I Believe John

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  1 John 1:1–4 (NIV) That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. CONSIDER THIS John still can’t wrap his mind around what happened. It is as though he speaks these words aloud so his own ears can hear them. The curious and almost cryptic trilogy of phrases, “the Word of life,” “the life,” and “the eternal life,” reach to grasp a heretofore unprecedented category of reality. When a human being passes through death and comes out on the other side even more alive than before, we have an indescribable situation. “He is risen indeed” just doesn’t do it justice. Someone so completely human yet unutterably divine cannot be comprehended; one can only behold him. It leaves an eyewitness saying to himself as well as to his listeners something akin to, “If I hadn’t seen and heard and touched him with my own hands, I wouldn’t believe it either.” And this is the challenge of Easter. That Jesus was raised from the dead can never be proved, only believed. You ask me how I know he lives? John. I believe John. THE PRAYER  Almighty God, thank you for eyewitnesses to the miracle of your Son. Thank you for inspiring them to write it down. And thank you for the millions of disciples who have given themselves, and at times their lives, to get this revelation to us. Come, Holy Spirit, and usher us into the fellowship of the Father and the Son and reveal to us through John’s letter the indescribable mystery of the gospel. In Jesus’ name. Amen. THE JOURNAL PROMPTS What difference does it make to you that our faith is founded on the testimony of eyewitnesses and not merely on our own spiritual experience?