Lent Studies 2024 - Jesus is the True Vine
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Here’s an excerpt from the first study in Anglican Movement’s Lent Study Guide: KO IHU KARAITI TE WAINA PONO: KO WAI TĀTOU? JESUS IS THE TRUE VINE: WHO ARE WE?
”In our first study, we’re looking at John 14:1-14, and what it tells us about living with our identity in Jesus as our way, our truth and our life. In context, Jesus and his disciples are coming to the end of the Passover meal. Jesus has just said and done a raft of unexpected things that have left his friends feeling deeply unsettled: insisting he wash their feet, predicting his betrayal by one of their own, and in Simon Peter’s case, telling him that he will soon deny knowing Jesus at all.
RADICAL MANAAKITANGA
The need to be connected and accepted is one of our deepest human desires. We see this in this passage and the chapter before it. The disciples repeatedly can’t compute that they might be left alone: Simon Peter asking “Lord, why can’t I follow you now?” (John 13.37) and Thomas worried that he won’t be able to find This week’s reading is John 14.1-14. Read this together, then use the QR code or link to hear Esther’s story bit.ly/Lent2024Week1 7 8 Jesus: “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (John 14.5).
This anxiety is particularly prevalent in the younger people of Aotearoa New Zealand today. The recently released Church and Belief Survey1 noted that Gen Z survey participants were the only group to include ‘loneliness’ in their top three fears for the future.
It’s really good news for us now, and how comforting it must have been, then, for the disciples to hear that despite one of them betraying Jesus; of Simon Peter denying he even knows Jesus, that the manaakitanga, the hospitality of the Father’s house exists for them all: “In my Father’s house are many rooms…I am going there to prepare a place for you.” And in the centre of this the reassurance: “I wouldn’t have told you this if it wasn’t true” (John 14.2). Later the disciples will come to understand that this promise is not just for a life beyond earthly existence, but that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, will come and live within them.”
