Be Great

John was the most stylistic of the gospel writers - he would be a number 4 on the Enneagram. He’s insightful enough to point out the big themes and creative enough to do it very subtly. My favorite example is how he keeps track of the first days of Jesus' ministry with phrases like “the next day” or “on the third day.” Just like Genesis keeps track of the first seven days of creation, John keeps track of the first days of this new creation. He drives it home by starting with “In the beginning” and dwelling on themes from Genesis 1 like light, darkness and water. He’s taking all of the Bible, from Genesis through Revelation (which John also wrote), and making it into a single story about Jesus, his church and our place with both. Even the Spirit, who hovers over the water in Genesis, now descends to the water of Jesus' baptism.

So what?

God’s presence is tied up with the history we live in. He doesn’t just crash into our minds and hearts, he crashes into the dirt and grass we walk across, and he keeps crashing. He crashes into our jobs and friendships and hobbies and families. He crashes into our churches and politics and habits and choices. That means that our lives are important, from what happens in Crimea to how much junk-food we eat, so we need to take ourselves, and each other, more seriously. Finally, how do we take John’s big theme of God injecting himself into the world over and over more seriously?

1. Get really excited about the details of your life. Be aggressive in pursuing meaning and greatness, because God is there. Spend your time trying to be the very best at what you are doing, and if it doesn’t excite you, do something else, because whoever is most obsessed always wins.

2. Ask yourself how you can bring Jesus into those places. It may be better to ask how Jesus is already there, what is he already doing in that place, because the invitation to the disciples on the fourth day (v.43) was “come and see.” Come and see who Jesus really is, discover him in the details of your life.

3. We should probably read our Bibles and go to church too, because we need input that we haven’t curated or chosen for ourselves.