Friday, June 7, 2019

Doing More Than Jesus


John 14:8-17, 25-27
Pentecost
June 9, 2019
William G. Carter

"Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the FatherI will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it."


“The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and will do greater works than these.” Of all the outrageous things Jesus ever said, I think that’s at the top of the list.

According to the scriptures, Jesus did a lot. He invented the parables of Prodigal Son and Good Samaritan, he gave sight to a man who was born blind, and he fed a multitude on a few fish and a couple of loaves of bread. Have you done any of that?

Jesus told a terrible storm to “shut up,” walked on the water, cast out demons into a herd of pigs, and transformed large jugs of water into carafes of new wine. So, what have you done with your life?

He crossed cleanliness boundaries, touching a leper to make him clean, giving the healing power of God to a lady with a long-term hemorrhage, and taking a little girl by the hand and raising her from the dead. The Jewish Torah told him never to touch lepers, bleeding women, or corpses, but that’s what he did. What about you?

He says, “Whoever believes in me will do what I do, and even more.” Was he serious?

Somebody in the early church thought so. The end of the Gospel of Mark is rather abrupt: some women go to the tomb of Jesus, find it cracked open, run away and don’t tell anybody about it (at least until Mark writes down his book). It seemed like an unsatisfactory ending, so there were people who added on some more. There’s more to Easter than an empty tomb and a silent church.

So they added at least three more endings to the Gospel of Mark, to fill in the details and keep the story going. You can look them up sometime in the footnotes in Mark 16. And one of those endings quote Jesus as saying,

And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16:17-19)

Now, we do still pray for the sick by blessing them. The psychiatrists cast out demons and the Pentecostals sing in tongues. And there still are some people in southern Appalachia where they handle rattlesnakes as a test of faith.[1] In my opinion, that’s pretty stupid. As far as we know, Jesus never pulled a stunt like that. And what’s more, those footnote verse at the end of the Gospel of Mark don’t have the same weight as the rest of the book.

What Jesus does say is “The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and will do greater works than these.”

That’s still kind of heavy. Dale Bruner, the great Bible scholar, says he still gulps whenever he comes across that verse. What did Jesus do? He gave up glory in heaven to become a human woodcutter. He endured the betrayal of friends and the full abuse of the Roman Empire. He gave his life on the cross to bear the weight of human sin. In the words of one New Testament writer, Jesus reconciled heaven and earth.[2]

Anybody here think they can do that – or something more? The job of Savior of the Universe has been filled. We can relax about that, even take a sabbath and let God run the world without our help. And we certainly don’t have to play the martyr if things aren’t going our way. As Reba McIntyre once said to a whiner on her sit-com, “Earl, get off the cross, we need the wood.” There is only one person on the cross of salvation, and he’s not on it anymore.

And yet, Jesus says to us – the crucified and risen Jesus says, “If you believe in me, you’ll do what I do, and even more.”

Dale Bruner, the scholar, says he means that quantitatively, not qualitatively: “Jesus never got far beyond Palestine.” His ministry was about three years long. He did not travel abroad. In fact, for a large part of his work, he didn’t walk beyond ten or twelve miles from the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. But we have. The people who love him are dispersed around the globe. And they have been doing the work for a lot longer than three years.

What the Lord is saying is that his work extends beyond himself. He can reach people who weren’t even born when he walked among us. He can extend the grace and truth of God beyond geographical borders, beyond the limits of human language and culture, even beyond the boundaries of time. The first century Jesus can reach twenty-first century people.

And how does he do this? Through the gift of Pentecost, which is the gift of his Holy Spirit.    

Pentecost is a big day. Originally a Jewish harvest festival, it developed into a celebration of God speaking the Torah in the giving of the Commandments. In the early significance of the day, God speaks – God breathes his Words – into the ears and the hearts of the faithful.

That’s why crowds of Jews gathered in Jerusalem each year, and that’s why a crowd was there fifty days after the Passover when Jesus was crucified by the people and raised from the dead by God. They were there for another reason, which became the same reason: God breathes again into the ears and the hearts of the faithful.

What Jesus reveals in this section of the Gospel of John is that God’s Breath is literally God’s Presence. God’s Word which took flesh in Jesus of Nazareth is now Breathed afresh in the Presence of the Holy Spirit. Whenever faith takes spark, whenever Holy Truth enlivens and animates us, whenever a sermon hits us between the eyes or a healing deed gets done with our hands, the scripture describes that as “Holy Spirit,” the ever-present Presence of God touching down briefly on us and on others.

It comes and goes like the Wind, as Jesus says elsewhere. It can land like a white dove, dwell for a while, and then fly away. This is the mystery of spiritual experience. But the point of it all is not to merely get an electrical charge from heaven; no, the point is to continue in the miracle of God coming to the world in Christ. Pentecost is the New Testament’s way of keeping us connected to the life and work of Jesus.

This is the Bible’s description of our ongoing witness. The Christ who said “I will be with you always” truly is here, among us. He departed into heaven but he has never left us alone. And the best sign of that is when ordinary fishermen -- and second-grade teachers, and shopkeepers, and guitarists, and hotel clerks, and retired grandparents, and other regular folk – continue to include others in the love and justice of God. Or as Jesus calls them, “the works.”

·         When a teenager plans a Thanksgiving feast for 85 new immigrants in our Fellowship Hall, she’s doing something Jesus would have done but has now given her to do.
·         When Presbyterian volunteers provide care for homeless youth in the city who were cast out of their parents’ homes for having the courage to say they are gay, that’s something Jesus would have done and gives some of us to do.
·         When one of us offers love, hospitality, and wisdom for a woman with a problem pregnancy, that’s the ongoing work of Christ.
·         When a creative soul makes fresh art that reveals our human beauty, human brokenness, and Divine possibility, this is one of the ways that the Spirit of Christ keeps teaching and opening us to healing.
·         When a newspaper columnist uncovers the truth about political corruption and says so, that truth-telling is the prophetic work of Christ. Don’t let the counterfeit public servants ever tell you otherwise.  
·         When one of us stands up to the stench of racial hatred to speak and act as if God loves all people, because God indeed does love all people and calls all to live in peace and fairness, this is the Holy Work of the Spirit. It is far extended beyond the first century Jesus into the Christ of our own time.

Pentecost means that Jesus isn’t hiding in a church; he is busy in the world that was created through him. The church is called to point to him, to his work; and not only point, but to roll up its sleeves and join him in the life-giving work of the Gospel.

So, Happy Birthday church. For you and I are enrolled in God’s mission to the whole world. It is a good day to celebrate the Presence of Christ ever among us. And it’s a good day to continue the Spirit’s work.


(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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