John 19:17-27 | Food for Thought
Questions
At this one event of Jesus’ crucifixion, we see three different groups focused on three different things: Pilate and the Jews focused on the inscription, the soldiers focused on the garments, and the women and John focused on Jesus.
Why might each of these groups have been focused on their particular thing?
What did this event (Jesus’ crucifixion) mean to each of them?
When you think about this scene, what do you focus on? How does your reaction to Jesus’ crucifixion reveal what it means to you?
While Jesus was bearing his own cross, others were seeking their own gain.
Like Pilate and the Jews, how have you seen people use both truth and seeds of doubt about the truth for their own gain?
In what ways are you prone to use or undermine “sound theology” to score points with an opponent, make yourself look better, etc.?
Like the soldiers, how have you seen people care more about the stuff that Jesus offers his people more than Jesus himself?
In what ways are you prone to love, want, and cling to the blessings that flow from Jesus more than Jesus himself - and all that comes with that?
The women and John by Jesus’ side weren’t seeking their own gain, however. They were feeling loss. In the absence of Mary and Jesus’ own family (likely because Jesus’ siblings didn’t yet believe and were opposed to what Jesus was doing and saying), Jesus looks upon Mary and John with compassion. He establishes a new family relationship with hints of legal adoption language that’s built by spirit, not by blood.
How does the absence of the rest of Jesus and Mary’s family illustrate a cost of following Jesus?
After reading Mark 10:23-31, how do we see Jesus making this promise a reality at his crucifixion?
How does this reinforce, change, or challenge the way you see the church? Is there a weight to being “brothers and sisters,” “fathers and mothers,” "sons and daughters” in Christ that often falls flat?
How does what Jesus do here (and promise in Mark 10) NOT lessen the cost of discipleship? How does it offer something different… and greater?