Monday: He Conceals and Reveals
WEEK 7
MONDAY
HE CONCEALS AND REVEALS
John 14:18-21
We passed quickly yesterday over one of the three stages—dependence, independence, and interdependence—and we must now go back to it for a little further elucidation. It is the stage of independence, the stage between his resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, a stage of forty days.
Many have been puzzled as to why he came and went after his resurrection. “It was still the first day of the week. That evening . . . Jesus came and stood among them. He said, ‘Peace be with you.’” (John 20:19). “After eight days . . . Jesus entered and stood among them” (v. 26). “Later, Jesus himself appeared again to his disciples” (21:1). Why did he not stay with them continuously? Why did he come and go?
He was preparing them to pass from the stage of dependence to independence, and eventually for the stage of interdependence.
During his absences, they made some mistakes. Peter did at least two unguided things and took the others with him. “Simon Peter told them, ‘I’m going fishing.’ They said, ‘We’ll go with you.’” And that whole night “they caught nothing” (John 21:3). That was unguided fishing, so they caught nothing. But under the guidance of Jesus “there were so many fish that they couldn’t haul in the net” (v. 6). He was there, leaving them on their own to make their own blunders but also ready to cover their blunders and help them out.
Then again Peter suggested an unguided move in selecting a successor for Judas. They presented two persons for God to select from, narrowing God’s choice through the method of casting lots—a method never used again—and in the whole idea of selecting someone by their choice, for God had another in mind: Paul. “Am I not an apostle?” asked Paul. He was, for he was chosen by Christ. Here Christ again covered their mistakes. They blundered into blessedness. But in their blundering, they became independent persons, sufficiently independent to invite in the Holy Spirit to take them and make them over and to cooperate with him. They could not come to interdependence except through independence.
O Christ, you hide yourself in order to reveal yourself more fully. You let me stand on my own feet in order to be free—free to invite you in forever. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My independence shall only make me more dependent on you.