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1. The Abundant Life In Christ
In our Gospel passage, we find a contrast between the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, and a thief. John 10.10 (NLT) reads:
The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.
John 10.1-18, a continuation of John 9, is a theological discourse set after a healing miracle (9.1-12), where a man blind from birth is healed by Christ, and the conflict with the Pharisees generated by the healing (9.13-41). The narrative amplifies the relationship of the Pharisees, meaning “pious ones,” one of the two main religious parties of the day, to the people. Jesus contrasts the Pharisees harmfulness toward the flock, though they claim to be caring for the sheep, with His benevolent and life-giving relationship with them, as exemplified in the healing.
John, like Matthew, evidences the conflict between Jesus and the religious elite: this is amplified in the genre of “conflict story.” His aim is to give life; their aim pertains to maintaining the religiousness that keeps their traditions in place at the expense of the flow of the life-giving Spirit among the people.
However, the life Jesus offers is not a mere biological life, nor is it simply what we might call a religious or spiritual life. The life Jesus offers is not, also, a life we anticipate after what we call “this life,” in what many call “the afterlife.”
Rather, Jesus offers, and now, “life in all its fullness.” Eugene Peterson, in The Message, renders the passage “more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” Many of us are familiar with the Authorized Version reading, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
Therefore, we notice the purpose of Jesus by noticing what he does not say to us. He does not say, “I am in your life so that you will wait for a better life in heaven,” “… that you might be more religious,” “… that you might be esteemed as a person of outstanding character,” … “that you might be known as a very spiritual person,” and so forth. Rather, as beginning in John 1, where the Scripture reads in verses 4-5, “Life itself was in him [the Logos, the Word], and this life gives light to everyone. The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it” (NLT), the over-all purpose of Christ is to bring fullness of life to every person. Jesus, as then, enters as the living Word into the context of death-dealing religiousness and the darkness of spiritual ignorance, to offer vitality and insight to everyone.
But, what is this Life? We can infer from Scripture what this Life consists of in abundance. Galatians 5.22-23 gives us insight into the nature of God, therefore, insight into the Life that flows freely from God, in Grace to all: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (ESV). This we can infer is the Life Jesus offers, and in abundance. This Life those prioritizing tradition, custom, law, ritual, and religion cannot offer, for this Life is the Life of God, flowing from the Heart of God, in Love, for everyone.
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Tradition, custom, law, ritual, and religion can, when serving best, offer means toward our receiving the Life Abundant. However, when they, as in the case with many of the Pharisees, block the flow of the Full Life, then, they have failed to serve their purpose and Christ needs placing back at the center.
In a poem in my book An Ache for Union, I refer to this Life, which I had discovered only comes from God in Christ to us each. The poem is autobiographical, implying my long search in religion for the Abundant Life in Christ, who preceded and will continue after religion:
Always Yearned
I've always yearned for You,
even when a little child;
I seem to have been born
with this ache for Union.
…
Do You remember when, a seeking teenager, alone,
I went into the woods, among a sanctuary of pines,
a longing face prostrated to the bare ground,
ardently seeking to be lost in Your Presence?
…
These prayer beads,
they cannot bring me Peace
nor give me prayer
from the Heart.
The Word of Life, so near,
came not through words
of a sacred book,
but preceded all script.
Beliefs, books, Scriptures, too,
rituals, sanctuaries, creeds, and much more
are conditioned mirrors, impure,
caused in time like I.
…
Breathe your Breeze, now,
let that Primordial Wind blow
and disrobe me naked, too,
from all that separates from the unrobed Presence, You.
Today’s Affirmation
The environment I walk in is
saturated with the Grace of God.
OneLife Ministries is a pastoral outreach and nurture ministry of the First United Methodist Church, Fort Meade, FL. For Spiritual Direction, Pastoral Counseling, spiritual formation workshops, Christian meditation retreats, or more information about OneLife, write Rev. Dr. Brian K. Wilcox at briankwilcox@comcast.net.
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