John 7:45-52

00:00:00:34 – 00:00:23:51
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Just a reminder, we’re wrapping up the week today, and we are also wrapping up the seventh chapter of John as we continue here in the gospel. It kind of, the seventh chapter is a little bit of a break. We we’ve been unfolding the same kind of narrative for a while now, and they’ve been connected.

00:00:23:56 – 00:00:45:49
Clint Loveall
And John brings that to a head today. So let me start reading 45. Read through the end of the chapter. We’ll come back and and try to, notice a few things. Then the temple police went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, why didn’t you arrest him? The police answered, never has anyone spoken like this.

00:00:45:54 – 00:01:11:42
Clint Loveall
Then the Pharisees replied, surely you’ve not been deceived to have you as any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd which does not know the law, they are accursed. Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before, and who was one of them, asked, our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?

00:01:11:47 – 00:01:41:08
Clint Loveall
They replied, surely you are not also from Galilee, are you searching? You will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee. So a follow up from Monday’s session, as we continued with the text just before this one. Now the ones who went to arrest Jesus now come back having not done that, and these Pharisees, these chief religious officers, want to know why.

00:01:41:13 – 00:02:09:54
Clint Loveall
And they said, essentially, no one has spoken like that. In other words, something about Jesus disarmed them. Just unsettled them and dissuaded them from following through. Now in other places, they would say things like, we were afraid of the crowd. None of that is here. That doesn’t work as well in John, in John there. Their reluctance is really more the sense of what they heard and what they see in Jesus.

00:02:09:59 – 00:02:29:28
Clint Loveall
It’s not going so far as to say that they believe Jesus, but they’re open to Jesus in a way that the Pharisees aren’t. And and the Pharisees. It’s an interesting way that they try to prove this, Michael. Well, surely he can’t be anyone because we don’t believe him. Yeah, yeah, the rabble might believe him, but have you seen any of us go after him?

00:02:29:33 – 00:02:40:43
Clint Loveall
Until that happens, we know that he’s nobody. Then, ironically enough, we get a repeat appearance from a man we’ve seen before here. Nicodemus.

00:02:40:48 – 00:03:00:14
Michael Gewecke
So it is in some ways a part of John here, where the narrative is just really moving forward. We’re going to be wrapping up some themes, and you have to do that when you’re telling stories. You have to have an ending that transitions into another section. And we’re coming into a really interesting section that we’re going to look at next week.

00:03:00:14 – 00:03:33:18
Michael Gewecke
But for today, the mistake that you could make would be to look at this text and say, that is merely wrapping it up. I think there’s a lot more happening here, as often happens in John. And notice who we’re bringing into the story, really a new character, Clint. We’re bringing in these police who give us an opportunity to see dialog happening, not between Jesus and the Pharisees, but the police and the Pharisees, people who are on the same team, so to speak.

00:03:33:23 – 00:04:00:59
Michael Gewecke
And what’s fascinating is the Pharisees come forward with this charge. Why didn’t you do your job? And notice the response. Never has anyone spoke in like this. And I just want to pause there. Clint. If you’re reading John, if you know all of these themes that we’ve talked about, right. The idea of the revelation of Christ, faith, having eyes to see who he is, that there’s never going to be enough, a miracle, enough miracles.

00:04:00:59 – 00:04:27:30
Michael Gewecke
If you see one miracle, that should be enough. What’s astonishing to me about this text is these police have seen a miracle. No one has spoken like this. No one has been able to teach in this way. What is unbelievable is the Pharisees, who are the chief teachers of the people. They’re the chief stewards of the religious life of the Jews at this time.

00:04:27:37 – 00:04:54:27
Michael Gewecke
Combined with the the people who oversee the temple, they come and respond to that with a very simple answer. Have you seen any one of us be convinced by that? Speaking as if, since we haven’t seen anything interesting in it, therefore we can be confident it’s not there. That’s the kind of hubris that John is pulling back. This idea that Jesus’s revelation comes in lots of ways.

00:04:54:27 – 00:05:18:45
Michael Gewecke
Sometimes it happens through the special knowledge, like he has with the woman at the well. Sometimes that happens with physical realities like the boat or like the food. Here it is revealed through his ability to teach in a compelling way. But that is not something that the Pharisees can see, because they’ve got some theological squabbles that they want to get worked out.

00:05:18:59 – 00:05:29:33
Michael Gewecke
And Jesus is never going to check the boxes that they want checked. And I think there’s an amazing kind of theological consistency happening here, even as the narrative is moving its way forward.

00:05:29:38 – 00:05:59:46
Clint Loveall
Well, and then I think John does the fascinating thing, Michael. So we we focus on that statement. Has any one of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? No, only the crowd. They don’t know the law and they are cursed. And then it says Nicodemus. Now Nicodemus shows up a few times in the Gospel of John at sort of odd intervals, and has a kind of journey that we’ll talk about later, but very interesting the way that John introduces him here.

00:05:59:51 – 00:06:23:42
Clint Loveall
Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before and who was one of them. What have they just said? Nobody who is one of us has paid any attention to Jesus. Now we see that Nicodemus, who was one of them, raises a question saying, we have to give a hearing, don’t we? We have to talk to him. We have to know more.

00:06:23:47 – 00:06:49:33
Clint Loveall
And they they ridicule him. You don’t know the scripture, but it given where the Nicodemus narrative is going to end up, it’s a very subtle but I think powerful thing that John does here in this simple phrase, who was one of them? None of us has believed. Well, then Nicodemus shows up, who was one of them, and, John doesn’t finish that story yet.

00:06:49:33 – 00:07:06:34
Clint Loveall
That thread is still going to dangle loosely for a while. He’ll tie it up toward the end of the gospel, but it is a foreshadowing. I think that when you know, when you when you know something of the Nicodemus arc in the gospel, I think this is really, really well done.

00:07:06:39 – 00:07:36:09
Michael Gewecke
There’s an amazing, not even so subtle movement here. If you look in verse 49, when the Pharisees, you could almost hear their voices, the the ridicule, the derision, this crowd, right? The hoi polloi, the people, they don’t even know the law. They are accursed. And then they say to Nicodemus, who’s given Jesus at least an initial honest hearing.

00:07:36:14 – 00:08:22:21
Michael Gewecke
They say to him, surely you’re not from Galilee, are you? Search. Look, open your eyes. Surely you’re going to see. Obviously that’s not where he’s going to come from. John has left us this amazing turn where, while the Pharisees are proclaiming curse upon the crowd for their inability to know the thing that they should know, we see the very one who has eyes enough to be open to, to hear, to listen what this man is teaching that those Pharisees themselves stand as the one who will be cursed, the ones who will not see the revelation of Christ, the ones who will miss out on the kingdom of God and its implication.

00:08:22:21 – 00:08:45:54
Michael Gewecke
That is the amazing kind of turn that you have these different characters at play. You have the temple police who are being accused of not doing their job, the crowd who doesn’t understand the law like they should, the Pharisees who have the answers and therefore don’t see Christ for who he is. And then you have this man Nicodemus, who we’ve seen before, who we’re going to see again, who is on this journey of transformation.

00:08:45:54 – 00:09:05:54
Michael Gewecke
And how does he get to the end of the transformation which we’ve yet to see? It is with openness. It is with a willingness to ask the question, who is this man and what could it mean? And there’s a kind of very simple wisdom in that no one is going to come to the faith if they do not have the heart.

00:09:06:07 – 00:09:28:00
Michael Gewecke
That is at least willing to consider some of those questions. If you if you start the conversation with a closed and locked door yet, then you’re not going to be able to walk through to see the revelation of the one who has come. There’s a kind of willingness required, and we see that in flesh and told. In this life of Nicodemus.

00:09:28:04 – 00:09:57:34
Clint Loveall
I think there’s a devotional sense to this text as well, because you have all of the characters in the background the temple police, the crowds, possibly Nicodemus. We don’t know that yet. At this point. They’re looking at Jesus right there. They’re seeing what Jesus does. And then you have the Pharisees and these religious authorities, and they’re looking at ticky tack rules, ticky tack laws.

00:09:57:39 – 00:10:41:00
Clint Loveall
They’re looking at single pieces of scripture. And yet they’re missing all of what Scripture has for foretold them, promised them, delivered to them. Right? Literally right in front of their faces. And I think there is a a warning for those of us in the faith to. Guard against the kind of legalism and a kind of small reading of Scripture and of Christ that allows us to put other people in boxes and and tempts us to miss the grand truths right in front of us.

00:10:41:00 – 00:11:10:52
Clint Loveall
I think this passage, though, I don’t know if it’s its intention. I think when we read it and ask what we can learn from it in regard to our own discipleship, I think one of the takeaways is be very careful. That your beliefs don’t actually get in the way of following Jesus and of seeing Jesus, who Jesus for who he is, seeing Jesus for who he is.

00:11:10:57 – 00:11:31:28
Clint Loveall
And I think the irony here of the people who look at Jesus, they they’re amazed. They see incredible. Nobody’s ever done this before. The signs, the wonders, the Pharisees who look at themselves and look for a way to keep their power. They miss it completely. And we’ve we’ve we’ve gone on about that in the Gospel of John.

00:11:31:28 – 00:11:32:56
Clint Loveall
But I think there is a warning in that.

00:11:33:05 – 00:11:55:48
Michael Gewecke
I agree with you, and I would only want to maybe intensify that a little bit, Clint, because with thousands of years removed, and especially if you grew up going to Sunday school, you’re likely not on Team Pharisee. Just to be honest, you’re likely have some bias against them. And by the way, John is, a big significant part of why that is within the Christian tradition, actually.

00:11:55:48 – 00:12:26:00
Michael Gewecke
But what you might miss is that they’re right. I mean, any Bible scholar of that time and quite frankly, into modern times, who’s reading the Old Testament is not going to find Galilee listed as the resume of the Messiah in terms of their biblical exegesis, their knowledge. They’re not saying something controversial. They’re saying the common wisdom. For a very long time, they would feel very confident standing on the ground that they stand.

00:12:26:00 – 00:12:54:22
Michael Gewecke
And that Clint is, I think, one of the marks of true wisdom, a person who you see and comes across to you as a wise spiritual learner. I think tends to be the people who understand that there are moments where humility demands that we hold truth with a little bit of looseness, not not in the essential nature of of who Christ is and what the gospel is.

00:12:54:27 – 00:13:15:52
Michael Gewecke
But there is a sense in which those folks say that the gospel is alive. And so therefore it’s always growing out of what I think it might be. And I need to be open and willing to, to allow it to critique, challenge, and push my own edges. And I think it takes a person of wisdom and spiritual maturity to do that kind of work.

00:13:16:06 – 00:13:46:02
Michael Gewecke
And here the Pharisees, as they may be intellectually and scholarly, correct in their assessment. That does not, however, lead them to the end that their soul is longing for. And I think for all of us, especially if you’re in the Presbyterian tradition, where intellect and study and thought is an important part of our faith development, may that never lead us to a position of closeness, where the Spirit of God cannot reveal and move us in our faith.

00:13:46:03 – 00:13:46:48
Michael Gewecke
Discipleship.

00:13:46:57 – 00:14:06:58
Clint Loveall
Yeah, there’s a dangerous irony seen in the Pharisees that those, in that case who are most confident and most comfortable in their faith are also the most wrong and the ones who miss it. And there’s that’s a caution for the rest of us.

00:14:07:03 – 00:14:27:46
Michael Gewecke
John’s now going to throw us a little bit of a curveball next week. And so I really, truly hope that you join us because there’s some really interesting conversation and insight and exploration and some bumps in the text that I think will be really, meaningful. And I hope that you will certainly join us for it. So give this video a like helps others find it as they’re studying, John.

00:14:27:46 – 00:14:34:58
Michael Gewecke
And certainly subscribe because we wouldn’t want you to miss conversations like what we’ll have on Monday. We look forward to seeing you then be blessed.

00:14:34:58 – 00:14:35:40
Clint Loveall
Take care y’all.