I was grateful for three sessions on John’s Gospel from David Ford at @CarlisleDiocese Cumbria Ministry Development Day 2022.

Here’s 10 tips that I took away from Professor Ford on reading, praying & living John’s gospel:

1. John talks in ‘waves’ – cumulative sentences that wash up on the beach like breakers, each one slowly building upon the other going higher up the beach.
2. Try re-reading John’s prologue as a prelude of perspective every time you read any other section of the gospel.
3. Translating the Greek verb pisteuo as ‘TRUST’ rather than ‘believe’ captures in contemporary language the sense of a relational response John intended.
4. Prayerfully expect the abundance of life & grace-upon-grace that John often describes to be your experience as you read his gospel.
5. John expects that his readers – as those who have “not seen” (20:29) – to read and to believe and so find life (20:30-31). The Word is present and active in these words.
6. Underestimate the presence of the Old Testament in John at your peril! John has less quotations but is pervasively immersed in the Scriptures of Israel.
7. People sometimes ask, ‘where is the church in John?’ Follow the beloved disciple, follow Mary, and see how they ‘remain’ in Christ, relating as a community formed at the foot of the cross.
8. As a broad brushstroke structure, John gives you a big horizon of God-and-everything (prologue), then the drama of Jesus, his life and resurrection, then the on-going drama of ourselves as disciples living with the Spirit.
9. Two key words: AS and SO. Throughout John, AS the Father does, SO the Son. This is crucial – and especially pivotal is 20:21 where we see our place in this. We are sent AS & SO.
10. You can’t get far in John without bumping into God’s love. The Father loves. The Son loves. We’re called to be loved & to love. This is theologically profound & yet the nature of our hearts means that pastorally it can inevitably be difficult to accept.

I hope I’ve articulated these fairly to Prof. Ford, & all credit to him for these insights. For any unintended errors or misemphasis, my apologies!

If trials are how God transforms us, then telling each other ‘You Got This’ isn’t enough to get through the year ahead.

Life Goals

As we stumble through these early weeks of the new year, I wonder if you’ve had a chance to consider what would count as a successful 2021 for you?

As Christians, we’d probably recognise there’s a number of ‘unhealthy’ answers to that question: getting rich; winning the plaudits of my peers; sculpting my body to resemble the images that bombard me online.

Whilst we might find ourselves tempted by the allure of those answers now and again, we’re likely to agree that they’re not what a Christian should be setting their heart on.

But what if we put the question in more Christian terms: ‘What would it look like to end the year more spiritually mature?’

How would we answer that?

And this is where I’ve been pondering whether even our ‘Christian’ answers may still reveal somethings gone amiss. 

Welcome to the Real World

I’m quickly learning to love the book of James in these disorientating times. It’s a part of the Bible often praised for being delightfully practical, offering an everyday faith.

But more than that, it’s also a portion of Scripture that is absolutely realistic about life. Take how James begins:

‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.’ (James 1:2-3)

Right from his opening gambit, James doesn’t hold back that life is full of hard things. Many kinds of hard things in fact. There’s no Instagram filter or rose tinted glasses here.

But to speak of joy alongside trials might seem a bit of stretch to our ears. How does one even consider the idea of rejoicing in the midst of pain?

The Posture of Perseverance

And even when we consider James’ rationale, noting that joy lies in trials producing perseverance (1:3), we might still raise an eyebrow. 

After all, in the midst of hard things, perseverance can seem like a pipe dream. Surely times of suffering are when we feel least like keeping going? Maybe you feel that right now? You’re hanging on with your fingernails here!

But maybe that phrase reveals the crux of the matter: after all, who are we hanging onto in such times? 

What if spiritual perseverance is less about the internal ability to resolutely persist come what may, but rather about having such an awareness of our weakness that we have ‘come to the end of ourselves’ and have thrown ourselves on something external to ourselves: God. 

To put it another way, as we feel weak and cling to the Lord, this is actually what it means to be steadfast. This is the posture of perseverance.

We learn to lean.

The Surprising Shape of True Maturity

Often we act like growing as a Christian means having it all together. But James connects this perseverance to the greater work of how God is shaping us:

‘Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.’ (1:4)

In other words, true Christian maturity is not about having it all together, but rather realising that we don’t – but knowing where to turn in the midst of that.

Of course in many areas of life maturity looks like becoming more independent – think of the small child walking without a hand to hold, or the employee no longer needing to be spoon-fed their tasks. But I think James would say that actually Christian maturity means becoming more dependent.

Yes, we want disciples of Jesus to have their own renewed minds, reflecting on their own circumstances and desires and days through the lens of the gospel. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that the cry of our self-determined age – ‘You got this!’ – is a vaguely Christian exhortation. 

Leaning into the Future with God

So as we scan the horizon for what 2021 may hold – for ourselves, for our churches, for the Church in this disorientating season – know that there’s few greater things that God could do for us than teach us to lean on him through hard times. 

Christian growth does not work like a board game, where if we land on the right space we can skip ahead to the finish. As we say in the UK, we can’t avoid the ‘hard yards’. 

In other words, James is adamant that we can’t get to Christian maturity without perseverance. And we won’t discover perseverance without trial. Learning to lean is the Christian life.

The Best Place To Be

But if we under any doubts about whether it’s worth it, just a few sentences later James crystallises where such leaning will lead us to: ‘Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.’ (1:12)

Wherever this year takes us, leaning on the Lord is the best place to be, because ultimately it’ll get us to the best place we can ever be: receiving the crown of life from the God we love.

Yes, there will be things we’ll face this year that we’d never have chosen to face.

But despite how hard those times may be, we can be confident that God is forming us through them as we learn to lean upon him.

He got this. And we can consider that pure joy.

No surprises if we feel rather glad to see the back of last year. 2020’s been plenty. Disorientating. Hard. Relentless. Sure, there have been unexpected blessings to give thanks for, but we grieve the life and lives that have been lost.

And is it me, or does the fact that it’s been such a tough year only increase the pressure to make the next 365 days altogether different? Of course, we all welcome a fresh start. And there’s some great gags about lowering our expectations for 2021. Apparently there’s some great odds for an alien invasion and gravity turning itself off…

But the reality is I’ve often found New Years Day slightly overwhelming. So much positivity and hype, yet part of me wakes up on 1/1 feeling unsure. Do you know that feeling when you’ve planned some epic hike, pulled into the car park, put on your boots & rucksack, and then find yourself looking up… I can just about glimpse parts of a path in the distance, leading over towering craggy peaks and into long tiring valleys. A new year?  I’m not even sure I’ve caught my breath from the last one.

But where is our Hope going forward? The dawning of 2021? The turn of a calendar? The prospect of a ‘new me’? I love a good sunrise and I’d love it to be that simple. But despite the Counting Crows song, rolling a dice and hoping the next twelve months will be ‘better than the last’ seems a recipe for disappointment.

So here’s a thought. At the start of the Christmas story, a bloke called Zechariah says that, ‘Because of God’s merciful compassion, the dawn from on high will visit us to shine on those who live in darkness and the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace‘ (Luke 1:78-79). In other words, we want a fresh start, a new year, but God gives us Jesus. As Eric Geiger puts it, ‘He is our dawn‘.

What will breathe life into this weak and weary heart? The warming rays of the love of a Saviour who goes before me, up every steep mountain and through every dark winding valley. And my weakness and weariness are not limiting factors but the terms of the deal, as he works in me to make much of His grace. Indeed, lining up behind him, little by little, actually I find begin to change. My drooping hands and buckling knees are lifted by the One who pioneered a way through this creaking and often cruel world. All the way to the darkness of a cross and the dawn of an empty tomb. Yes, he rallies my faint & fearing heart, giving me a selfless confidence as I stare into the unknowns of 2021.

More than self-confidence, ambition, and a fresh diary, what I need is to stick close to Jesus. So I join his dawn chorus: ‘His love endures forever‘. Yes, he is strong and kind.