“There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.”
– John 12:48
Hi James and Ellen,
When you get as old as your grandmaa and grandpaa are right now, what do you think that you will remember about of July 2011? When your grandpaa was your age – which is well over 50 years ago now, your grandpaa about this time in July remembers that he would be helping his dad harvest his dad’s crops of oats. Your grandpaa – when he was your age, would drive his dad’s John Deere tractor that pulled the binder that would cut the stalks of oats and tie the stalks of oats into bundles. Your grandpaa’s dad would ride on a metal seat that was on the back of the binder. Your grandpaa’s dad would pull a lever to have an oversized fork like thing that held the oats bundles as the bundles came out of the binder to drop the bundles to the ground next to another bunch of bundles that your grandpaa’s dad had dropped on the previous trip around that field of oats. If your grandpaa’s dad saw that the binder’s blades – that were being made to go back and forth by the power takeoff shaft that was attached to the tractor, had gotten caught in a clod of dirt, your grandpaa’s dad would pull on a rope that was attached to the takeoff bar on the tractor to stop the tractor that your grandpaa was driving so that he could clear out the dirt clump so that the binder’s blades could cleanly cut the oats stalks again. After your grandpaa’s dad finished cutting his fields of oats, your grandpaa’s dad would have your grandpaa help him shock oats. Shocking oats is to lean two bundles of oats against each other, then leaning on each end of the first two bundles of oats another two bundles of oats and then leaning a bundle of oats at both open ends – to close off the ends of the tent-like look of the three sets of two bundles of oats that leaned against each other. The July heat during the day where your grandpaa grew up on a 160 acre farm that is located a mile west and two miles north of Volga, South Dakota is usually sweltering. Your grandpaa also remembers that on some July evenings after his dad finished milking his twenty or so head of milk cows, that your grandpaa’s dad and ma would take their kids to Lake Oakwood where your grandpaa – while he fished, would eat what his ma fixed for supper. Your grandpaa – as he grew up in eastern South Dakota, has a lot of good memories of July summer days.
Well over fifty years had already gone by since his mentor – who was Jesus, was cruelly hung on and brutally nailed to a cross to die when Apostle John wrote his John Book. Why do you think that God – as God the Spirit, led Apostle John to write a book over fifty years after Jesus’ baseless murder? What do you think that Apostle John repeatedly relived or replayed in his mind? How often do you think that Apostle John verbally unpackaged with another guy – or with groups of guys and gals, what he experienced while he lived and traveled with Jesus, how he felt when he saw Jesus alive again – after Jesus was killed and entombed, what it meant to him when Jesus ascended into heaven and how he came to get it that ‘love’ has to be an absolute in a relationship that every guy, gal and kid has with another guy, gal and kid. John 12 is Apostle John recalling what the last few days were like right before Jesus’ gruesome, humiliating death on a cross. When Apostle John begins this chapter in his John Book memoirs, it is six days before the celebration of the Passover Feast. Apostle John recounts the day when Jesus – as He was on His way to celebrate the Passover Feast in the city of Jerusalem, stopped in the town of Bethany. Apostle John recalls that Lazarus – whose home was in the city of Bethany and who was a very good friend of Jesus, after having died, had Jesus bring him back to life. Apostle John describes an incident that happened during this visit in Lazarus’ house. As they were eating a meal that had been prepared for them, a gal – whose name was Mary, poured a pint of pure nard – which was a very expensive perfume, over Jesus’ feet. Apostle John conveys that Judas Iscariot – who Jesus chose along with him to be one of His twelve disciples, grouched about the gal doing what she did – as per Judas, the perfume could have been sold and the money gotten from the sale of the perfume given to the poor. Apostle John’s take of Judas – even though the rest of Jesus’ disciples let Judas keep their money purse, was that Judas was a thief who the rest of the disciples knew was helping himself for his personal use their ‘team’ money.
Apostle John’s recording of this time begins to ramble some as he reflects on Jesus’ grand entry – on a young donkey, into the city of Jerusalem, and on the knee jerk reactions of Pharisees against a Guy who they were jealous of and hated because of the miracles that He was performing and the messages that He was teaching – which were centered on His life being the way to eternal life, as a threat to their livelihood – which was built around how they could torque the Torah, and on a loud voice – which was the voice of God – as God the Father, that suddenly from nowhere thundered an answer to Jesus’ request – which was that His name would be glorified again through Him. Apostle John summed up these memories in his John Book by quoting what he remembers Jesus saying what His Father – who was God the Father, told Him to say about the guys, gals and kids who will reject Him. Verse 48 says, “There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.” Your grandpaa has great memories today of what God has done for him and for your grandmaa. What special memories has God given you for having accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
John 12 (1176)