Scott Freeman

Christ In John

Last night, Tracy and I had an insurance agent come by our house. Out of respect and deference I will not name the company. Now, the last thing in the world that I want to happen at 8:00 on a Tuesday night is to have to talk to somebody about health insurance.
My feelings about the state of insurance companies in America is well-documented.
But, Tracy begins a new job in a couple of weeks and we will no longer have coverage through her work.
Hence, the need to scramble and find a provider, stat.
So, this guy comes by last night to tout his company and its superiority to all the other insurance companies vying to not pay our claims.
An hour and a half later he left.
While he was there he painstakingly told us about every aspect of the coverage and all of the benefits, exclusions and supplementary riders.
So much for watching “Gilmore Girls.”
I kept waiting for him to get to the cost. Of course, I wanted to know the specifics of the coverage but the important thing to me was the bottom line.

I’m a bottom line kind of guy.
I can find myself getting way too irritated when people belabor a point and won’t get to the heart of the matter.
Tell me how much it costs first, then I’ll determine if I’m interested.
Hook me with the story in the first 30 pages or I’m going to a different book.
Grab me in the first 10 minutes or I’m changing the channel.
You know what I like? The Four Word Film Review.
They give a review of the movie in just four words. To wit:
Gone With The Wind: Scarlet has midwife crisis.
Titanic: It hit an iceberg
Casablanca: Rick loses chick.

That’s great stuff.
And that’s one of the reasons that I love John so much. My favorite gospel doesn’t beat around the bush all that much.
Whereas in the synoptic gospels we get a lot of Jesus telling the disciples not to tell others who He truly is, John dispenses with that pretty quick.
In the synoptics we hear Jesus say quite a bit, “Don’t tell anyone about this.”
It takes John all of 14 verses to tell us that Jesus is the Son of God.
And that is in keeping with his purpose: John writes so that we might know who this Jesus is. That He is the Christ, the very Son of God (John 20:30–31)

Where the other gospels give us a more historical account, Clement of Alexandria said that John wrote a spiritual gospel. The Son of God, The Messiah, the Christ comes into full view in the pages of this beloved apostle.
In John, Jesus boldly and unapologetically claims who He is. In the book of Exodus when Moses is dispatched as the great deliverer of the Hebrew Scriptures he asks God who he is to say sent him. God’s reply? “I Am Who I Am.”
That phrase, Yahweh, meant something to the Jewish reader. It was the very proclamation of the name of God. 23 times Jesus identifies Himself with the descriptive appellation “I Am.”
Seven times He gives us even greater insight to who He is:
–I AM the Bread of life (6:35)
–I AM the Light of the world (8:12)
–I AM the Door (10:7)
–I AM the Good Shepherd (10:11, 14)
–I AM the Resurrection and the Life (11:25)
–I AM the Way, the Truth, the Life (14:6)
–I AM the true Vine (15:1)

Unequivocal. Clear. Direct.

And in case we fail to get the message through the continuous assertions of Jesus, John provides us with seven signs that point to Jesus as God in the Flesh:
He turns water into wine signifying His place as the giver of life
He heals a official’s son signifying His mastery over distance
He Heals a lame man at the pool of Bethesday signifying his dominance over time
He feeds 5,000 signifying His sustaining power
He walks on water and stills the storm signifying His dominion over the physical world
He Heals a man blind from birth signifying the Light He brings to the world
He raises Lazarus from the dead signifying His victory over death.

I like that. There’s no waffling here. We know precisely who Jesus is in the gospel of John.

He is the Christ.