Believing Without Fully Understanding

John 20:8-9 (ESV) – Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

“How much of Jesus do I have to get right to be a Christian?” This is an important question. I have had many friends who believed some things about Jesus but wrestled with one or more key ideas before making a total commitment. Does we have to have everything figured out before we can truly believe?

John 20 tells the story of the first Easter Sunday. Mary Magdalene and two other women went to the tomb were Jesus had been buried to anoint him in the Jewish tradition (Mark 16:1). When they got there and found the tomb empty, Mary ran back to tell Peter and John, who ran to the tomb themselves (John 20:1-9). John used very interesting wording in his Gospel to describe what happened: He went in to the empty tomb, he saw that it was empty, and he believed.

Throughout his Gospel, John made it clear that believing is the distinguishing characteristic of a follower of Christ and the means to receive eternal life. He closed Chapter 20 with the Gospel’s mission statement: Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Believing is what grants eternal life. Yet, back in our starting passage, John 20:8-9, it is clear that John, the “other disciple,” believed in spite of not understanding something important: the Old Testament scriptures prophesied Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead.

What does this mean? We don’t have to understand everything about Jesus to believe in Jesus.

Does this mean faith is groundless? Absolutely not! John and Peter saw an empty tomb in vs 8. That was reason to believe. In vs 30 John says he chose to record the miracles he did so we could believe. You may have had a spiritual encounter that gave evidence of Jesus’ reality. Someone may have given you an answer to a troubling question that helped you overcome a hurdle to faith. Now, it is time to believe. What if you don’t understand everything about Jesus? That is okay. I don’t and I have a doctorate, read Greek, and have been teaching and pastoring for years. I know enough, though. I have explored and seriously considered a lot of belief systems and worldviews, and I know that the world makes a lot more sense with Jesus in the center than without him. He has changed my lives and thousands of others I know. There is lots of evidence for the Resurrection. I may not be able to answer every question, but I can answer many. I believe in Jesus, and he has changed my life.

I encourage you to take that step John took at the empty tomb. Go inside, take a look, and, even if you don’t understand everything, believe. You will never be the same.

Thirsty

John 19:28 (ESV) – After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”

Have you ever been thirsty? As a cyclist, I have learned how essential it is to stay hydrated on long rides. More than once, I realized just as the group was rolling out that I forgot to put water bottles on my bike. With the choice between missing a fast, but dry, group ride or being fully hydrated and alone, I usually chose the former, but by mile thirty, strange things started to happen to my body. If the group was on a longer route, I was begging to stop at convenience store or mooch some fluids by the fifty mile point, because I knew I would not make it much further. We need water to live.  

One of Jesus’ last words on the Cross was dipso – “I thirst.”  He certainly had reason to be thirsty after the beatings, carrying his cross, hanging on it for hours, and turning down the sour wine offered to him earlier. Yet, more was happening. Jesus had told the woman at the well a few years before, “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.” (John 4:14, NIV) He told the Jewish faithful at the Feast of Tabernacles, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (John 7:37-38, NIV) How could this Jesus who promised to be the source of eternal, living water for all who comes to him truly thirst? 

I believe Jesus’ words conveyed much more than the physical thirst he was experiencing. Notice the context John gave it: “Jesus, knowing all was now finished, said…” The Greek word for “all was finished” is the same as the last word he uttered on the Cross: tetelestai. (John 19:30) Its perfect tense drives the completion of a core objective. Jesus’ life mission was finished, but it cost him more than we can ever know. In some way beyond our ability to comprehend, paying the price for all of our sins – all the wrong things everyone who believes in him has done – cost him that living water he was, and now again is, so willing to provide. This is why John closes this segment with the words, “[He] gave up his spirit.” (John 19:30, ESV) He voluntarily chose to offer himself, but this included giving up that Spirit that was and is the source of living water. 

Yet, because Jesus was willing to pay that price, he won the greatest victory of all time, and we can all now be forgiven, have eternal life, and have the deepest thirst of our souls quenched by the living water of the Holy Spirit when we believe in him. Are you thirsty? Come to Jesus and be satisfied.

What is Truth?

John 18:37 - Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”



When the Jewish leaders finally resolved to execute Jesus, they had to hand him to the Roman governor of their region at the time, Pontius Pilate. Reading his story we find in the New Testament, in the non-Christian Jewish writers Philo and Josephus, in the Roman histories of Tacitus, and in the coins and engravings that bear his name, we get the sense he was an ambitious and opportunistic leader. His strategy in making a decision was nearly always, “What will give me the best outcome?” However, it seems his personal trial of Jesus really confused and disturbed him. What Jesus said forced to him ask a deep question, “What is truth?” Implicitly, Pilate was asking, “Is there an objective truth? Can I know it? If so, how will that affect the way I live?” That can be a frightening question to ask, but it can also give us a very encouraging answer if we are truly willing to ask it.



Many in our generation live the same way as Pilate. They base their decisions on what they think will give themselves the most and the best. If there is no objective truth that stands above my own opinions and desires, I can create my own truth to support what I want, but if there is a truth, especially if it is Jesus’ claim to Pilate, “The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (John 18:37, NIV), that means the final definition of truth is outside of my own ideas and even those of all of the leaders and thinkers of human history. Now, it is no longer my right to decide what is true. Jesus gives us the ultimate definition in what he told his disciples the previous night: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, NIV)



Pilate obviously wrestled with accepting the truth of Jesus that Good Friday (see Matthew 27:19-24, Mark 15:-9-15, Luke 23:13-24, John 18:31-19:16). Yet, in spite of an obvious conviction of Jesus’ innocence (and likely his truth, as well), Pilate chose not to allow that truth to shape his decision. He decided what he thought would keep himself in power, but crucifying Jesus ultimately did not help him. Josephus tells us Pilate lost his governorship a few years later. Writing shortly after that, Philo indicates Pilate’s career ended in disgrace.


If we accept Jesus’ claims of truth, we may longer get to define truth for ourselves, but we do get to know and experience the eternal Truth himself.

The Outcome

 John 17:1 - When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.”

It is often hard to see anything good in the worst of times. A few hours before he was crucified, Jesus opened his prayer with these words: “Father, the hour has come.” He knew His time to die the incredibly painful death on the cross had come. This would be unimaginable suffering. Yet, Jesus’ next words seem out of place: “Glorify your Son.” Romans used crucifixion to humiliate convicted criminals. How could Jesus expect to be glorified? The glorification came in how he died and, more significantly, that he rose again. He would never have seen his greatest glory if he had not gone through the crucifixion.

In His hardest hour, Jesus focused on the good that would come out of it. Jesus’ words in the next verse show how he would glorify God the Father: by giving eternal life to those God gave him. Verse 3 gives us the greatest message in all of history: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

We would never have had the opportunity to have eternal life had Jesus not endured the pain required to have the death to be resurrected from. Even in that pain, his eyes were on the good that would come out of it, and that good is what it means for us. We each can have eternal life when we believe and come know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.