The opening scene highlights two ideas worth exploring:
1. The importance of keeping Festivals, Celebrations of God in our lives. Hanukkah was (still is, for our Jewish friends) full of symbolism & atmosphere. Festivals with symbolism & atmosphere are good for us & the way we live life with God & each other. Jesus, here, is celebrating it with gusto, presumably, as he celebrates everything else. How on earth did he come to attract so many killjoy followers?
2. The expectation that people would take the trouble to find out what religion had to say for itself. For example, by going to listen to the Rabbis teaching in the Temple porticos. In Jesus' case, find out what his notably different 'take' on God was. While there's still a great deal of public curiosity about faith & belief structures in general, everyone's an expert these days, entitled to their own opinion; so what the 'rabbis' have to say doesn't matter much anymore - unless, that is, it reinforces what we already think. But if Jesus is who he says he is, never has it been more urgent than now to focus on him & his demonstration of God. As God. Those who do choose to 'sit at the feet of' their selected teachers today are mainly scholars or extremists. They 'sit', some -times in person, sometimes with their books, & now, of course, the Web. Are we, for the most part, lagging behind in applying ourselves to the task of exploring God - sensibly?
Just suppose, for the sake of argument, that God were going to 'do the Jesus thing' all over again today. Would God not have to weigh up very carefully, whether to become incarnate might not be as attractive a proposition as to become a website: www.Godallinall. In full colour! Every link imagined & unimaginable. Then click on Chat.........! Seriously, how can we encourage people, including the seemingly committed, regularly worshipping types, to seek, diligently, for further clarification of God & God ideas? More than just listening to us & what we preach. If all they've got to click on is you & me, that's terrifying!
Four issues unpacked in the passage are: Messiahship, Sheep, Eternal Life, & God. Four questions worth exploring:
1. How are those of us not from a Jewish background to relate to a very
Jewish Messiah as our Saviour, today?
2. What's at the heart of being a Jesus-Sheep, today? Sheep are thick
as two planks, & too easily fleeced, aren't they?
3. How can we help 'Eternal Life' (= real life) have a graspable
meaning in today's fast-lane, fast-fix, fast-food society?
4. If Jesus is God, how come the God we promote isn't more recognizably
like Jesus? How come we're not, either?
