Introduction
These are written that you may believe
Where does the journey to freedom begin? If you walk around downtown Boston you’ll start to notice a line of red brick marking the sidewalks. A two-and-a-half-mile pathway points the way to sixteen famous sites, with signposts and historic markers recounting the story of the American Revolution. The Freedom Trail, as it is called, directs you on a self-guided walking tour through colonial history. Along the way, you will come across signposts to describe the importance of places and significant events that are associated with our patriotic forefathers’ struggles for independence. The Freedom Trail connects a distinctive set of museums, churches, and meeting houses, as well as burying grounds, parks, and even a sailing ship. A leisurely stroll exploring the trail, guidebook in hand, on a crisp fall afternoon is time well spent getting re-acquainted with the people and places that secured for us our liberty.
Take, for example, the Old North Church. Stand outside beside the bronze statue of a man on horseback and look up at its steeples. Read the signposts and the guidebook and you can just imagine the dread and suspense of that April night in 1775, knowing the occupying British Army is soon to set out on an attack against the Provincial Congress in Concord intent on seizing weapons and arresting its outspoken leaders, John Hancock and Samuel Adams.
The Sons of Liberty, who maintained a network of secret spy posts to report on the British Army’s movements have devised a plan to warn the militia. But would the army advance by land or by sea? The pounding hooves of a hurried horseman rush past you as William Dawes rides out of Boston by the longer land route to Concord just before the British seal off the city, as secretly, Paul Revere makes an illegal nighttime crossing of the Charles River to wait for a signal. You can hear the heavy fall of booted footsteps on the stairs as Robert Newman, a caretaker of the church, carries his lanterns to the top of the bell tower. Lighting two lamps, the signal is lit for only a minute, lest their plan be discovered. With his eyes riveted on the church spire, Revere sees the signal from Charlestown and quickly sounds the alarm, and in an instant, with Godspeed, the famous night ride of the patriot begins, awakening village after village along the spy route, shouting, ‘the British are coming!’ We would not remember the events that followed the next day as the beginning of the Revolutionary War were it not for the bravery of those men. There would be no Battle of Lexington and Concord. The British Army would not have been repulsed and chased back to Boston. The light of liberty would have been snuffed out in a simple unheralded and unopposed army raid!
Reliving the moment in our imaginations can be both thrilling and enlightening. The events become experiences that we share in and learn from. The signposts, markers, and guidebooks are our windows into a world of the past. They fill the solitary place in front of us with colorful backgrounds and living characters. When we picture the scene and get an understanding of the backstory; when we rehearse the event and grasp its importance and historic meaning, we are deeply moved and changed for the better. The aspirations that motivated them are inspiring and begin to awaken the same in us. Certainly, it takes a bit of imagination, but the more you are able to recreate the events in your mind by picturing yourself as a spectator, or even better yet, as one of the participants, the more you’ll appreciate the importance of that moment and be impacted in your beliefs.
But where does the journey of freedom begin for you? For there is a journey we are all walking in life; it is a journey to Eternity. And if we follow the right path, it too will be a journey to freedom. In the pages that follow, I encourage you to take a different walk, with a different guidebook of freedom in hand. That guidebook is the Gospel of St. John.
In it, you’ll find the stories of seven events as retold by the Apostle describing what he refers to as ‘signs’. The stories are brief, and you may have read them or heard of them many times. But let’s take a closer look at the scene and the backstory. Let’s observe the characters more closely and better understand their motivations; and more importantly, let’s discover for ourselves the meaning of the signs and let them change our own beliefs. As is often the case with authors, St. John tells you his purpose for writing in an epilogue or addendum. But we should first consider his purpose here and discover right up front why it was so important for this follower of Jesus to document these particular events. When St. John reached the conclusion of his writing, he acknowledged the difficulty of having to choose from all the experiences he had first-hand knowledge of, so he wanted you to know why he recorded what we find in his gospel. He puts it this way at the end of the twentieth chapter; “and truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” John 20:20-21 St. John considered these seven signs to be enough evidence to us that Jesus was not just a teacher, a miracle worker, a martyr, or the founder of a new religion; He is the Christ (Savior and Redeemer) and the Son of God!
The path laid before you by the Apostle will lead ever upward, challenging you as you follow along to embrace the truth of his testimony. You may question, “who is this man, Jesus? Is He really whom St. John says He is?” Or perhaps you have a knowledge of who Jesus was, but wonder, “what does that have to do with me? Is it really relevant for me today two millennia later?” Hopefully, these signs will help you answer those questions. Each sign you encounter, step by step, as you are challenged to believe more and more, you’ll find that your own resolve against oppression, tyranny, and injustice, in all their personal forms, will release you from the oppression of sin, evil, and idolatry. As Jesus declares, if you believe the truth, it will make you free. And being free, you will establish yourself safely on the shores of a new land; a land where freedom over religion, fear, blindness, and even death, prevails to give you an abundant and eternal life.
Walking with John, the beloved disciple, and following the ‘signposts to eternity’, you too will have to decide for yourself what to believe concerning Jesus. Put yourself in the place of the Apostles and picture for yourself a re-enactment of the events as they are retold. In the chapters that follow, we’ll construct the setting and describe the scene, and inevitably there will be some interpretations and conclusions drawn from reading the accounts, but you should try to imagine yourself in the scene as a witness and participant feeling what it would be like to live in the event as it happened the very first time. That was how St. John experienced it; and we know what conclusion he came to. Could it be the same for you?
You might ask, “but why the gospel of St. John? Aren’t there four gospels? Don’t they sometimes record different events? Or describe the same events in different ways? How can they all be telling the truth?” Well, very briefly, let me just say that all these events were very personal to the gospel writers. And while Matthew and John were both eyewitnesses, they did not have the same background or spend the same amount of time following Jesus. Mark was a young man with a knowledge of his times. He may have been on the scene for some events, but he heard the details about most of what he wrote from Peter. Luke never met the Savior, but he meticulously interviewed many eyewitness believers, to hear, and understand rightly, and record part of the greatest story ever told. St. John makes this statement at the end of his gospel; “there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were recorded one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” John 20:25 And now, another of those books has begun! So, let’s follow the pathway together and consider the signposts; each will stir your desires, your determination, and your devotion. As you pass from one to the next, what you believe will grow stronger and lead to that eternal life that Jesus promised to all who believe in Him.