The Journey 298
Read: John 6
We live in a computerized and digital world where all our information's are stored on computers, tablet and communications are done through email and accessed through different digital medias. Thus to access all these information's each one of us has a password. What is important about password is that, we should be able remember it easily. But in today’s world the reality is that each of us have needs multiple password so as to access our Facebook account, our multiple email accounts, bank accounts, the daily utility bills and so on. What happens when a person has to have multiple passwords for his different accounts?. The normal routine is either have one password for all the accounts or have different password that are simple and easy to remember. Hence the number of password being hacked have reached enormous proportions. Recently in an article written by Jeff Schapiro in the news magazine Christian Post, brings to the notice of his readers about how in the spring of 2012 about 6.5 million password of site LinkedIn was posted on website to be hacked and how hackers obtained a file containing the username and password of more than 400,000 yahoo users. All because of very weak passwords that majority used in their accounts. Jeff in this context also brings to the notice of readers a list released by a Smartphone provider with regards to what are the strong and weak password people use. Some of the weak password that have been used and is still on the list from last year are “123456”, “12345678”, abc123, qwerty, 123123, and so on.. The new weak password that have been added to the list is “welcome”, ninja, mustang and password1. Strangely a new password that has been added to the list and is supposedly the most weak password. This word is “Jesus”. Strange...I was wondering why anyone would have used the word Jesus as a password. May be the word Jesus is the most powerful word in the life of a Christian, but to be used as a password? This raises a question as what is the ultimate objective in using the word “Jesus”. For many of us Jesus is a magical word used unknowingly in a vain and wanton ways, without even giving a slightest thought of the meaning of the word nor the context of the situation. Is Jesus a word that could be used as a password or does Jesus the Word leads all of us to new light and understanding in our life and calling, a Word that leads us to fullness of life is the focus point that we need to examine in our life today?
We are meditating on the theme “ Transformed Living” and the portion that we shall use for our meditation is from John 6. This is the portion where we find Jesus giving a new meaning to the concept of bread. In the beginning of this chapter we find Jesus having compassion on the multitude because they were hungry. He uses five loaves and two fish brought by a young boy to feed more than 5000 people. This miracle creates ripples in the mind of the people and they suddenly follow him everywhere [ v: 22 onwards] thinking that Jesus will always be there to satisfy their physical hunger. It is in this context that Jesus starts teaching his disciples and the crowd that followed him, not only about physical nourishment but also about spiritual nourishment. Thus Jesus uses the example of manna that their forefather ate, and told them that though they ate manna in the wilderness they died [v: 49], but He is going to give all of them bread of life and whoever eats this bread will not die but will live forever.[ v: 51]. This claim of Jesus offering the living bread is disputed by Jews and this also causes a huge argument among them. Even the disciples suddenly found the concept of Jesus “ of partaking in His Body and Blood” very difficult to comprehend and they also start complaining. This results into people deserting Jesus as he spoke these words. That is when Jesus asks his disciples whether they are going to stay with him or not and Simon Peter replies emphatically that “Lord where can we go, You have the word of eternal life”. Here is Peter emphasizing that though the world is only looking at Jesus casually, focusing only on using Jesus to satisfy their physical needs and material need, he affirms that it is only in Jesus that one finds Words to eternal life. As we live in this world we also need to examine whether Jesus merely becomes a tool or a word to be used as password, or to satisfy one physical and material need or does Jesus becomes the Word in our journey to the fullness of life that is eternal.
Rev. Dr. Joe Joseph Kuruvilla
We live in a computerized and digital world where all our information's are stored on computers, tablet and communications are done through email and accessed through different digital medias. Thus to access all these information's each one of us has a password. What is important about password is that, we should be able remember it easily. But in today’s world the reality is that each of us have needs multiple password so as to access our Facebook account, our multiple email accounts, bank accounts, the daily utility bills and so on. What happens when a person has to have multiple passwords for his different accounts?. The normal routine is either have one password for all the accounts or have different password that are simple and easy to remember. Hence the number of password being hacked have reached enormous proportions. Recently in an article written by Jeff Schapiro in the news magazine Christian Post, brings to the notice of his readers about how in the spring of 2012 about 6.5 million password of site LinkedIn was posted on website to be hacked and how hackers obtained a file containing the username and password of more than 400,000 yahoo users. All because of very weak passwords that majority used in their accounts. Jeff in this context also brings to the notice of readers a list released by a Smartphone provider with regards to what are the strong and weak password people use. Some of the weak password that have been used and is still on the list from last year are “123456”, “12345678”, abc123, qwerty, 123123, and so on.. The new weak password that have been added to the list is “welcome”, ninja, mustang and password1. Strangely a new password that has been added to the list and is supposedly the most weak password. This word is “Jesus”. Strange...I was wondering why anyone would have used the word Jesus as a password. May be the word Jesus is the most powerful word in the life of a Christian, but to be used as a password? This raises a question as what is the ultimate objective in using the word “Jesus”. For many of us Jesus is a magical word used unknowingly in a vain and wanton ways, without even giving a slightest thought of the meaning of the word nor the context of the situation. Is Jesus a word that could be used as a password or does Jesus the Word leads all of us to new light and understanding in our life and calling, a Word that leads us to fullness of life is the focus point that we need to examine in our life today?
We are meditating on the theme “ Transformed Living” and the portion that we shall use for our meditation is from John 6. This is the portion where we find Jesus giving a new meaning to the concept of bread. In the beginning of this chapter we find Jesus having compassion on the multitude because they were hungry. He uses five loaves and two fish brought by a young boy to feed more than 5000 people. This miracle creates ripples in the mind of the people and they suddenly follow him everywhere [ v: 22 onwards] thinking that Jesus will always be there to satisfy their physical hunger. It is in this context that Jesus starts teaching his disciples and the crowd that followed him, not only about physical nourishment but also about spiritual nourishment. Thus Jesus uses the example of manna that their forefather ate, and told them that though they ate manna in the wilderness they died [v: 49], but He is going to give all of them bread of life and whoever eats this bread will not die but will live forever.[ v: 51]. This claim of Jesus offering the living bread is disputed by Jews and this also causes a huge argument among them. Even the disciples suddenly found the concept of Jesus “ of partaking in His Body and Blood” very difficult to comprehend and they also start complaining. This results into people deserting Jesus as he spoke these words. That is when Jesus asks his disciples whether they are going to stay with him or not and Simon Peter replies emphatically that “Lord where can we go, You have the word of eternal life”. Here is Peter emphasizing that though the world is only looking at Jesus casually, focusing only on using Jesus to satisfy their physical needs and material need, he affirms that it is only in Jesus that one finds Words to eternal life. As we live in this world we also need to examine whether Jesus merely becomes a tool or a word to be used as password, or to satisfy one physical and material need or does Jesus becomes the Word in our journey to the fullness of life that is eternal.
Rev. Dr. Joe Joseph Kuruvilla