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New Year 2026 – The Gospel of John
To begin the New Year, we return to the wonderful Gospel of John, starting at the beginning of chapter 11…
- Monday 5th January – John 11:1-5 ‘The one Jesus loves’
I wonder what you feel about T-shirts with messages? It’s very much a ‘marmite’ thing: some people love them, others loathe them. I’m old enough to remember the phase many years ago when it was common to get back to school after the summer holidays and see a number of people walking around with following emblazoned on their front: ‘My friend went to and all (s)he brought me back was this lousy T-shirt.’ Thankfully I never had the pleasure, though I’ve often been partial to wearing certain brand names (purely for market research purposes), and do own football shirts, which rarely avoid advertising something.
How about this one, though: a few years ago, I listened to a church leader describing the T-shirt he really wanted to own – it said, ‘Jesus loves you’ on the front; and on the back it said – ‘…but I’m his favourite!’
If you were in church with me yesterday, you’ll have heard me reference this; I’ve no idea if he ever got hold of this garment – but it does beg a very important question: who does Jesus really love?
Today’s passage gives us a clue. We begin a very famous chapter, one of the most celebrated in the whole of scripture, with one of the most iconic stories: the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus, we are told right at the start (v3) is ‘the one you love.’
But not just Lazarus: two verses later, we learn that ‘Jesus loved Martha and her sister…’ (v5). This, of course, is being written by John, who describes himself regularly as ‘the disciple Jesus loved’.
It turns out this Jesus loves everyone. And not just ‘everyone’, as in one big lump of people. But individuals. Lazarus. Martha. Mary. John. You.
You are the disciple Jesus loves.
If you’ve never really taken a moment to think of it like that – take that moment now. Embrace it. Soak in it. Jesus loves, not just all people, but you – with all your flaws, faults, foibles and failings.
This really matters, for so many reasons, not least of which is that life is hard to fathom. Things happen we don’t or can’t understand. We’ll look at this in more detail tomorrow, but we get a glimpse of it here (v4): ‘This illness will not end in death,’ Jesus declares to his disciples – and immediately we’re thinking (if we know the story): but it does. Lazarus does die. What does Jesus mean? I don’t understand!
And that’s the point, isn’t it? There is so much we don’t understand. But this we do: Jesus loves us. Each one of us. You are the disciple Jesus loves. We can trust all things into his great love. Let’s do that today, and every day.