3-30-2016

Good Morning All!!

           John 20:26; “Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

    Have you ever wondered about why the Apostle John mentions that it was eight days later?  Some think it is only a measurement of time as in the next Sunday after Easter, perhaps.  Yet John writes with extra purpose.  John is the only gospel writer to specify that they used palm leaves on Palm Sunday.  This ties to Revelation 7:9 (the other place in the New Testament to mention palm branches) as the way to worship the king.  So does eight days mean something; probably.

     Jewish boys were circumcised on the eighth day.  Does it all connect?  Probably.  Think back to the creation and how the first six days all speak of “there was evening and there was morning” except for the seventh day, the Sabbath.  All we get there is that God rested with no morning or evening mentioned.  So the eighth day would be the first day of a new week.  Eight seems to be a new start.  The Jewish boy is now part of the covenant, something new.  John is telling us that something is new.

    As we look at this, we need to remember something crucial about the Scriptures.  Scriptures, especially the New Testament is a collection of letters.  These letters always have two readers.  It has the original readers who actually received the letter and then we are the second readers.  The original readers of John’s letters were living at a time of severe persecution.  So John includes words of hope and sometimes these words are more hidden then other times, kind of like getting around the censors.  Think of the high school graduate who wants to mention God in their speech but is told not to do this.  At the end of her speech, she sneezes and her fellow graduates yell, “God bless you!”  John is trying to comfort the people who are struggling.

    So as he refers to this now eighth day, he is reminding the readers that with the resurrection of Jesus, God is ushering a new age.  We are now in the age of grace and forgiveness; we are in the age of grace.  We have actually begun the end times.  As Jesus showed his victory over sin, death and the devil, he is ushering the kingdom of God that is the reclamation and the restoration of creation back to what it was designed to be, to live in perfect harmony with God.  We are in that process.

    We have the victory so we are just finishing out the time until Jesus returns.  Yet during this time, we as believers should try to bring as much healing and comfort to the broken and frustrated creation.  We witness, we feed, we heal, we comfort, we do all the things that Jesus did until Jesus finally returns and ends death forever and then ushers in the new creation where we will have perfect eternal life with him.

Merciful Father, in this age of the restoration of the creation you give us hope in Jesus.  You have brought us into your loving kingdom by through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Keep us in your grace.  In the name of the Risen Savior we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret