John 21:20-25 “The Post-Resurrection Future”

Rev. Jerry Hoek

 
Introduction:
 
One of our friends back in Iowa once was telling us about her parents.  She said that her mother had a tendency to go on and on about things while telling something, while going down various side trails which really had nothing to do with the story itself.  Our friend said that her father would eventually simply interrupt her and say, “What’s your point, Jane?”  This has now become part of the verbiage in our household.  If Claire or I start wandering from our point in a conversation we might say to each other, “So what’s your point Jane?”
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It’s actually a slight variation on a question I often ask myself as I prepare sermons.  Frequently as I get towards the end of my first draft I’ll  think of you sitting here in these chairs and I’ll ask myself, “So what?”  This is all nice and good, but “so what?”  Three weeks ago, we celebrated the great fact of Jesus’ resurrection and we asked ourselves, “Now what?”  Now a few weeks later, as we continue on in our routines and the pressures of life and the struggles press in, we may be asking ourselves, “So what?”  So Jesus is alive and ruling.  What difference does it make?  So what?
 
As we conclude our study of John 21, I think we find the answer to the “so what” question in the ongoing conversation between Jesus and Peter.  Jesus, in fact, tells Peter now that you know me as your risen Lord, you must follow me.  That’s it.  We must be following Jesus.  Let’s read John 21:15-25.
 
I. John’s Current Role           
II. John’s Future                       
III. John’s Testimony
IV. So What?
 
I. We see John’s Current Role in verses 20-21.
 
Now before we look at the conversation about John, let’s look briefly at the description of John in verse 20.  John describes himself first as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”
 
Now while it is true that Jesus loved all His disciples, there was something very special about John and his relationship with Jesus.  When John refers to himself as such, he is not boasting about his love for Jesus; rather, he is marveling at the love that Jesus had for him that was so overwhelming.  For whatever reason, John had a special place in Jesus’ heart and he refers to himself in this way.
 
Moreover, John also identifies himself as the “one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is going to betray you?’”  It may well be that John is reminding his readers of his special place as the one who was sitting right next to Jesus during the Last Supper.  He is verifying that this is indeed the person that all the rumors were about.  John is making it clear that the person these verses are talking about is the Apostle John.
 
Verse 20 says that after the intense conversation that Jesus had with Peter, “Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them.”  More than likely as Peter and Jesus were finishing up their conversation, they began walking away.  At that point, John begins to follow them.  That is not at all unusual since Peter and John were also very close and where one was the other was often right there as well.  The word “following,” however, begins to hint at what is going to be important for all disciples.
 
Peter turns around and sees John walking after them and asks, “Lord, what about him?”  Now we don’t know how why or how Peter asks this of Jesus.  Some have said that Peter was made bold by Jesus’ restoration and prophecy of his place in the coming church and so asks like he’s taking charge of the situation.
 
I can also imagine Peter seeing John following and simply out of care or curiosity asking what John’s future might be.  Jesus had just told Peter that he would indeed die for Jesus and it would also be by crucifixion.  I can envision Peter seeing John and asking for a similar bit of prophecy for his good friend.  “Jesus, what is going to happen to him?”
 
Now while, we must be careful not to read too much into Peter’s question here, there is still a word of warning for us as Christians today.  In asking this question Peter walks a fine line between curiosity and caring.  We often walk that same line when we want to know things about others.  For example, if someone hasn’t come to church for a while, do we ask what is going on because we are curious or because we care?
 
There have been many times in my years of ministry when a person has asked me about someone else and have wondered why the person is asking and if their motive is good.  I must also admit that there are times I inquire of someone more out of curiosity.  For example, there is a couple in our neighborhood who are early walkers like we are.  We have overheard conversations that would indicate that not all is well and since then I have often wondered how they are doing.  Do I want to know because I’m curious or because I want to do something to help?
 
I think it depends on what we do with the information we are seeking.  If all we do with it is say, “Oh, ok.  I was just wondering,” but do nothing else that is a problem.  If, however, we ask and follow up with praying for that person or making a phone call or writing a note to someone, that I think is legitimate concern and care and validates asking the question.
 
The goal of our asking about someone else should be earnest prayer and specific action.  If we ask just for the same of knowing, then we need to hear Jesus’ words to Peter very clearly.
 
II. Jesus addresses John’s Future in verses 22-23.
 
Verse 22 says, “Jesus answered, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.’”  Jesus says to him literally, “what to you?”  It wasn’t Peter’s concern to be worrying about John.  Peter’s chief concern is to first of all to make sure that HE was following Jesus.  Peter must not be so deeply interested in God^‘s secret counsel regarding John that he fails to pay attention to God’s will for Peter.
 
This is a lesson that every Christian in every age should take to heart.  There is work to be done and there is a task to be accomplished.  Peter should focus all his attention upon this, not speculate on God’s deep and mysterious things.
 
Some people are always asking the wrong questions or asking so many questions that their real mission in life fails to receive the proper amount of interest and energy.  William Hendriksen gives this as an example of questions that are at times the wrong questions.  “It has been well said that a man who has been wounded by a feathered, poisoned arrow should not begin to ask, ‘Of what wood is this arrow made? Of what bird did these feathers come? Is the person who shot it dark or fair, short or tall?’”
 
What happens to John in the future may be of interest, but is not crucial to the coming mission.  What Peter must be focusing in on is following Jesus and taking care of the flock.
 
The rest of Jesus’ answer proved to have been greatly intriguing for those early Christians.  He says, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”  Jesus’ response would be the basis of a rumor that persisted for many years to come.  Some of the early believers missed Jesus’ main thrust of following Jesus and focused on the possibility that John might live until Jesus returned.
 
And so John issues a clarification in verse 23: “Because of this, the rumor spread among the brothers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?’”  The early believers are called brothers here because they are part of the new family of God.  Among them the rumor persisted that John would be alive when Jesus returned.
 
The power of a rumor is truly amazing!  Mark Twain once said, “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”  The same thing can be said of a rumor.
Bill Grayolis owns a flower shop in Campbell’s Creek, a  rural West Virginia mining town.  A while back Mr. Grayolis lost weight and rumors started around town that he had AIDS.  And then there was some graffiti and there were threats, he was labeled a homosexual and a carrier of AIDS.  Customers that he had known for 20 years stopped coming to his store.  One long time woman customer drove up and stopped and threw her check inside the flower shop but then she returned hastily to her car and drove away.
 
In response, Mr. Grayolis gave up the diet with which he’d purposely been losing weight.  He got himself blood tested for AIDS and proved that he does not have the virus.  He posted the medical report on the window of his shop, but the rumors persisted.  Now his delivery van has been trashed, his windows have been smashed, his business is ruined. Bill Grayolis does not have AIDS, but he was being destroyed by a contagious and ignorant rumor.  Rumors can be very powerful and persistent!
 
Thus, John lays it out very clearly that Jesus did not say that he would be alive until Jesus returned but only IF that were to happen, it would be of no business to Peter!
 
III. John’s Concluding Testimony is then given in verses 24-25.
 
In verse 24, John says, “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down.”  These final words form a testimony to the reliability of the author.  These words were written in the present tense by John and show that John was clearly still living.   The “these things” John mentions is the content of the entire gospel, not just this last chapter.
 
Then John says, “We know that his testimony is true.”  It would be great if we knew for certain who these “we” people were.  It most likely refers to the very early church leaders who had read John’s gospel and from their knowledge could attest that everything that John had written was completely true.  We don’t know who they were but we do know that they speak very confidently.  The main point of this verse is that what is recorded is truth and has been verified by others.
John then concludes: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”  The Gospel closes with a reminder that the author has done no more than make a selection from the mass of material available.  We know from reading the other gospels, that Jesus did many other things and John did not include them in his book.  In fact, John says that if all were to be written he thinks the world itself could no contain the books to be written.  With this hyperbole John lets us see that there is much more about Jesus than we know.
 
This serves as s good reminder of the limitations of our knowledge.  It is good for us to appreciate of the knowledge we do have and to show a gratitude to God for what He has revealed to us.  However, our knowledge of the truth is at best a partial knowledge.
 
Stop and think about those years that Jesus was on earth.  Most scholars think that Jesus was approximately 33 years old or so when He was crucified.  Of those 33 years, we have a record of only about 3 years.  Think of how much you do and say in 3 years time. It would be staggering to have a record of everything you did and said during that time.
Ken Boa writes, “In all, only about 50 days of Jesus’ ministry are touched upon in all the combined gospels. That means 0.046 percent, or slightly less than half of one percent of the days that Jesus was actively ministering are actually recorded in the gospels. Imagine all of the teaching, the conversations, and the ministry that we never heard about.”
 
There is a depth to Jesus that is so great, so expansive, so deep that we cannot begin to fathom it all.  When we go for our morning walk, usually the first thing I’ll do when I step outside into the darkness is look up to see the stars or to see if there are clouds that prevent us from seeing the stars.  When I see those stars, I feel so small knowing that the universe is so much greater than what I can begin to understand.  There is so much out there that we do not know.  This is John’s way of saying there is so much more about Jesus that he could tell but such a task would be unending!
 
IV. So What do we take away from this?
 
Let’s never forget the facts of Jesus.  Jesus wasn’t just a good teacher who lived long ago and did and said some amazing things.  There are a lot of people who view Jesus simply as that: a good teacher or an extraordinary man who said and did extraordinary things.
 
Jesus is the Son of God made flesh, who lived among us, eventually suffered and died in our place so that our sins could be punished.  In 1 John 2:2 John writes, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”
 
More than that, Jesus is our risen Lord!  Jesus is not a martyr for a cause, but the resurrected Lord whose resurrection changes everything!  Death is gone, the effects of sin and death will some day be gone forever!  Jesus is Lord and King who is ruling over everything right now.  So what?
 
Let’s not get bogged down in too many questions of speculation.  Now that is not to say there isn’t a place for asking probing and sometimes perplexing questions.  There is a place to discuss eternal questions and to wrestle with what the Scriptures say about things that are not completely clear.
There are questions that demand our attention to sort through them.  We want to know what happens to marriage in heaven.  We want to know about what happens when we die for eternity.  We want to know the deep things of God.  The more we understand the nature and character of God, the closer we will be drawn to Him.
 
But such questions must be asked within the framework of Jesus’ words to Peter: “You must follow me!”  If we are not advancing the kingdom by sharing the gospel and being the hands and feet of Christ in the world around us, then we have not heard Christ’s words to us today.
 
Then it becomes almost like a soldier who gets his specific orders for a mission on the battlefield and says, first let’s talk about the ethics of war and the ethics of this particular mission.  There are times to talk about such issues but not when the mission is pressing.  Or the policeman who ponders the role of law and justice and punishment when there is a thief who is running away with someone’s purse.  There are times and places for such discussions, but not at the expense of the mission and the task at hand.
 
On the other hand, we must not become so taken with the mission that we lose sight of the amazing greatness of God.  A cartoon in The New Yorker once depicted an American couple dashing up the steps of the Louvre in Paris shouting, “Where’s the Mona Lisa? We’re double-parked!”
 
Curtis Miller in God’s Man, writes, “Often we approach faith like this. We know it’s important, but we just don’t have time to spend on it, so we make our dash at faith as if we are double-parked.”
And so what?  We are to live our lives contemplating the greatness of God’s character and grace but we continue on in the mission He has given us as we do so.  We are to live our lives in obedience to Jesus’ commands, following His teaching, imitating His love and compassion for those around us.  Now that Jesus is risen and He is Lord, so what?  So follow Him.

Snapshots from Kenya – Lodwar (Part One)
 
 
After our very full and exciting experiences in Marich at the Marich Pass Center, the dispensary and the church, we resumed our drive north toward Lodwar.  Thus far we had seen the lush mountainous areas of Kenya.  Now the farther north we drove, the rugged mountains gradually leveled out to a rather flat terrain with the occasional tree dotting the horizon.  Instead of farmers tending goats, we began to see herds of camels, indicating the hotter and drier part of Kenya.
 
There were places where the road became a long series of continual potholes so our driver simply went off the road and drove on the packed sand for a few miles.  We also noticed that the farther north we drove, the windier it became.  The clear blue sky we had become accustomed to was gradually being replaced with a brown cloud of dust and sand as the wind swept across the flat land.  After a very long and bouncy ride we finally arrived in Lodwar.
 
Lodwar is a town with an odd mix of people and structures.  In one section of the town, there is a series of compounds that have been established by several relief organizations.  We saw signs for World Relief (not CRWRC), the Salvation Army, the United Nations and others.  Lodwar is a hub for relief workers and there are accommodations set up for them to use during their stay there.
 
The other part of Lodwar was similar to the other villages and towns we had seen thus far, but the style of housing reflected more of the desert conditions.  We stopped in a grocery store in the market area to buy some water and found everything in the store to be covered with a fine layer of dust.

 
That night we stayed in one of the compounds used for relief workers.  This is also where we saw the biggest beetle we’d ever seen in our lives!  There were no screens on the windows and the large bugs kept flying in through the open windows and landing on our mosquito netting.  Nonetheless we slept very well after our long drive of that day.
 
The next morning we took a ride out to the northeast to Lake Turkana, which would end up being as far north as we would go.  We passed an area alongside the road where there were several smooth pillar-shaped stones in various angles and positions.  Joseph explained that the pagan belief was that the stones used to be people who at one point came to this place to dance and do immoral things.  The “gods” saw this and were not pleased and so turned them into stone.

 
He showed us that there were small piles of stones on the tops of the pillars and said that the locals will stop by if they pass this way and place a small stone on the top to appease the gods so that they will be looked upon with favor.  As we stood there, we saw a young man return to his bicycle after having done just that.

 
A bit later, as we approached Lake Turkana, Rev. Murupus pointed out the building for the church that was the farthest away from the Reformed Churches in East Africa.  The structure looked more like a picnic shelter than a church, having no walls and a simple roof.  This small community of believers was waiting for a pastor to lead them to continue the building and to build the church there.  It was a stark reminder of how hard some of the churches have it in Kenya.
 
We continued on the lakeshore where we saw a boy watching the activities on the lake, fishing boats, men building and repairing fishing boats.  It was a scene of beauty, tranquility and simplicity.  These are people who are eking out a meager existence and in many respects it reminded me of what it may have been like on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in Jesus’ time.

 
Many of the things we saw in that part of Kenya were so harsh and desolate.  The stone pillars in the middle of that desolate place really struck a chord with me.  In the midst of that place, people were struggling to survive and some were pinning the hopes on some vague notion of spiritual forces that seemed to be more punitive than loving.  The believers there were struggling with a lack of walls and leadership and so it must have been hard for them to grasp God’s working and dealing with them there.

 
And then there was Lake Turkana, which as I said, reminded me in a small way of the Sea of Galilee.  I imagined Jesus on the fishing boat with His disciples, I imagined Him preaching to the crowds from another boat.  I imagine the people He spoke to having similar needs, feeling just as lost, some trapped in traditions that offered little hope and comfort.  I can imagine that Jesus’ words rang out with hope and consolation in that place.
 
I thank God that we have the ongoing difference to bring salt and life of the gospel to a part of the world that needs those things so desperately.  Please keep praying not only for our brothers and sisters in Kenya, but also that God may continue to open our eyes and our hearts as God uses us to further His kingdom.
 
Pastor Jerry                                                                                                                                         
April 2008