The Crown and the Cup: Spoiler Alert
/ Connie Cook - Republished by Permission of Connie Cook
I just published the Bible study I’ve been working on that I’ve mentioned before (and sampled) in this blog. It’s part of a series I’ve called “God’s House Series.” The Crown and the Cup is Book 4. The Kindle version of it will be free on Amazon from December 18-22 if you’d like to try this one for free. And if you want to know what it’s about, well, here’s the very last reading in the book that sums it all up. I’ll include the readings and interaction questions as written. Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
~ ~ Week 6, Day 7: John: Joy ~ ~
DAY 7: John 21 — Joy in Glory
Read: John 21 + Psalm 8
Focus: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 4).
“The glory that you have given me I have given to them […]” (John 17:22a.).
Interact:
1—One more time: What do you want?
2—Has your list changed at all throughout this study?
3—How is what you want and what you do affected by what you believe?
God is an endless source of surprise! It’s too much story for this study (in fact, it will have to be a book of its own), but the story of how my husband and I met and realized we were being called together and got married is as full of twists and turns and surprise endings as any book I’ve never read (other than true stories). Don’t you love a happy ending? But only after a few plot twists and surprises along the way. Do you enjoy predictable plots more than plot twists? If you do, don’t read true stories. Certainly don’t read the Bible. But I feel almost sure that your answer to that question is, “No!”
Sometimes, I’ve wondered why the prophecies of the Messiah were so veiled to their original audience. They couldn’t foresee the way the story would go, even with it being foretold centuries before it happened. God can tell us in advance how He’s going to do things, and we’ll still be surprised!
In my love story, I believe there was quite a lot of foreknowledge God gave me to prepare me to recognize the man I would marry (which I did. Eventually!). But I now see that His speaking to me on the subject was similar to the way He spoke to the world to prepare it for the Messiah. There was enough information given that those who were willing to recognize the Messiah did recognize Him. But enough was hidden from them to blow them down with surprise when the full story was finally revealed. And at the heart of that story is suffering. That’s the part they didn’t expect. But it’s also what makes the story so gloriously beautiful. It’s when I look at Jesus and His suffering—that plot twist that is the glory of His story—that I start to get it. I start to grasp a little of the glory that can only come from suffering. It’s all part of the same plot: God creating us as creatures of freedom to love Him freely. That freedom birthed suffering in the first place, that suffering for which many are angry at God and demand His suffering as justice.
When we examine suffering and the anger it arouses in us, it’s justice that concerns us. There is a justice-instinct in us that demands the cause of the suffering be met with suffering back again for unjustly-caused suffering.
Plot twist: Rather than defend Himself against our accusations, even though it was humanity’s sin that caused God’s unjust suffering (which He allows us a share in out of justice), He came and submitted Himself to our skewed ideas of justice (skewed, because the sin is all ours). There’s nothing more we could demand of Him than what He’s already paid.
Then, He turns it around to show us how the plot twist really is the glory.
When I see the plot twist in my life of God’s promises to me coming true in such unexpected ways, it helps me see the glory of my own life a little more to realize that that’s just how God does things. That’s the glory of it! Like the Messiah showing up, looking so contrary to our expectations. But when we realize how much more glorious He is than our expectations, we see the glory. After all, if He’d been born in a palace and went out conquering the world, riding on a white steed as per our expectations—to be honest—“Ho hum!” Just what we were expecting. A predictable plot!
But you must realize that all those plot twists we delight in don’t come without a little suffering. The story is nothing if the main character sails through life with everything going his way.
Again, re-reading Psalm 8 for this lesson, I love what it reveals to us about God and His ways. The Maker of the universe stoops to our level. The Creator of galaxies delights in the praises of children.
But His beauty is magnified by seeing it in small, hidden places, like looking through an electron microscope to see all that is going on in a cell. Absolutely mind-blowingly mind-boggling! The God of the infinite is the God of the infinitely small as well as the infinitely large. And God shows His strength more powerfully through our weakness. When a little band of fishermen turned the world right-side-up it was obvious that it wasn’t really the fishermen themselves doing the turning. Again, God’s plot twists!
And now to John 21…Did you pick up any echoes from earlier stories in this story of breakfast on the beach? I can imagine the twinkle in Jesus’ eye as He multiplied fish for the disciples as He had on earlier occasions. I see Him reminding them of their original calling when He had filled their boats to overflowing with fish. Was He prodding, “Remember how I called you then to fish for men?” Then, as He took the bread and fish and distributed it, was He reminding the disciples, “Do you remember when I did this before? Do you remember the hungry crowds, feasting on the bread of my words, that also needed physical bread? Do you remember that I give good gifts, that I give you what you need, not snakes and scorpions? Do you remember that I told you to feed the crowd? And you went and found a young lad with a handful of bread and a few fish and brought it to me, even though you were embarrassed to offer it, being so small? And do you remember what happened next? Now go and feed my sheep! And don’t worry! It’s really me working in and through you! I’ll be the one multiplying your catch.” And a little band of fishermen, willing to suffer, conquered the world. What glorious stories God writes!
Now, go and search for His glory in your story!
