Who did Jesus die for?

Every day we’re asking four questions about part of the Bible. Today Bern Leckie answers:

What did I like about today's passage?

While Christmas is about remembering Jesus’ birth, it is unexpectedly his death here which is our biggest reason to celebrate.

I love how John draws our attention to why Jesus died. This was not random or meaningless. It was the result of a choice people made about who should lead them. The fact that God’s people, Israel, chose the occupying power of Caesar over the rescuing power of God embodied in Jesus seems unfortunate misjudgement at best, ironic and self-defeating. Everything in John’s gospel has a purpose, though, and I don’t think he meant simply to report the news here.

I feel the spotlight on my own heart, my own choice of who I want to lead in my life. If I am ready to let God lead, I believe God reveals himself. If I am not, then even if God were in plain view, I would fail to recognise him or see how wide his arms stretched out for me on the cross.

Incredibly, I am reminded here that Jesus did not only die for his faithful followers. He died for every person in the crowd who feared and hated him, everyone who rejected God and his love for them, and everyone who was miles from faith and salvation across a hopeless divide. In his death, he showed there was nothing more that any opposition to him could do.

But in his defeat of death, he bridged that divide. He proved that there is no power which can get between us and God’s love for us. And so he made the way for us to receive this, and the new death-proof life which comes with it, by believing and following him.

What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

God has a purpose for us which is far bigger than getting involved in some religious stuff which makes us feel nice. He wants us to know the full extent of his love for us, so that we can respond and be filled with his love for others too. This is not a soft, sentimental love but a strong, self-sacrificial, earth-shaking, world-changing, unstoppable love that can stare death in the face and defeat it.

What am I going to do differently as a result?

It’s humbling to remember that it took a force this strong to unseat my poor choice of leader before I said yes to Jesus becoming “Lord” in my own life.

As I think about and pray for family, friends and colleagues who feel separated over Christmas – from each other physically, but also spiritually if they aren’t yet believers in Jesus – I will thank God for his ongoing love for all of us. Who needs to know more of his love and how can they see it in 2021? I would like God to lead me in how to share this.

Who am I going to share this with?

My family and people in my school community who have different positions on God but a common need and strong desire for better leadership, fulfilling purpose and massive love.