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We think of tombs as endings, final pages of the story. But for God every tomb is a transition. Think of the amazing global transition that started in Jesus' tomb. God reset the world and life will never be the same. What if the Easter tombstone is really your stepping stone? You know what a stepping stone is right? A stepping stone is something we need to go to a place we could never reach on our own. What if the trouble you're facing; the doubt, the darkness, the difficulty; what if the tomb is not your final resting place, it's the porch you have to walk across to go home. What if it's not a locked door, it's the key.

What if your tombstone is actually a stepping stone to something so good, you can barely imagine it?

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I am recording this episode for Good Friday. That first Holy Week Friday, the one before the first Easter, no one would have called it Good Friday. Traumatic Friday. End-of-Hope Friday. Last Friday. Dark Difficult Deadly Friday. It’s only looking back that we call it good. I’m going to do something a little bit different in this episode. Mostly, I’m just going to read the story. The gospel of John has 21 chapters, 2 of them, about 10% of the biography of Jesus is focused on that day. Friday. So I’m mostly going to read the story.

And spend a few moments pondering how it was such a dark, difficult and yet in the end, a very good Friday!

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Yes it appears to be a bit of a regression from John 17 back to John 13. But think of it as a recap to our look at John 14-17. John 13 is where it all started. The Lord's supper, last supper before the cross. If you listen to these as they drop, today is Thursday of Holy Week, the day that Jesus started the tradition of what we now call communion. And as we revisit that table meal, we are reminded that we follow a King whose crown is a towel. AND serving is His Way to blessing!

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Few prayers have driven and shaped my heart and my ministry like this prayer; Jesus’ prayer. And you know he prayed it with great fervency in the last hours of his life. It is his prayer for us, that we would be one, that we would be one, just like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one. He prays that we would live in such a compelling community that everyone wants to be part of it. But it's not easy, right? None of us are perfect, all of us are flawed and we bring those flaws into our relationships. So how do we live in this kind of community?

Here's what Jesus said, "I have given them my glory, so that they can be one." So I guess we need to ask the question, "Is his glory enough?"

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There is a prayer in John 17, a prayer between Jesus and his Father, just before Jesus goes to the cross. At the heart of that prayer is a simple request, "Father make them one. All those who will believe in me, make them one." Honestly I find myself grieved by how easily we minimize the unity at heart of his dream. He's praying that we would form a glory-saturated community that would reveal Jesus to the world around us.

And in fact, I will suggest that Jesus greatest prayer also reveals the great dream of his heart, a dream that continues to this day, "that we would be known by the quantity and quality of our love for each other. Jesus greatest dream became his greatest prayer. Sometimes it seems like Jesus-dream is little more than a pipedream. But if we love him, if we truly value the price of the cross, if we not only proclaim it but actually consider ourselves to be his followers, shouldn't his
dream, be our dream? Shouldn't his prayer, be our prayer?

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We are starting a new series at Calvary called "Homecoming" and I'll be putting them on each Monday. This episode is on the Palm Sunday story. It gives us a look at this reality. Often when Jesus comes into a city, a neighborhood, a school, he comes in with tears in his eyes and a fire in his heart. He comes in with tears in his eyes for those who are missing their encounter with him, and a fire in his heart for those who let it happen.

Which one do you need to see? The tears in his eyes, or the fire in his heart?

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What are you filled with? What fills your life, right now? We can be filled with a lot of stuff, good and bad. What are you filled with today? In John 14-17, Jesus begins to talk about the Spirit of God. If you remember back in John 7, he talked about the Spirit of God so filling us up that rivers of living water flow out of our souls! It's an uncommon call to be filled with the Spirit. We may not exactly be sure what it means. But we do know what it's like to be filled with something.

If someone says they are filled with grief, or filled with fear, or despair or anger or ambition or joy, or filled with love. We know what that's like. We know that what we are filled with dominates our thoughts, dictates our actions, perhaps even describes who we are. So what fills you up?

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John 14-16 is an amazing piece of scripture. Jesus is sharing his last thoughts before he dies on a cross, and changes the story of the world. It's his locker-room talk before his team goes out to play the most important game of their lives. And he is talking to them about life, about what they need to thrive in the hard times to come. In the space of a few minutes, he will use the word "remain" at least 8 times. That's the word that I want us to hang onto. "Remain" or some of your translations say "abide." The greek word translated remain can mean to take a stand against difficult circumstances, but it was also used to refer to close personal relationships.

So maybe the sense of the word is to stick close even when it's difficult. When trouble comes, stick close to Jesus. When it's hard to hope, stick close to Jesus. When you want your life to make a difference, stick close to Jesus!