Sometimes the only way to advance is to retreat.
This seems contradictory, but we see it often in sports, in military campaigns, and in the biographies of business leaders. Sometimes people need to disengage from a struggle so they can regroup, resupply, and reinvigorate before advancing to victory.
At the halfway point in the Gospel of John, Jesus did this, too. In John 10:40 we read, “Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days.”
He went back to the place where it all started for him.
A few years ago, I had a chance to return to Montgomery, Alabama, the city of my birth. I was attending a conference there, and so I decided to take some time to visit the old haunts of my childhood. I stopped by the house where I was raised, and my elementary school, and the field where I learned to play football. Then I went to my childhood church and got permission to enter the empty auditorium. I went upstairs to the balcony and sat on the pew where eight-year-old me responded to the gospel call. I’m not a sentimental man, but it was a powerful moment to return to that place where my walk with Jesus began.
Halfway through the Gospel of John, we see Jesus doing something like that. He went back to where it all began. The place of his baptism. The place where the Spirit descended on him as a dove to empower him. The place where his Father said, “You are my Son in whom I am well pleased.” The place where John the Baptist said of him, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”
Four months later he would carry a cross to Golgotha. His retreat to where it all began prepared him to finish his mission.
If the Son of God needed to retreat so he could advance, you’ll need it sometimes, too. Let’s explore this story from Jesus’s life at 10am this Sunday on campus or online.
--Tom
Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.