v. 25 “Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father.

v. 29 Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech.

30 Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

31 “You believe at last!” Jesus answered.

I wonder what they would have done if after they said, “now you are speaking clearly,” Jesus would have said, “you think this is clear? You ain’t seen nothin yet!”

Just as Jesus didn’t need people to ask Him questions to draw out the truth that was in Him, the Holy Spirit is going to be in these guys to guide and help them and teach them before they ask the questions. In Jewish culture, the way to learn and gain understanding was to ask question after question, leading you down a path of discovering and realizing the answers as you asked questions. Jesus doesn’t have to do that because He can see what is in people’s hearts to address their questions and needs before they ask.

How much more-so shall our joy be complete when we ask the Father and pray to the Father?! He knows what we need before we ask; He knows the words we speak before we speak them. THAT is how our joy becomes complete. When we ask God and see that He answers we have His perfect joy.

That word “complete” as in “that your joy may be complete” is the same word pleroo which is used for a stuffed net, filled up cup, full, stuffed, packed. I have some friends that I’m not sure would credit God with any event. Amazing displays of luck or chance are treated as random as mishaps or tragedy. I have noticed that as I ask for things from God, boldly and in detail, He shows off to me and my family by fitting into the box we put Him in. My joy gets stuffed when I see that God does answer our prayers and show off in our lives.

My call from Fire & Rain for an interview came after we prayed at lunch one day “Please God, make F&R call while we’re eating lunch today and call me in for an interview.” After lunch I sat down on the couch, kinda bummed and wondering where the money was going to come from. That instant the phone rang and the guy said, “I’m sorry to do this to you, but can you be here in 10 minutes for an interview?”

One 2-hour interview later he gave me the job.

If you look at Isaiah’s quote of God in Isaiah 29:13-14

[13] And the Lord said:

“Because this people draw near with their mouth

and honor me with their lips,

while their hearts are far from me,

and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

[14] therefore, behold, I will again

do wonderful things with this people,

with wonder upon wonder;

and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,

and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”

(Isaiah 29:13-14 ESV)

It looks like the main thing God wants is for people’s hearts to be close to Him. THAT is what it means to pray in Jesus’ name, to have your heart close to God.

for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. John 16:27

God LOVES it when we LOVE what HE LOVES! HE loves it so much that He responds and rewards and treats and almost teases us to ask for and LOVE MORE! When we love Jesus, we love God, and we follow His lead in reversing the wrongs done in Eden. Jesus’ life was the defining and deciding event in reversing the effects of the fall in Eden, and when we show love to God we show that reversal’s momentum in our lives.

Some of us had been to a sedar before, other people had read books, and everyone knew their Bible and was looking to learn a lot and have a lot of meaning in it all.

The biggest part for me was hiding the Afikomen. The afikomen is the center piece of the bread in the 3 pieces that are called ���the Unity��� it is taken out, broken, and half of it is hidden somewhere in the house. I hid it behind the couch while all of the kids were in the sitting room. We enjoyed our snacks of cheese, grapes, almond windmill cookies, and talked about all kinds of things, spiritual and unspiritual.

We ate some horseradish to taste the bitterness of sin, and drank down some wine to wash it away. Cindy said she thought her nose was going to fall off. Eric Youngblood took a huge chunk down in two bites. Isaac cried and cried to me that he wanted to taste the wine, but I told him he could only do it if he at the horseradish. I could tell that was an impasse, and he was just getting sad so I let him have a little taste. It blew him away. He hated it and seemed a little disappointed that he cried for it so, but was happy to get some grape juice after that.

At the end of the party, I told the kids that it couldn���t be over until they found the Afikomen. They took off in a mad race, running up and down the stairs, all over the place looking for it. I was so moved that I went in to the parents and we prayed that our kids would grow up to hunger and run after Jesus with such zeal passion hunger joy as they had seeking after the symbol of Jesus at Passover.

While we were praying, David came in and asked me if he could have a hint. I was so moved then that I told him it was downstairs and then prayed that they would ask the Father for help as they seek out the Son. David told everyone it was downstairs and they all came down to look for it.

As they were getting closer, I went back to the parents and said, ���Watch and see what joy there is then they find it.��� and just then I could hear shouts from the next room. ���I found it! I found it! I got it! It���s here behind the couch!��� and sure enough David came in jumping and stomping with the cloth napkin and bread held as high as he could over his head.

We haggled for the redemption of the afikomen, He asked $8 at first, I got him down to 50�� and then told him I���d give him $5 because Jesus more than paid for us, and then all the kids got PEZ. it was a really good time.

May we all seek after Jesus with such chaotic, driven fervor. May we not fear tripping down stairs while we run or banging our heads together, but run after the hidden and waiting to be found Savior of the world, and when we find Him, hold Him up as high as we can with a cheer of victory, knowing deep down that the Father designed this gift to be found from the beginning.

���Jesus said to them, ���I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.���

(John 6:53-56 NIV)

Whenever I eat communion, I think about this verse, but not in the way that you would think. I was raised Catholic, and even now communion is very very important to me. I even have trouble considering Pez communion real communion, but I know it���s not the shape of the bread that matters, really.

When I eat the bread and drink the juice, I think of the two things that are going into me, and what I want to come out of my life. When I eat the communion bread, I pray that the life of Jesus, what He did in His flesh, would be in me and in my life.

When I drink the juice, I pray that the death of Jesus, the blood that was spilled out for this sins of all people, would would be in me and in my life. I pray that the death of Jesus would be a present reality all of the time in my activities.

It���s not a condition of salvation. If I never have communion again for the next 50 years I���ll be ok. But it is a little ceremony, a ritual, that helps us remember where we get our life from.

I���m in no hurry to get my kids to eat it. Just as there wouldn���t have been any power in Peter grabbing Jesus by the heal and biting him in the calf, there isn���t any power in us eating our Pez communion bread. At the same time, there is no other prayer time for me, when I feel as close as can be to the Father, as when I���m in a monestary w/ a bunch of monks, eating communion in big flat disks and drinking real wine. Go figure.

��

On that same vein, it makes another comment about Jesus miraculously turning the wine into His blood before they drank it. If this were the case, they would have all drank blood at the ���Last Supper��� which would have been the first time anything like that had ever happened in Judaism, but a common practice in paganism. When Jesus said, ���I won���t drink the fruit of the vine again until the kingdom comes��� then what was he talking about?

They made the same mistake w/ Eucharisto that Nicodemas made w/ being born again.

John 6:35 �? Then Jesus declared, ���I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

See the parable:

Whoever comes to Jesus will have their needs met IN HIM, and whoever believes in Him will never lack the most necessary thing to all life. You can go well over a month without food, but you can only go about 3 days without water. In Jesus even our most basic needs for REAL life are met (and a lot of our needs for the life we see are met too)