Illustration: (Slide) Emma beats me in Wii boxing.
Historically, students aren’t supposed to grow up and outdo their teachers or
mentors. But every once in a while a student or an athlete or a scholar or a
business person develops into so much more than his or her teacher ever
imagined.
That’s what it sounds like when we read this conversation between Jesus and his
disciples just before his arrest, trial and execution. He’s clearly speaking in
some kind of code to them, and they’re having the worst time trying to figure
out what he really means.
He’s trying to explain what’s about to happen to him, but he’s no talking about
the details of his arrest or the way he’s going to be tortured. He wants to
explain the meaning of what he’s going to do. And he wants them to have some
idea of the meaning behind what they’re going to do once he’s gone.
He tells them he’s going to go away to his father, but that they can’t come
along with him. But he says he’s going to come back and take them to the place
where he’s going. They say that they want to see his father, but he tells them
that when they’ve seen him, they’ve seen his father.
So does that mean he’s not really going anywhere? How is he going to go away to
his father if the father is in him? Sounds like a really short trip, right? How
do we understand the relationship between Jesus and his heavenly father in John?
Well that’s been a debate for the past 2000 years if you want to know the truth.
There’s been a formula in the church for understanding just how this works since
the 5th century. But most Christians, even those who insist they believe in the
Trinity, couldn’t explain it to you.
This week scientists in Spain cloned a killer bull named Got from the DNA of a
champion fighting bull named Vasito. Got is described as an exact replica of
Vasito, a muscular, horned bull like the ones matadors face in a bullring.
But Jesus is not related to the father like that in John. Got and Vasito have
the same DNA, but they don’t both inhabit the same body. They each have separate
bodies, which is not the way the church has understood the relationship between
Jesus and the father.
I once had an area minister, someone who worked for our denomination and
supported me and the other pastors in our area, who described the relationship
between Jesus and the father as the same person operating in different roles.
He said, “I’m a father to my kids, and I’m a son to my parents.” I don’t think
he had an analogy for the Holy Spirit in that scenario. Now that sounds nice,
but again, it’s not what the church teaches about the relationship between Jesus
and the father.
My pastor friend was both a father and a son, but unless he had
multi-personality disorder that I didn’t know about, he was the only person who
inhabited his body. There wasn’t someone else in his body.
Most Christians, Catholics and Protestants alike, agree that the Bible points to
a God who is three persons, but those three persons inhabit one body, though we
wouldn’t say God has a body.
Christians believe that the substance God’s made of is spirit, whereas the
substance we’re made of is flesh and bone. Only one person lives in our body,
and that’s us. But in the case of spirit, in the case of God, three persons
inhabit that same spirit. Follow me here?
Since we’re human beings, our nature, our life cycle, is to be born and die.
That’s because we’re made of flesh and blood. We’re like everything else in
creation.
Since God is spirit, and spirit is eternal, God doesn’t die, God doesn’t get
born or get old or need food or get sick. God’s nature is divine. The church has
taught that God infuses our bodies with an eternal soul at the time of our
conception. When our bodies die, our soul lives on. I don’t want to get into the
question of a soul here. That’s really another discussion.
In the case of Jesus, he has two natures, one human and one divine. So, like us,
part of him died and part of him didn’t. But the part of him that died, his
humanity, was also resurrected from the dead. So his soul didn’t leave his body
and fly up to heaven according to John.
But Jesus also has a divine nature because the second person of the Trinity, who
John calls the Son or the Word, was incarnated, made flesh in the person of
Jesus of Nazareth. So whereas you and I have a spirit given to us from God,
Jesus’ spirit was one of the three persons of God.
Since Jesus’ spirit was one of the persons of the trinity, he had a oneness with
God that no one else could have. He was the only person who could say he was one
with the father, because as Son of God he had the same spirit as God.
Now you may be confused here, and you are certainly free to agree or disagree
with what I’ve said. But I just want you to know how the church has understood
these passages where Jesus talks as though he and the father are both separate
and the same.
Now if his disciples heads weren’t spinning enough yet, he tells them that
they’re going to do greater things than he did. Yeah right. Jesus walked on
water in John, he fed the 5000 in John. He turned water into wine. He even
raised someone from the dead.
How would his followers ever have expected to do something greater than what he
did? Would they end hunger in the world or stop all fighting? Would they get
congress to start working together, or maybe empower the Cubs to win the World
Series? I mean, how much greater are we talking here? How would they pull that
off?
And if we are still Jesus’ followers, does this claim say something about what
God wants to do through the church? Can we talk about doing greater works than
the ones Jesus did? Sounds like blasphemy, right?
Well, it depends on what Jesus means by the word “greater”. I don’t think you
can take it to mean that his followers will do more spectacular miracles than
the ones Jesus did. Jesus’ miracles in John are meant to show the world that he
is the messiah, the son of God. They point to him.
If the church does those same miracles, or greater miracles, then we may end up
pointing to ourselves, which is not the goal. No, our works will be greater in a
different way.
I think the best way to understand what he’s saying about his followers doing
greater works than his is to think about Jesus’ sense that an old era is coming
to an end, and that a new era is beginning.
All of the signs Jesus performed, you know, walking on water and water into wine
and raising Lazarus from the dead, those were all performed prior to Jesus death
and resurrection. Those were all meant to point to Jesus as the source of
salvation.
But when Jesus died, his followers began to tell people that salvation had been
accomplished. A new era in history had begun. And that era was greater than the
one before, even though Jesus had performed his signs in the previous era.
So in that way, when they told the world that Jesus was risen from the dead, and
that he had brought eternal life to the world, well that message was greater
than any walking on water or feeding 5000 or even raising Lazarus fro mteh dead.
It’s one thing to raise Lazarus from the dead; it’s quite another to spread the
message that death has been conquered forever. It’s one thing to turn water into
wine; it’s quite another to share the symbols of Christ’s body and blood with
one another in a remembrance of Jesus’ death.
It’s one thing to walk on water. It’s quite another to get in boats and travel
to the far ends of the earth telling people about the good news. It’s one thing
to feed 5000 people with a few loaves and fishes. It’s quite another to share
Jesus’ teachings with people who haven’t heard them.
So Jesus is right when he tells us that we’ll do greater things than what he’s
done. That doesn’t make us greater than him. That isn’t presumptuous because,
hey, those are his words, not mine. “Fine, boss, if you say so.”
But if we take these words seriously, then every day of our lives we have the
opportunity to do something greater than what Jesus did. And we do those things
because Jesus has sent his spirit upon us, empowering us to do greater things.
Now you may not want to greater things. You may not imagine yourself doing
greater things. You may say to yourself, “Geez, Jim, I can’t even picture myself
doing greater things. I’m just hoping to hold on to my job and make ends meet
and be a good parent and be a good husband or wife. Let someone more ambitious
try to top Jesus.”
Believe me, I understand where you’re coming from. I’m not trying to outdo
anyone. I’m feel fortunate when I fail to screw things up worse than I used to.
I have no illusions of grandeur.
I’ve pastored three small churches in my life. If that’s greater than what Jesus
did, it sure doesn’t feel like it. But like most of us, I tend to define
greatness in the way that society around me defines it, in terms of money or
fame or historical significance.
There are plenty of people in the church who define greatness in those terms.
Your boss or your co-workers or your clients or your children probably define
greatness in those terms from time to time. Or maybe always.
But that definition of greatness is completely unworkable because it changes and
shifts with the passing of time. Greatness is defined by the fickle finger of
fame and fortune. What is great now is not great in six months. It’s unrealistic
and unfair.
Let me give you an example. Thirty years ago, a young woman from Los Angeles by
the name of Joan Marie Larkin was trying to become one of the first hardcore
woman rock and roll artists in an industry dominated by men.
She had founded a group called The Runaways in the 1970’s, and they were popular
in Europe and Japan. But they never caught on in the US. The group finally broke
up and she tried to do some solo music, but that didn’t work either.
She tried to sell her solo album to record companies in the US, but was turned
down by no less than 23 record labels. So she started her own recording company
with some of her producer’s money. Joan released the album in Europe under her
own label, Blackheart Records.
She then put together a group of musicians and they called her new band “Joan
Jett and the Blackhearts”. They put out a single entitled “I Love Rock-n-Roll”
in 1982, and the song remained at #1 on the Billboard charts for seven weeks in
a row. It is listed by Billboard as #28 of the greatest songs of all time.
She became a household name, and a heroine to young, rebellious women around the
world. But fame doesn’t last forever, and after a while other people came to
occupy the attention of the world’s music lovers.
Now if that’s the standard by which one measure’s greatness in the entertainment
industry, than how the mighty have fallen. Three years ago I was at the Waukesha
County Fair, watching people blow up hot air balloons when the announcement came
that Joan Jett and the Blackhearts were going to be playing a free concert.
So Emma and I went over to the stage and there she was, Joan Jett, rocking at
the Waukesha County Fair. Now does the fact that she has to take gigs like this
mean that she’s not great anymore? By most standards people would say yes. If
fortune and fame and public attention are the measurement of greatness, she
should fire her agent.
Do you see the problem I pointing out here? When we talk about greatness, we
have a really mixed up, unrealistic idea of what that means these days. And our
acceptance of those standards of greatness sets us up to fail because there are
only a certain number of people in the world who can live up to those standards,
and only for a short while.
So we need to rethink our idea of greatness if we want to understand Jesus’
words about us doing greater things. Those greater things may not appear to be
all that great. They may seem greater to someone else than they seem to us. They
may not seem great until much father down the line. Or they may only be great in
God’s eyes.
We’ll never know. We just have to trust God that when we are faithful to our
calling and when we love one another and when we participate in the life of the
church and when we live the kind of life that people want to have for
themselves, that what we’re doing is great. Even greater than what Jesus did.
I want to close by telling you about some folks who I used to work with in
California. The first church I pastored was an inner-city church in Oakland
that, unbeknownst to me, was literally on its last legs.
And while what I did there was certainly not great by the standards being used
to evaluate ministry these days, I had a unique opportunity to make an impact on
the lives of some young people for Jesus.
Michelle and I worked hard with the youth of that congregation to give them some
dignity and demonstrate God’s love to them. And over the years I’ve wondered how
they were doing.
But through the magic of a website called Facebook, I’ve been able to reconnect
with some of them. For those of you who don’t know, Facebook is a social
networking site. Which means that you can find old friends from various periods
of your life and reconnect with them, assuming they want to reconnect with you.
If they want to reconnect with you, and vice-versa, you make a request to be
listed as their friend and they accept your request. Then you can see all the
information they’ve posted about themselves and all the pictures they’ve loaded
onto their Facebook page.
The thing that’s so bizarre is that I knew some of them when they were children.
Now they’re all grown up, most of them have children of their own.
Some are married, some are divorced. But they all still know each other. That’s
how I was able to get in touch with them. I found one guy named John, whose life
was really in a terrible mess before he started coming to church.
And John had friends listed whose names I recognized as also being from the
church. I requested to be their friend, and they all accepted. And I looked at
their friend lists and found other youth who were in the church.
Now I’ve been up front about the fact that I just wanted to find out how they’re
doing and let them know how I’m doing. And I was surprised to find that every
last one of them has accepted my friend request. They were all glad to hear from
me. They were glad to get an update of what’s happened in my life and see our
pictures.
Now that might sound like a small thing, but what it drove home to me was the
importance of what I did there in the span of three years, and the way in which
God can multiply my efforts so that what I did was unwittingly greater than what
Jesus did.
Every day of our lives we have the chance to impact the lives of those around
us, to do something greater than what Jesus did in a sense. He announced
salvation as something that was coming. We announce that it is a present reality
in the world.
You may not aspire to do something greater. But God isn’t concerned about the
limits of your aspirations. God wants to know whether or not you’re willing to
be faithful, whether or not you intend to love others the way Jesus loves you,
whether or not you will point to Jesus the way he pointed to the father.
You don’t have to try and do something great. Who you are is not what makes your
work great. It’s who you point to. Your work on God’s behalf is great because
it’s on God’s behalf, not because people think you did something incredible.
As this season of Easter comes to a close, and as we prepare for Pentecost, let
us remind ourselves of the great things done for God by people who had no idea
of the impact of their actions on their world, or on history.