John 20:1-18
I am the disciple that Jesus loved.
This was John’s declaration of himself. This was how he thought of himself. This reality shaped John’s identity. His head had rested only recently upon his Master’s chest. He was conditioned and entrenched in the reality of God’s personal affection for him. By most religious standards, John, in his simple childlike devotion, was outrageously presumptuous about His relationship with God. He had zero doubt regarding Jesus’ fondness of Him. He did not introspect about His fallen nature and the possible rejection by God it might portend.
John (who was certainly not without sin) had lived with him for three years and Jesus had never once harped on his depravity. John’s soul processed everything through this filter of unqualified acceptance and consequently he was spared the religious contortions of the soul which plague so many believers. He simply was not stalked as many are by guilt and shame.
The tremendously good news is that there is a safe place for us in Christ where we are immune from guilt and shame. In that space, which John pioneered, we can live joyously free in our identities which are rooted and founded in Christ. Our new identities, which have been freshly resurrected with Him, are eternally superior to our fallen identities which have been buried with Christ. Our lives, like John, can declare that we are those disciples whom Jesus loves. As we find our home in the broad and safe expanses of His love, we in turn will create safe space and shelter for those God has situated near us.
Father, may we lay hold of Your Life. May Your life lay hold of us. May Life shout, from our lives and lips, with a clarity yet to be heard in this earth, that we are the disciples whom You have loved. May our words and deeds make a clear declaration that You are risen from the grave and that you are transforming Your Church, exposing the lies of Satan, evicting him from his strongholds, reclaiming all that is rightly Yours. May every expression of our lives reflect that ours is a good and a sovereign God. Father, in our freshly acquired joy and freedom, receive the reward of Your sufferings. You are indeed astonishing.