Jesus was proposing a radical shift. The identity of the Messianic Kingdom would exclude the traditional Jewish government, because the Jewish government had already excluded the Messiah. It would kill the Messiah, and very soon would come to kill His disciples. Thus, He warned them so that the meaning would be obvious when the time came. This wasn't how He talked early in His ministry because His departure then was still a long way off.

Now His time had come, the time to return to the Father. They were no longer asking where He was going, because it was obvious what He meant by returning to the Father. It was obvious and very upsetting to them. Still, it was important for them to understand that this was all necessary, because He could not send them His own Spirit unless His mortal body died.

The Holy Spirit from God would have one very consistent message from this time forward. First, He will convict people of sin, in that the definition of sin will be rooted in rejecting the Messiah. It won't matter what people strive to get right; righteousness was confined to following the Messiah. Everything else would be evil by definition. Second, righteousness will be defined as following the Messiah, all the way to the Cross. Without forfeiting this mortal existence, it's impossible to follow Him to Eternity. Third, with the forfeiture of this worldly existence, the power and authority of Satan is nullified. The Enemy will no longer hold any authority over those who embrace the Messiah.

Jesus wanted to say so much to them, but they were unable to hear any more. The whole idea that Jesus was going to die was just too much for them. But it would all work out, because when the Holy Spirit came upon them, they would simply know everything Jesus could have told them. The Holy Spirit would be the same Person as Jesus, communicating all the same things Jesus had taught during His time on earth. And in turn, everything the Messiah might have said comes from the Father in the first place.

Then He said something very cryptic: In a short time, they would see Him no more. Then, a while longer and they would see Him again -- they would see Him again once He had gone to the Father. This really tripped them up. How would they see Him again if He were going to die? But they kept this discussion to themselves as He led them across the Kidron Valley.

He knew, of course. This had choked them up completely. So He tried to reassure them that this was like a woman giving birth. It won't be pleasant for a while, but after it's over, they would be joyful with the birth of a new life. The joy that would follow after that would be impossible to describe, because He would come to see them again. But it would be in His eternal form, giving them a new identity as eternal children of the Father.

And in that day, they would no longer need to ask Jesus for anything. He had been their High Priest in effect for a few years, but that was coming to an end. They would no longer need any proxy to the Father. Jesus would usher them into the Father's Presence as His brothers. They could pray directly to the Father without any go-between, and He would welcome them. They would simply ask for all things in the name of His Son, Jesus.

From here on out, the joy of the Son would be their testimony, their shalom that shows the world they belong to the Father. This was about as literal as anything He could say to them of Heavenly affairs. So without any parables, He flatly restated that they were not to seek any longer a priesthood to carry their prayers to the Father, not even Jesus Himself. Rather, because they embraced Jesus as the Messiah from God, God Himself would embrace them as His own.

That's why He had to go back to the Father. This much they felt they understood: Jesus didn't need to prove Himself to anyone's satisfaction. They knew beyond all doubt that He was the Messiah sent by God.

But it wasn't enough. They had to walk through the fire yet. Each of them had to walk through their own death experience. Jesus would stand alone against His accusers and be nailed to the Cross. They would each have to face their own demons alone, accusing them and nailing them to their own crosses. Jesus would face it literally, but they had to go through it as a parable.

It would be the final alienation they faced in this world, and from this world. It was the only way to find the peace that the Messiah would give them. But the world could never touch them again, because the Messiah would take a position of authority over every human government.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

They had left the Upper Room and were making their way to the Kidron, then across to the Garden of Gethsemane. On the way, Jesus continued to unload a lot of truth in parables. You would be forgiven for thinking He struggled to find the words to say what was on His heart.

Jesus quotes Isaiah more than any other source. In his fifth chapter, the prophet proposes the image of Israel as God's vineyard. The fruit is not merely bodies; Israel's purpose was to draw attention to Jehovah's divine glory. Obedience to His Covenant and harvesting His blessings is all one package. This was to be their fruit, their testimony of God's glory. Because they refused that mission, Jesus came to fulfill that purpose in Himself. At the same time, He clarified and vivified the will of the Father and gave it as a gift to His disciples. He became the One Vine from which all future fruit would grow to the Father's glory.

The whole point is the fruit, not the lush growth of greenery. It's not about us, but about His glory. Jesus sprouts the branches, but the Father prunes them to maximize the fruit of His glory. Refusing to bear fruit guarantees removal from the Covenant, but bearing the fruit of the Covenant is His glory. That's the context for Jesus' promise that anything we ask from within the Covenant will be granted. That's what it means to ask in Jesus' name. More fruit of glory is precisely what the Father wants.

The sap running within the vine is that glorious sacrificial love of God. The only way we can draw on that love is by obedience to the Covenant. The relationship of Master and Disciples was about to change. From here on out, they would all be friends and brothers (as the Greek word philos implies) of Jesus. A servant was not taken into the Lord's confidence, but friends and brothers had a vested interest in the Lord's business.

Jesus chose them and ordained them as close confidants, men who were allowed to become acquainted with God Himself. Whatever they dared to ask was guaranteed. Thus, their new Law of the Covenant was the sacrificial love of Jesus. It's nothing like the law of human kingdoms. Naturally, any worldly system would detest the Messiah and His teachings, because it left nothing under their control. Thus, the persecution of the worldly system was their native element. But anyone capable of hearing from God would hear Jesus, and whoever hears Jesus will hear His disciples.

Jesus came from the Father as the Divine Voice to the Covenant Nation. His miracles were His badge of authority. They saw and heard, but they had already rejected the Father, so it's no surprise the rejected the Messiah. This is what Isaiah had warned about way back in his prophecy. The seeds of rejection had been planted that far back. Indeed, Jesus quotes David's Psalm 69 as a prophecy to point out how ancient this rejection stood. The leadership of Israel had no excuse, having been warned about this repeatedly.

It was essential for Jesus to die. As long as He was in the flesh, His Spirit was confined to that body. Once He took up His eternal form, His Spirit could come and dwell in the members His New Body, making it all One. He has been the same Spirit of the Father and of the Son from Eternity.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

Veloyce was diagnosed with a very mild case of COVID. Regardless of all the other stuff we might say about it, this means she is quarantined, and we have to let certain parties know. I can still go out for a ride, but she can't go to work during the next ten days. During certain kinds of interactions, I'll have to wear a face diaper, but I have no symptoms at all.

Veloyce isn't all that sick, but the silly quarantines are a big hassle.

This chapter of John is about as mystical as it gets. Had Judas been there to hear, it would have been one more excuse to betray Jesus and get out of this ministry. It was contrary to everything Judas was hoping to see. The others were committed, but had as yet no recognition of what it was to which they had committed themselves.

The mention of His Father's house should have been a clue to them: There is nothing literal in this lesson. It's about eternal things in invisible realm of Heaven. Jesus was going to leave them on this earth and go to Heaven and prepare residences for them. They would eventually join Him in Heaven.

With this as the background, He mentions "where" He must go to do all of that. Thomas is the first to admit he's not following this talk. Like the other ten still together now, he's been investing so much time and thought into a literal political revolt against the Sanhedrin and Rome that there's no room left in his attention for anything on a different level.

Jesus knows that His answers need to stick in some part of their souls, so He replies to the query with something that would have memory hooks, if only because it was so unexpected. "I AM the Way!" He adds the terms for verification of truth and living. In the context, He claims to be the source of everything humans seek. He's the only way to the Father. The only way you can understand the Father is to be friends with Jesus; it was worded as a feudal protocol. If you know Jesus, you know all you possibly could about the Father.

Here we have the radical statement that truth is personal, in the sense that you can't know God as facts, but as a Person. His Person is indistinguishable from the Person of Jesus, insofar as any human can know the truth. Everything that really matters in this world is wrapped up in getting to know Jesus. So, Jesus had to drill Philip on that understanding.

The Lord wondered aloud if they had learned much over the last three years. Could they not see the character of the Father in the things Jesus said and did? Did they not realize that following the teachings of Jesus included the miracles He had done, and more? If these men claimed to be His brothers in faith, they should operate in light of His teachings. On those grounds, He could persuade the Father to give them His Spirit. He went to great lengths to clarify that the Holy Spirit was impossible for outsiders to perceive, much less to receive.

Then Jesus said that the Presence of the Holy Spirit is His own Presence, much closer than being with Him in the flesh. He talked about the feudal meaning of love and commitment as obedience. That kind of love holds the promise of knowing intimately the Person of the Father and Son through the Spirit.

Jude, likely speaking what the others were thinking, asked how it was possible that they could see Jesus and the world not see Him. It must have been frustrating for Jesus, but He generously tried to get across that mimicking His moral character was manifesting Him in your body. This would release the Holy Spirit to breathe life into His perplexing teachings and make everything clear. Everything Jesus had said would come back to life in their souls.

This should all point back to the shalom that God had promised a thousand different ways. They had seen shalom in the flesh, and now that peace would linger for the rest of their lives. They had nothing to fear. Jesus was going to inaugurate a New Covenant in His own blood. They should rejoice that Jesus was leaving this world so that all the Father's promises could come pouring out of Heaven. He was telling them before it happened.

So the lesson was over and now Jesus had to face one last round of moral combat with Satan. Not that Satan had any leverage against him, but it was his job to try to divert Jesus from this final path. Jesus was determined to obey the Father's commission to the bitter end, in order to open a glorious eternity.

It's not as simple as saying I'm getting old. Living a long time in pursuit of faith teaches you a lot about yourself and what really matters. As I get older, there are some things that are no longer any fun for me. Crawling under a car to fix things is still okay, but I no longer enjoy the challenge of mechanical mysteries. If it's not obvious how to fix it, I am no longer willing to puzzle over it.

And for all my blather about the wonders of computer technology over the years, it's also wearing thin. If nothing else, the possibilities are no longer endless. The social and political situation is going to take it all away. That's how things go in this world. I still like using computers, and they are important to how I get things done, but in the end, they are just tools, nothing more. I'll keep that typewriter under my desk for when the time comes it's the only thing that can't be restricted by outside forces. I'm not likely to write much about computer technology any more, though it won't drop to zero.

As my individual personal resources fade away due to aging, I'm forced to consider the one remaining real interest I have in life: glorifying Christ. A lot of other stuff just withers away because it depends too much on the human situation. I haven't lost interest in living, but I'm a good deal more economical about what I'll invest in it. I know I'll still be tweaking how I do things to the very end, but the means of the doing is a lot less interesting than it used to be.

So maybe you've caught onto the one thing so far that yields for me a bounty to small investments: cycling. Closely attached to that is photography. Right now, it's the one human concern that still gives to me more than it takes from me. So you'll keep hearing about cycling and photography. I noticed yesterday as I was driving across Texas how many hundreds of things I passed that I really wanted to capture with my camera, but I would have never gotten home if I had stopped for them. When I'm cycling, that's never an issue. I've never liked the hassle of dealing with a car when it comes to pursuing photography. The car always got in the way of the shooting.

I might miss the convenience of having my own car, but I reckon I won't miss it enough to notice when I weigh it against all that it costs me in terms of personal resources. I'll keep my bike and camera, though.

Mom (Jeanette Porrell for those who don't know) has no idea how much of Doug's pension and benefits she gets to keep after his demise. His case was rather unusual with the VA and some of his compensation was for things like being a POW in Korea. She will visit with a DAV representative early next month to get assistance with all the paperwork, and is likely then to get an assessment of what's likely.

She feels quite certain she can't keep the extravagant house the VA bought for them because of his special needs close to the end. She doesn't want to leave the area and is hoping she can secure an inexpensive mobile home in a senior park in the next town south of here (San Benito, a suburb of Brownsville). She has a sister there and will likely live alone for the rest of her days. She also has a couple of good close friends here who have been helping her with everything, even a sort of adopted "son" who has done yeoman service taking care of things for a few years already. She's in good hands, but there are a million questions in her mind.

For me, I'll be leaving first thing in the morning. I'll keep Veloyce and Linda apprised of my progress via SMS. My plan is to stay on US 77 all the way to Waco, take the loop to avoid Waco, and join I-35 north of there until I get back to the OKC Metro. I don't have working A/C in the car, so rain means dangerously poor visibility. May the Lord be merciful to us all.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

The Seder was symbolic in the first place. It marked the birth of the Nation of Israel, the defining redemption of the Exodus. Jesus was keeping the symbolic context, but changed the meaning of the symbols. He was about to give birth to yet another new nation. The old covenant was being translated into a new one.

John recounts the same scene of this meeting from a different perspective, and adds something the others did not mention. He carefully notes that this is not the Passover meal itself, but the Preparation Day celebration some used to bind together friends and associates in a solidarity of national identity. But as Jesus' closest friend on this earth, John had insight into how Jesus was feeling about the whole thing. On the one hand, Jesus was about to face crucifixion. On the other hand, He dearly loved these men more than His life.

This would be the last few hours of teaching for them, one last chance to leave with them some critical impression. They wouldn't understand it right away, but after His resurrection it would all come to life in their hearts.

The meal itself was done. Now came a few symbolic rituals from the Seder. If there was ever a moment when Jesus the man was fully aware of His Messianic role, it was now. To demonstrate what that meant, He rose from His cushion at the table and took off His clothing, and then wrapped Himself in a towel, as if He were a slave. He took up the foot washing basin and proceeded to wash their feet.

A proper Seder requires sitting upright, as if ready to flee at a moment's notice, shoes on the feet. Because they were reclining on cushions for a Preparation Day "Seder", this ceremonial foot washing was very easy to do. They would have taken their sandals off when they came in the door. What was not so easy is how utterly embarrassing it was for Jesus to do this. Only Gentile slaves could be compelled to wash the feet of guests; it was forbidden to humble Jewish slaves this way. This meeting had been too private for such an arrangement, and it was common that the men would have washed their own feet once they arrived. Apparently they hadn't done this, so Jesus was taking care of it.

Again, the symbolism was powerful. In literal terms, feet got dirty in the nasty streets of an urban environment. The streets were treated more or less like public sewers, and everyone's feet would stink. Only the arrangement of lying on cushions with the feet out away from the table made eating possible without that wretched smell close to the table. If men were on their way to the Temple, they would have taken a ritual bath, and there were public baths scattered about the City of Jerusalem just for that purpose. But between the bath and this private residence, you can bet feet got dirty again.

They saw themselves as the servants and apprentices of Jesus, and here their Master was performing a humiliating and disgusting task.

There's no doubt Peter approached this event rather feeling full of himself. He was the eldest and had no doubt that he was destined to be Jesus' lieutenant in His reign as conquering Messiah. Perhaps that would come in just a matter of hours. The role reversal in this foot washing was shocking, so Peter objected. Jesus warned him that none of them would understand the point of this until sometime later. This was a ritual that marked them all as His disciples.

If cleansing were the issue, Peter was all for it. If this is what marks His court servants, Peter wanted all he could get. Jesus made the point that was opaque to them at the moment: He was showing them that serving is greatness. Spiritual truth turns the world on its head, because fallen humanity had turned moral truth upside down first. The basic condition of people coming into His Kingdom was that they be purified wholly from their fallen nature. Once that was done, it needed only the occasional reminder that contact with this world, like feet on nasty streets, would foul their purified lives. There was a need for regular maintenance to remain undefiled.

Their souls were safe, but the world was still a defiling place. Then He said something they didn't catch, though it would have been less confusing in Hebrew than it is in the Greek record or in English translations: You (plural) have been fully cleansed from original sin, but not every one of you. Of course, Jesus was referring to Judas as the one still dirty after the foot washing.

After He put everything away and put His clothes back on, Jesus got back down on His cushion and explained what had just happened. They called Him "Lord" as a feudal term, and rightly so. If His washing their feet was a proper demonstration of His Lordship over them, then it was for sure they needed to follow His example. If He can demean His human self that way, their human selves were certainly no better. They had been taking themselves too seriously with all this thinking and talking of becoming the new government of the Jews. If they could figure this out, they would be blessed, indeed. Spiritual leadership is rooted in sacrifice.

Then He added that not all of them were going to join Him in the Kingdom. He knew very well the men He had chosen for this task, and one of those whose feet had been washed was probably burning with internal conflict about this whole scene. Jesus wanted the rest of them to know that someone at that meal was going to turn Him over to the arresting authorities. Jesus noted that He was telling them now so they could mark it as a prophecy. Indeed, the Scripture itself had said the Messiah would face betrayal and sacrifice His life.

Then He reminded them that this was to be a feudal reign, even if not a literal one. If He could send someone with full authority to represent Himself, then it should be clear that the He had full authority to represent the Father in the same way. It was critical that their minds understand how feudal authority worked in a spiritual kingdom of hearts, because hearts are wired for it.

Then something in His manner betrayed a deep sorrow as He repeated that one the Twelve would betray Him. They were totally perplexed by this, but they understood by now He referred to an intentional act, not a bumbling accident. The author here refers to himself in terms of his sheer wonder that someone so holy and powerful cared so much for his company. John had a seat of honor in that he was right in front of Jesus. Peter managed to signal to John that he should ask Jesus who the traitor was. So, John leaned back and touched his head to Jesus' chest and looked up at His face to whisper the question. Peter knew Jesus would be unlikely to hide anything from His personal favorite, John.

Jesus answered that it would be the one to whom He gave the symbol of honor, a piece of matzo dipped in the bitter sauce. Then Jesus performed the little ritual and told Judas now was the time to act on the agreement. At that moment, nobody knew what Jesus was referring to except Judas. The private speculation among them was that Jesus had arranged for Judas to do something regarding funds, since he was the treasurer for the group. Judas left rather hastily, and John reminds us that this was after nightfall.

Gazing at the door, Jesus remarked cryptically that now began the moment of His and His Father's glory. His and the Father's glory was the same, and it was going to come immediately. He refers to the disciples as His dear sons, something they would have understood as a tender moment, and Jesus says it's not going to be long one. Rather, very shortly He was going to have to go away, and He meant precisely what He had told the Jewish leadership in a recent confrontation. He warned His disciples not to come looking for Him because they would not find Him in physical form.

Then, He said He would leave them with a new Covenant Law: They should resolve to have compassion for one another. It needs to be the same kind of compassion He was about to demonstrate for them in the coming day. That sort of love would be the public mark of those who served Him as their Lord.

But Peter, of course, was still stuck on the comment about going away. Jesus reiterated that where He was going in the next few hours, they could not follow right away. He obviously meant their time was coming, but this was His. We can be sure Peter honestly believed he was ready to play the good soldier for Jesus, and fight to the end. Jesus tossed it around verbally for a moment. No, Jesus knew Peter would pull up short at the final moment. Anyone else who knew Peter would be inclined to agree. Jesus said that Peter would deny knowing Him -- three times -- before the dawn watch. To match Peter's soldierly comment, Jesus used a specific military term for the last guard watch of the night, called "cock's crowing".

He had much more to say to them before that happened.