcision (it is, of course, not from Moses, but from the patriarchs), and you circumcise a man on the sabbath. If a man receives circumcision on the sabbath in order that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I healed a man’s whole body on the sabbath? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
Now some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, “Is not this the man whom they are trying to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah? Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.” Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come. Yet many in the crowd believed in him and were saying, “When the Messiah comes, will he do more signs than this man has done?” […]
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
Devotional
At the Festival of Booths, Jesus told the crowd, “Those who speak on their own seek their own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is nothing false in him.” There is a symmetry between Jesus’s activity in the world and the divine activity of the Creator God. The Father “has given [Christ] these works to accomplish in the Father’s name and for the manifestation of this name.” We also see the corollary. “Because the Father dwells in Him, the Son, it is the Father who performs the works through Him. Thus the Son is not really alone in His action, but He who sent Him is with Him” (Barth, CD III.2, p. 63). The Triune God is at work in the Christ-event, for us and for the life of the world, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’s call, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink,” is precisely an invitation to reimagine what Lent means for us today.
In the second quarter of the sixteenth century, John Calvin published his Institutes of the Christian Religion. It’s no secret that Calvin wasn’t a fan of Lenten observance (much as it the case that few are fans of Calvin today—even in the Presbyterian Church). “[The] superstitious observance of Lent,” Calvin wrote, “had prevailed everywhere, because the common people thought that in it they were doing some exceptional service to God….” He continued, “[It] is plain that Christ did not fast to set an example for others, but to prove, in so beginning to proclaim the gospel, that it was no human doctrine but actually one sent from heaven [Matt. 4:2]. […] Christ does not fast often—as he would have to do if he had willed to lay down a law of yearly fasting—but only once, when he girded himself for the proclamation of the gospel.” (4.12.20). Calvin writes elsewhere that “[hypocritical] fasting…is not only a useless and superfluous weariness but the greatest abomination” (4.12.19).
In the context of endemic ecclesiastical abuse and a thoroughly transactional understanding of our relationship to God, Calvin’s misgivings about Lenten fasting are understandable. We should fast neither because it so happens to be a yearly ritual (God has not commanded this), nor should we fast to get something from God—whether our hearts are sincere or avaricious. Calvin goes so far as to say that “it would be much more satisfactory if fasting were not practiced at all…” (4.12.19). The point here is that fasting (and Lenten observance more broadly) for its own sake—as a religious obligation—rehearses a crucial misunderstanding of the Good News (kerygma, proclamation). Paul, too, warned of the hubris of religious obligation, reminding the church at Colossae, “Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement [tapeinophrosune, lowliness] and worship of angels…” (Col. 2:18). This misunderstanding amounts to a subtle form of “anthropo-theology,” which crowns human reason and activity as the key to unlocking God’s power and salvation on earth. This way of thinking about God forgets that God “exists neither next to man nor merely above him, but rather with him, by him and, most important of all, for him. He is man’s God, not only as Lord but also as father, brother, friend…” (Barth, Evangelical Theology, p. 11). The fraternity of God, eternally willed in his freedom, is an open invitation to drink deeply from the well of Christ and to find the satisfaction for our thirsts. We are, each one of us, God’s covenant partners—partakers in his mission of restoration, justice, and peace.
The late John Webster provocatively raised the question, “What are we to do in response to the miracle of God’s saving love?” His response: “In a very real sense, we’re to do nothing. We’re to do nothing because there is one sense nothing to do; God has done it all for us. We don’t need to try to make salvation happen by moral effort or liturgical performance or having wretched thoughts about our sins. That God loves us and has saved us is as sure as the fact that the sky is blue” (Webster, Christ Our Salvation, pp. 4-5). If we decide to fast, or to “give something up” for Lent, let it be a conscious decision to release ourselves from the temptation to prove ourselves before God, who has already given everything to be our friend.
Prayer
“Lord God, our Father, you are the light in which there is no darkness. And now you have kindled in us a light that can never be extinguished and that will ultimately drive out all darkness. You are the love that knows no coldness. And now you have loved even us and freed us to love you and each other. You are the life that mocks death. And now you have given us access to this eternal life. You have done all this in Jesus Christ, your Son, our brother. Do not let us—let none of us—remain dull and indifferent to your gift and revelation.”
