JOHN 12:1 – 50
Bible Study Notes Rev. Betsy Perkins
Jesus Comes to Jerusalem
- Have you ever been to a gathering of family or friends when things get awkward because someone said or did something that seemed outrageous or inappropriate, and the tension in the room becomes palpable? How did the situation resolve?
Jesus Annointed (12:1-8)
- What is Martha doing for Jesus on this visit? What is Lazarus doing for Jesus?
- What does Mary choose to do for Jesus? Why do you think she did that?
- How do Mary and Martha model the kind of discipleship that Jesus is teaching and demonstrating?
- How do you think the various people in the room would have felt about Mary’s actions? Martha? Lazarus? Each of the disciples?
- How do you think they felt about Judas’ reaction and outburst?
- If you were to close your eyes and place yourself in this scene, where are you? Who are you?
- How does Jesus respond to all the tension in the room?
- Jesus often expressed concern for the poor and directed his followers to do the same. Jesus described his mission with the words, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.”(Lk.4:18) So how are we to understand what he says about the poor in verse 8?
- Jesus may have been quoting from Deuteronomy 15:11. How does that help us understand what Jesus is saying?
This is an astonishing statement, granted Jesus’ repeated statements about the importance of the poor, and the kingdom blessings that would come on them. The only explanation is that Jesus believed that his coming death would be the action through which the world as a whole, including the world of poverty and all that went with it, would be put to rights. We who live on the other side of his death and resurrection, and yet still face a world of poverty, crippling debt and all the evils which follow from them, may find ourselves wondering whether the church has always got its priorities right. N.T. Wright
- In Jesus’ day there were several occasions for anointing – anointing to commission a new king or priest, anointing the sick for healing, and anointing a dead body for burial. How do these reasons fit Jesus’ situation?
King Jesus (12:9-19):
Joe Boyd, Bible Experiment – Gospel of John (RightNowMedia), 1:30:15 – 1:32:35
- A procession into Jerusalem with palms is part of the Hanukkah celebration of the coming of a new king (Judas Maccabaeus), but Jesus is entering Jerusalem at the start of the Passover celebration. What is the message when both celebrations seem to come together in Jesus?
- How does the “sign” of Lazarus fit in to this moment as well?
- Read Zechariah 9:9-12. How does Jesus fulfill this 500 year-old prophesy?
- What is the Pharisees’ complaint now?
Each of us belongs to part of ‘the world’. Our part has, most likely, only heard in a limited way of Jesus. It has probably not discovered that he was and is the true king, the true rescuer, the bringer of true freedom. As we watch his progression into Jerusalem, and on to meet his fate, we must ourselves be drawn into the action, and the passion, that awaits him. And we must ourselves become part of the means by which his message goes out to the world. N.T. Wright
The Hour Has Come (12:20-36):
- How is the Pharisees’ complaint immediately demonstrated to be true, perhaps even more than they realize?
- What is the sign to Jesus that his time has arrived, that his ‘hour has come’?
- How is Jesus’ death going to be like sowing a kernel of wheat into the ground? How this analogy fit as an answer to the request of the Greeks to see Jesus?
- Does Jesus really mean for you to ‘hate’ your life?
- Jesus says, “Now my soul is troubled.” What was he feeling? Why?
Troubled. Yes: the Word that had become flesh, the one in whom the Father’s own love and power was truly seen, the one who healed the sick, turned water into wine, opened blind eyes and raised Lazarus to life: he was troubled. Deeply troubled, troubled right down in his heart. Is your picture of God big enough for that? Or when God speaks, do you just think it’s thundering?
Jesus was, after all, the Word become flesh. Weak flesh, human flesh, flesh that shrank from suffering as we all might. His natural instincts as a flesh-and-blood human being were to say: the time has arrived – and is there some way I can avoid it? N.T. Wright
- Do you find the fact that Jesus was troubled to be disturbing or encouraging?
- What does it mean to glorify God’s name? How is that the key to understanding what Jesus is doing?
- What does it mean for us today to put our trust in the light? Who are the children of the light?
Belief and Unbelief (12:37-50):
- How did Moses explain Pharaoh’s continued refusal to believe the signs and obey God? (Ex.8:19)
- How does John explain the continued confusion and refusal to believe the signs of who Jesus was?
- Do those who believe in Jesus stand up for him? Why or why not?
- What was Jesus’ purpose for coming into the world?
- What does Jesus say will happen to those who reject him?
- What does Jesus say will happen to those who accept and stand up for him?
The challenge for us is unmistakable. Are we just going to go on with our conversations, as God unveils the project he’s been working on all this time? Are we going to complain that we wish he’s done something else instead? Are we going to say that we probably believe in it but would rather people didn’t know? Or are we going to admit to ourselves and to the watching world that in looking at this Jesus we have seen the glory of God? N.T. Wright
In light of this passage and our discussion, what one truth about God and about yourself stand out as something to “take to heart” this week?
Are there steps you will take, by God’s grace, to more fully apply it to your life?
Resources: NIV Zondervan Study Bible, 2015
N.T. Wright, John for Everyone, 2002
Max Lucado, Life Lessons from John, 2018
Joe Boyd, Bible Experiment – Gospel of John (RightNowMedia), 2014
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