If you don't know where to start press here - or use the "Search"or "Contact" links.

Reachout Trust 24 Ormond Road Richmond Surrey TW10 6TH England Phone & Fax: 0845 241 2158 E-mail A company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales, number 4162936. A registered charity number 1087085

Printer Friendly Version - opens in separate window

This is the story of Jesus going up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles and the familiar question of his identity is on many people's minds. In verses 25-26 people are asking why it is that he is preaching quite openly and unmolested when just recently those in authority had been seeking to have him killed. Speculation is rife and many are asking whether the authorities had now come to the conclusion that Jesus was, indeed, the Christ.

The problem, of course, was that they had certain ideas about what would identify the Christ and Jesus didn't seem to fit the bill in every respect. In verse 27 we read:

"But we know where this man is from; when the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from."

Jesus' answer is very telling and a challenge to believers everywhere:

"Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, 'Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.'"

This is a terrible indictment against God's chosen people, you do not know him. Here are people who should above all people know the God whom they were chosen to serve, and it is clear that they felt they knew him very well. They knew "the law and the prophets", they knew the form and the ritual, they knew to expect the Christ of God to come and save them. Yet when he came they rejected him because they "knew" they were best qualified to identify the Christ and this Jesus didn't fit their preconceptions. The very one in whom only there is life (John 1:4), who only was able to offer that life to all who believe, life so abundant that it is described as "streams of living water" (v.38), this one was amongst them and they did not know him.

As Christian believers we can know much about God yet fail to know him. It is possible to carry in our heads all sorts of preconceptions about how God will work what God will do, and to what timetable, yet not know with our hearts the God who works all things to his glory and our salvation. Jesus declared on this occasion:

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." (37-38)

In his Confessions St. Augustine wrote:

"Who calls upon you when he does not know you? For an ignorant person might call upon someone else instead of the right one."

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

Perhaps it would be good to spend time this week seeking to know him better that we may believe him more fully and drink more freely of the living water he offers. Let us say with Charles Wesley:

Plenteous grace with The is found,
Grace to cover all my sin;
Let the healing streams abound,
Make and keep me pure within:
Thou of life the fountain art,
Freely let me take of Thee;
Spring Thou up within my heart,
Rise to all eternity.

Back to Readings Menu