Questions for Jesus

The Answer: God Takes Action

Jesus gave them their answer, not through words, but through his actions: healing, and caring, and offering good news to the poor.

John’s question, and Jesus’ response, teach us three things.

First, when we're confused or disappointed, wondering about who God is and what God is doing, we can ask. God isn’t offended by our questions or doubts. Second, when we ask, we might not get the answer we're expecting. Third, often the answer comes by watching where God is at work, not by a booming voice from the clouds.

So as you wonder, as you feel disappointed, as God doesn't quite meet your expectations — ask God about it, expect the unexpected, and keep your eyes open for his work.

The Answer: God Wants to Heal Our Bodies and Our Spirits

So what does this passage mean for us?

One, our spiritual healing is of utmost importance to God. Two, God, through Jesus, has the power and the willingness to forgive sin. Three, it is hard to believe. Just as the people in the room wondered if Jesus really could forgive sin, we too have trouble believing that we need forgiveness and that God wants to forgive us.

But Jesus forgave the man’s sins, and he healed his paralysis. He proved his power to really change who we are, physically and spiritually.

We too can come to Jesus for healing and for forgiveness, and then begins the work of reconciliation that can extend from person to person, healing the world.

The Question: Where Can We Get This Living Water?

In John 4, Jesus asks someone he’s not “supposed” to talk to, a Samaritan woman, for a drink of water. This question leads to a conversation about spiritual reality. This woman is a spiritual seeker, and she asks, "Where can you get this living water?"

Jesus explains. The only way to receive living water is through a relationship with him.

First, she has to admit who she is—the woman who has had five husbands and is living with a sixth man. Then, she has to believe that Jesus still wants to talk to her, still offers this wellspring of life. Finally, she has to understand who Jesus is—the Messiah, the one sent from God, the one who can offer living water forever.

Read on for Jesus' answer.

The Answer: Knowing Jesus is Living Water

Jesus initiates. He invades this woman’s privacy by asking for a drink and then by asking about her husband. But he does so because he wants a relationship with her. He doesn't want to give her something and let her walk away forever. He wants an encounter with her that will transform her, where the life he offers will spring up within her and pour forth to others.

So where can we get this living water? This abundant life? We get it by going to Jesus with who we are — with our faults and failings, with our distinctive personalities, with our families and histories — and by asking.

Jesus is waiting for us to arrive, ready to initiate with us. Ready to offer abundant, eternal life.

The Question: Don’t You Care If We Drown?

In Mark 4, Jesus and his disciples set out across a lake. Jesus falls asleep. When a tremendous storm comes up, the disciples work furiously to keep the boat afloat. Finally, one of them shakes Jesus awake and yells, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"

I used to think they woke Jesus up with the knowledge that all he had to do was say the word to calm the storm. Now, I think they woke him up because they wanted another set of hands to help bail out the boat. But Jesus changes the landscape entirely: "He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, 'Quiet! Be still!' Then the wind died down and it was completely calm." A few lines later, we read that the disciples "were terrified."

Read on for Jesus' answer.

The Answer: I Care Enough to Change Things

After our daughter Penny was diagnosed with Down syndrome, there were days when I found myself in a storm, desperate for help. And like the disciples, when I couldn't stand bailing myself out anymore, I snapped at Jesus, "Don't you care?"

Jesus didn't just step in with a few pointers on how to keep my boat afloat. He changed the way I saw him altogether. And he changed the way I see the world.

All of us will endure storms in this life. And many of us will have the thought toward God — "Don't you care?" This story reminds us that God cares deeply, and that God responds to our cries for help. But he does so in ways we can't expect. And in ways that can change us forever.

The Question: How Can a Man be Born When He is Old?

In John 3, Nicodemus, a religious leader in the Jewish community, approaches Jesus. Jesus tells him that he must be born of the Spirit, and Nicodemus responds: "How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb!"

When I've read Nicodemus' questions in the past, I've thought, "No, no, silly Nicodemus. Jesus is talking about a spiritual birth." But Nicodemus is right — childbirth is hard enough the first time. I marvel at the fact that my children once resided inside my body, and we certainly agree that it could never happen again.

When Jesus talks about being born again, he wants us to have a sense of how impossible a second birth really is.

Read on for Jesus' answer.

The Question: How Can We Know the Way?

Many years ago, I was driving with my sister and we realized we were in the wrong state. She asked, "How are we going to get home?" and I replied, "From here!" She burst out in laughter and suggested we pull over at the next gas station.

I thought back to those words: "From here!" when I read Jesus' encounter with his disciples in John 14:

Jesus said, "You know the way to the place where I am going."

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life.

Thomas wants a map, or a GPS system, or an i-Phone with an app titled: "How to get to God in a few simple steps."

Read on for Jesus' answer.

The Answer: Relationship

Thomas asks a simple question. He just wants to know the Father better. But Jesus says, "I am the way." He doesn't give him a map. He gives himself. He gives a relationship. He implies that observing certain commandments or living a certain way or seeking God's approval is not the way to the Father. But a relationship is.

All those years ago, my sister and I made it home in one piece. And what I remember was being together, laughing, sharing the journey. Similarly, knowing God is not about getting to a destination on time but being together right now. Jesus invites us not to follow a list of directions but rather, to live in God’s presence, to live with him.

The Question: Why This Waste?

As a writer, I currently make just enough money to cover the cost of child-care while I am working. So why keep writing when it doesn't pay the bills and it takes me away from our children?

I write because I believe God has called me to do so.

And when I read Mark 14:1-9, I take heart. In this passage, a woman pours expensive perfume upon Jesus' feet. The disciples can't believe it. "Why this waste of perfume?" The perfume is worth a year's wages. Shouldn't it have been put to better use?

But Jesus commends the woman: "She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me."

Read on for Jesus' answer.

The Question: What is Truth?

Our lives are filled with inconvenient truths: Brownies, bacon, and nachos are not good for my body. Watching sports does nothing for physical fitness. The truth about Jesus is inconvenient, too.

Pilate utters the question in John 18, after the Jewish authorities bring Jesus to him. Pilate doesn't want to sentence Jesus to death, and yet he is unwilling to make a fuss with the Jewish leaders and the throngs of people who are calling for Jesus' execution. He gives up, asking Jesus, “What is truth?”

The New Testament insists that Jesus was controversial, dynamic, courageous, and of universal significance. C.S. Lewis called it the "trilemma." For Lewis, Jesus was either a lunatic, making delusional claims about himself, a liar, deliberately leading his followers astray, or the Lord, telling the truth about himself.

Read on for Jesus' answer.

Conclusion

The questions range from sin to salvation, from personal crisis to philosophical doubt. They touch on topics of poverty and wealth, beauty and power, God and humanity. But over and over again, the answers Jesus gives bring us back to a central truth: the God of the universe, made manifest through Jesus Christ, wants to know us, and wants us to know him. The answers come back, again and again, to a relationship with Jesus, an honest relationship. Jesus invites our doubts, our fears, our emotions, and our questions.

His answers will surprise us. They will change us. They will challenge us. But the Gospel writers all attest to Jesus’ willingness to answer.

What questions do you have? Will you bring them to Jesus?