John Sees Jesus
March 23, 2008 9:54 pm Sermon-TopicalEaster Sunday 2008. This sermon is an biographical treatment of the life of one witness of Jesus resurrection, the apostle John. This sermon follows John from the time he meets Jesus, walks with him for three years, watches him die, sees him resurrected and eats with him three days later, and then at the end of his life sees him once again on the island of Patmos. This sermon was originally preached March 23rd, 2008 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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March 21st, 2008
Pastor Duane M. Smets
“John Sees Jesus”
(selected texts)
Introduction
Good Morning Church. He is risen! Today is Easter Sunday when we as Christians celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
On past Easter Sunday’s we have done various things here. I’ve preached sermons where I try to present all of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and just put it out there for you all to hear and make your conclusions about it. The evidence is astounding and is intellectually nearly undeniable.
I’ve worked with a single passage and attempted to bring forth the theological significance and weight of the resurrection to the Christian faith, passages like Romans 4:25 which says “Jesus our Lord…was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” That’s huge, how the resurrection of Jesus is the God’s stamp of approval on the cross, that it worked and because of it God accepts those who put faith in Jesus as right or justified before him.
Last year, we looked at the passage in Acts, where the risen Jesus ascends up into the heavens to go sit on his throne and right before he does he calls his followers to go on mission. We learned that Jesus’ resurrection is inherently connected to Jesus’ mission. So Jesus’ church is on a mission to bring God glory by spreading the gospel to peoples through our worship and trust in him.
This year I wanted to do something different. On several occasions I have talked about significance of the eyewitness accounts from those who saw Jesus die and surely die and be buried and then witness him come back to life three days later walking and talking and eating among them for forty days.
The eyewitness accounts are powerful. They are still major factors in courtroom cases all over today. The most common objection or explanation concerning the resurrection of Jesus today, for people who don’t believe it really happened is very simple…miracles don’t happen, people don’t come back from the dead. So you come up with a theory that a few people maybe has some spiritual or mystical experience where they had a vision of Jesus.
That must be what happened because sometimes when people that you love and then they die, you miss them and have visions of them. Lots of people have stories like that. Then the explanation says “Well, these few men after years of these feelings and thoughts from these visions must have decided to write about it and how he lives in their hearts, resulting in what we know as the four gospels of the Bible. Everyone else must have kind of just went along with it at first to help the disciples feel better but then it developed into a religion.
The problem with this idea is not only the way the gospels talk about Jesus’ resurrection. The Bible goes out of its way to say Jesus’ resurrection was not just a spiritual event or hallucination by a few individual people because over 500 people at one time saw him living, breathing and talking. And on top of it, even if it was just a spiritual experience or vision then you have another problem…then you have to come up with a reason for how the church got started so fast and so strong and why these witnesses would have been willing to die for a spiritual experience if they new that Jesus really did not rise, because everyone of the disciples except John died
What I want to do today is a biographical sermon…following the life of one witness, John from the time he meets Jesus, follows him for three years, watches him die, sees him and eats with him three days later, and then at the end of his life sees him once again.
The text we are going to end up on is Revelation, so let me read that text as our primary text for today and pray for today’s sermon.
Revelation 1:9-18 “9 I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 11 saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” 12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lamp stands, 13 and in the midst of the lamp stands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”
The Initial Encounter
We’ll end up with John’s encounter with Jesus as we just read from Revelation, but I want to start at the beginning when John first met Jesus. John was a commercial fisherman in his family’s business from Galilee. He worked with Andrew, Peter and his brother James and Jesus comes to them one day while they are working and says “follow me” and the Bible says, “immediately they left their nets and followed him (Mk 1:16-20).
Now from the outset this initial encounter seem kind of odd. If you were at your desk working at your computer and this random guy came into the building and told you to follow him, and you just up and left and walked out of the place that would be weird. So let me help us with that first.
Being a fisherman wasn’t much different in many ways than it is now. How many of you have been out on charter fishing boat here in San Diego? Or maybe even just taken a walk down around shelter island lately. Fishermen are fishermen. They smell, have a big beer belly, and all have a big mustache. That’s just the way it is. J Same thing in the first century. It was a smelly, dirty, job.
Then Jesus comes along, he’s a rabbi, a Jewish teacher. In that day if you wanted to become a teacher you’d figure out who you want to study under, kind of like you do for a Ph.D today, and then you go and approach them and hopefully you can gain their favor and they’ll let you be their student or their disciple. Studying the law, and the Holy Scriptures…was on a completely different playing field then being a fisherman. Rabbis were of the respected class, fishermen were of the low class.
So here Jesus, a rabbi, comes along…it’s very likely he would have been wearing something to identify him as a rabbi by what type of robe he was wearing or the chord tied around his waist…and he asks these low class fisherman to be his students. This is unparalleled. Fishermen were not rabbi quality. It was already too late in life for them, they were set in their trade, and on top of it the rabbi is coming to them! So these guys are like, “Are you serious, your going to teach us and let us become your disciples? Okay. That’s probably why the gospel of Mark notes that John’s father let’s them go, he felt honored to have his son follow a rabbi.
The Son of Thunder
So John becomes one of Jesus’ disciples and John turns out to be pretty zealous. In fact, after Jesus had gathered together his twelve disciples, he took them up on a mountainside and he appointed and commissioned them, he names them all off and when he comes to James and John he nicknames them, the “sons of thunder (Mk 3:13-19).”
You’re like, “what is a son of thunder?” I think it kind of sounds like what it is, a “son of THUNDER!” We get a good pictures of John’s early temperament before the gospel really does a humbling work in his heart. It’s in Luke 9:51-56. Jesus and the disciples had gone into a Samaritan village, but the people there were not very receptive to Jesus, Luke just says, “they did not receive him.” So James and John, the sons of thunder, come up to Jesus and say, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
These guys are great man! I love them. I guess I’m kind of a zealot too. They’re seeing Jesus do all this miraculous stuff, so when people reject him…they get pissed and are like, “Let’s smoke ‘em!” James and John kind of remind me a little of me and my friends when we were in college and the movie “Fight Club” came out. After we saw it we were all hyped up and went out into the parking lot just determined to start beating each other’s faces in. We went out there but when it got down to it, none of us could go through with it. J
On another occasion in Matthew 20, Jesus is approaching the time when he’ll go to the cross, he takes his disciples aside and says this, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day (Mt 20:18-19).” So John and James go get their mother and go up to Jesus with a question. Jesus asks her what it is and she says this, “‘Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know what you are asking (Mt 20:21-22).’”
The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved
John was a zealous dude, he wanted to be Jesus’ right hand man, and he did end up playing a key part, just not like how he thought. Instead of power and prestige, he became a writer, a preacher, a pastor, and a martyr himself.
Jesus lets John sit next to him during his final meal before he goes to the cross to die. While they are eating Jesus tells the disciples that one of them will betray him. So Peter motions to John to ask Jesus since John is sitting next to him. So John leans back and in a whisper asks Jesus who it is and Jesus tells him (Jn 13:21-30). You get a sense of closeness and intimacy in this meeting. Years later when John writes about it, reflecting on Jesus’ mercy for him and his zealousness, on this occasion he calls himself, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” John became a softened man, struck by the compassion and grace of the Lord.
He only calls himself by this title a few times. The next time is at the cross. We pick up the story in John 19:16, you can follow along:
“16 So they took Jesus, 17 and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. 19 Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” 20 Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. 21 So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” 22 Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” 23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, 24 so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”
So the soldiers did these things, 25 but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
John is a broken and humbled man at this point. Jesus’ earthly father Joseph is probably dead, so Jesus entrust the care of his mother to John. John is devastated. I went home Friday night after our Good Friday service here at The Resolved Church and I laid down on my bed and I could not stop just wondering…what did the disciples do that night? Did they try and comfort themselves and make themselves feel better by eating or drinking or watching TV? Did they just go to sleep? Did they cry? Jesus is dead, John is devastated and on top of it now has the task of caring for Jesus’ mother.
Three days go by. I bet they were long hard days with many moments of reflection and sorrow. The ex-prostitute, Mary Magdalene gets up early on the third day to go to Jesus’ tomb and visit his grave.
John 20:1-10 “1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” (The Gospel of Luke interjects here and says that when Mary told them this, these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.) 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes.”
So John hears the news that Jesus rose from the dead and he and Peter start running. There goes the son of thunder! He outruns Peter and sees Jesus burial clothes lying there…they are all folded up nice and neat. Apparently, that was not enough, they were not convinced by a ex-hooker’s testimony, the rolled away stone, and some grave clothes…because they go home and a few verses later John tells us that he and the other disciples are in hiding together, for fear of the Jews. The Jewish leaders just killed their leader, now they are part of a revolt, a rebellion and are afraid that they are next. Now the son of thunder isn’t looking so hot wanting to be at the right hand of Jesus now.
Verse 19 of John 20, “19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” John goes on to tell of how Thomas, one of the other disciples touches his hands to see the scars where the nails were driven through, and he feels Jesus’ side where the spear pierced him (Jn 20:24-29). And then they are all convinced and Luke tells us that Jesus eats some fish with them (Lk 24:36-43), tells them to preach the gospel and start his church, and then Jesus levitates ascending into the clouds and disappearing.
The Church Takes Off Like a Storm
The church takes off like a storm. Peter preaches at the first service and more than 6,000 men, women, and children become Christians. Hundreds and hundreds had seen Jesus die that brutal death on the cross and then hundreds saw him alive, appearing and interacting with them off and on for forty days. Everyone had been wondering, what now, what’s going to happen, what are we to do?
So the apostles start planting churches. God is doing all kinds of signs and wonders, miracles, through them. They are preaching about Jesus and his forgiveness and love toward us and our sins. They’re calling people to repent before God and turn to salvation in Jesus. They’re getting thrown in jail and beat up left and right because this gospel is rocking religious and spiritual tradition and is turning the smartest philosophers heads inside out. Stephen is the first one to die for preaching the gospel. But they rejoice. Getting beat up, killed, none of it matters to them because Jesus is alive! You can kill us all you want because our Jesus is alive!
John ends up planting several churches: Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. He mentored Polycarp and other men to carry on the mission of the gospel. Several years go by. All of the other original disciples get killed for claiming that Jesus died and rose again and that there is forgiveness and salvation through him because of it.
Stephen was stoned to death. James was beheaded. Philip was crucified. Matthew was slain by an axe. James the Less was stoned and beaten to death by a fuller hammer. Matthias was stoned and then beheaded. Andrew was crucified on an X-shaped cross. Mark was tied to several horses which dragged him through the city of Alexandria until he died. Peter was crucified upside-down. Paul was beheaded by the sword. Jude, Bartholomew, and Simon were crucified. Thomas was thrust through with a spear. Luke was hanged. Barnabas was tortured and stoned to death. And John was the only one left.
He had seen a lot in his life. It is now the year 95 AD. John is somewhere between 80-100 years old. Domitian is the emperor of Rome. Here is an expanded account:
“This is John, the apostle of Jesus Christ!” the herald proclaimed three times. Hearing this, the crowd that had filled the stadium cheered wildly. They had gathered to see how the last of the twelve apostles who walked with Jesus would meet with death. The Roman Emperor stared at the old man. ‘So you are the Apostle John, are you ready to die?”
The emperor shouts that cutting off his head would be too noble a treatment for him and commands his chief executioner to have a burning vat of oil prepared. As the men rushed to fulfill his order, the herald proclaimed three times, “John the apostle will be boiled oil. The crowd cheered their approval.
The gruff voice of the guard brought John forward, ‘Get up Christian, the oil is ready.’ The crowd rose to their feet, clapping and shouting as the prisoner was lowered into the boiling oil. John raised his hands up toward heaven, praying to God. Minutes passed as John was now standing in the vat of oil continuing to pray. The cheers of the crowd faded into awed silence. The emperor stared at the apostle standing in the oil still alive, praying to and praising Jesus.
Frustrated, he turned to his chief executioner, who shrank from his gaze, ‘Is there no way to destroy this man? Get him out of my sight! And he banished John to the island called Patmos (Adapted from Jesus Freaks).”
Patmos was a small rocky, nearly uninhabitable island in the Aegean Sea. John was there for two years before the emperor changed and he was released and allowed to go home to Ephesus where he died of old age. While he was on that island, he saw the risen Jesus once more, who commissioned him to write a book, the last book of our Bible revelation. It had been over sixty years since he had seen Jesus during those forty days after his resurrection.
During his times with Jesus, he heard Jesus refer to himself as the son of God, he heard him forgive sins as only God can do, he saw Jesus on occasion exhibit divine knowledge over all things, divine power over creation, and he and the other disciples bowed down and worshipped him as God when he came and appeared out of thin air when they were scared and hiding behind locked doors…but even then, all the times he saw Jesus, for the most part he seemed to appear just as a man. Jesus held back a full display his divine glory. In this final appearance in the Bible of the risen Jesus, there is no holding back, it is a full display of Jesus in all his divine power, human beauty and kingly might! Listen to it once again, we read it at the beginning of the service.
Revelation 1:9-18 “9 I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 11 saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” 12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lamp stands, 13 and in the midst of the lamp stands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”
This is our Jesus. He is risen and he is risen indeed! John falls down in worship before him. This is the heart of Christianity, that Jesus is a real person who lived and died and that his death conquered death itself and three days later rose again and is alive today and offers us his hand of forgiveness and love for trusting him, putting our faith, and our hope and our life in his very person and work for everything.
Conclusion
If that isn’t a reality for you in your life, I pray it becomes so today. This isn’t about fanaticism or some sort of odd religious belief…it’s about the very nature of life itself. 10 years ago now, when I was 19, a sophomore in college, I read a book called “A Confession” by Leo Tolstoy. In it he writes this:
“My question…which at the age of 50 brought me to the verge of suicide…was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man…a question without an answer to which one cannot live. It was: ‘What will come of what I am doing today or tomorrow? What will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?’ It can also be expressed (in this way): Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? (beckoned to memory by Tim Keller in Reason for God)”
You see there are some things that people like about Christianity and some things people don’t. So here in San Diego the idea is that you just sort of pick whatever you like and don’t like and form your own religion. So some parts people like but will say, but this part I just can’t accept. But here is the thing, if Jesus really rose from the dead then we have to accept all that he said otherwise why worry about anything at all…it’s all meaningless. But if Jesus really rose that changes everything!
Think about this. For some of you, this idea, this truth, the resurrection of Jesus might just sound too fantastic or impossible to you…so let me say it like this. Even so, don’t you want it to be true? Who doesn’t want there to be real grounded hope in life beyond this life? Who does want it all to actually mean something and count for something? Who doesn’t really care about justice and the poor and suffering and disease? Everyone does. We want resurrection. Our bodies and this world needs resurrection or else it will be burned up by the sun or taken out by some major catastrophe. Resurrection is the thing our soul longs for and Jesus secured it.
What we are left with without it, without Jesus…is ourselves. We are left to our own fears, our own temporary fulfillments or comforts, our own piecemeal philosophies that don’t work, our own sadness and pain and loneliness, our own guilt and pride, our own misery in a life apart from the true God.
John was transformed by the resurrection Jesus. Before Jesus he was a prideful, quick-tempered, power hungry dude. But after walking with Jesus for three years, having his pride, temper, and human power crushed…a new John emerged. A changed John. A humbled John, who like his Lord no longer looked on sinner with hatred and contempt but with compassion and love…who was will to be beat and dipped in a vat of oil and banished to an island because of his steadfast love for Christ and the mission of spreading the gospel.
What are your fears? What are you hoping will happen for you in your life? None of it matters if it doesn’t have anything to do with Jesus. Jesus died for us that our sins my be put to death in his cross and that we might be raised to new life. Put your faith in him today for he lives, he live, he lives!!!
Let’s pray.