The View from the West Mesa

John 18.37: For this reason I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth. Jesus tells us more than once why He has come into the world. For instance, in Luke 4 He uses Isaiah to tell us that He has come to declare the “year of the Lord’s favor.” Earlier in John’s Gospel, John tells us that Jesus came to save and not condemn the world. In our text, Jesus tells us that He has come to bear witness to the truth. We find ourselves asking, like Pilate, “what is truth?” To what does Jesus witness?   Some commentators tell us that Jesus is king, that his kingdom exists, that the answer to Pilate’s question is “yes,” as in “Yes, I am the king.” I wonder though if this is everything Jesus meant; the only thing to which He bears witness is that He is king. The problem here is that this seems to put Jesus in playing a game with Pilate based on different meanings of king. Is this what Jesus was doing hours before He died – playing word games with the procurator? I ...

The familiar story of Naaman dipping in the Jordan is a story with more than a few twists. Let's review the story first. Naaman we are told had been used by YHWH to punish Israel and our story describes him as a man of valor in high regard by his boss, the King of Syria the current thorn in the side of Israel. It turns out though that Naaman suffers from some sort of leprosy.  On one of Syria's raids into Israel, the Syrians captured an Jewish girl who had found her way into Naaman's household as a servant for his wife. Knowing of Naaman's illness, she suggests to her matron that there is a prophet in Israel who could help him. This message gets transmitted to Naaman who takes it to his boss. The boss - the king of Syria, tells Naaman to travel to Israel and gives him a letter to Israel's king directing that Naaman be healed. Upon Naaman's arrival in Israel he gives the letter to Israel's king who reacts in a panic. He does not even consider finding t...