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 Father. I 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.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment