First Presbyterian Church
Rev. Sam Pendergrast
April 20, 2008
John 14:1-14
“This Is Who We Are”
Some years ago I discovered that Jesus lives in
The song has three verses. Two of them suggest that one can see Jesus in plain view by looking at the sunset or the ocean. Skeptics would say that one doesn’t need to equate the appreciation of beauty with a religious experience. Even if you could, what is it that you see in a sunset or the ocean that helps you to know Jesus? Does the sense of awe and wonder of the natural world reveal something about God? Yes, it can. But it is a limited revelation, and the exact meaning is open to a wide variety of interpretation.
Another pastor tells a story about a wild party he remembers attending while he was in college. “Do you want to see God?” someone said to him. The other student held out two red pills in his hand. He didn’t take the pills, but he thought about it. Who wouldn’t want to see God? We come to church for many reasons. One of them is that we want, in some way, to see God, to be closer to God, to experience God in a real way that will change our lives for the better. How can we get a clear picture of God?
A little girl was drawing a picture one day in school. Her teacher leaned over her desk and asked, “What are you drawing?”
“God,” she replied.
The teacher laughed and said, “No one knows what God looks like, dear.”
To which the little girl replied, “They will when I get finished with this drawing.”
The picture of God that is painted in the Old Testament is just what the teacher said. No one knows what God looks like. Not only that, but God is too holy to look at. God was so completely of a different order of being that it was dangerous to see God. Throughout Hebrew scriptures we read that one could not see God and live. God hid Moses in a cleft in the rock when God’s glory passed by in order to preserve Moses’ life. Moses was allowed only to see God’s backside. Even so, his face shone like a bad sunburn and he put a veil over his face so that he would not frighten the Israelites. And it was with some sense of wonder and disbelief that Jacob said, after his all-night wrestling match: “I have seen the face of God have lived to tell about it.”
Part of the reason that God was so unknowable in the Old Testament was that if you could get close to God, if you could get familiar with God, you might be tempted to try to use that knowledge for your own purposes. If you could know God’s name or get close to God’s power, you might try to use it for your own ends. The Bible is well aware of the human tendency to using even the best of things for selfish ends. We often call that idolatry.
God knew that. And the stunning thing is that God used our self-centered ways to bring about our salvation. The third verse of the song about Jesus my Lord in plain view says that if you look at the Cross you will see Jesus. God came close to us in the person of Jesus. When his presence didn’t fit our expectations and became too threatening, human beings rejected him and put him to death. God’s love went all the way to the Cross to redeem us from our own self-destructive ways. The Cross is the center-point of the life, death, resurrection and ascension that in the Gospel of John reveal the face of God to us.
The text that I read to you this morning from the 14th chapter of John is almost too much to deal with all at once. If you have read it or heard it many times and are used to the ideas, it is hard to appreciate just how mind-boggling are the things Jesus said.
I go to prepare a place for you.
You know the way (No, we don’t!). Yes you do. I am the way.
If you’ve seen me, you know God.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
You will do greater works than I.
I will do whatever you ask in my name.
The depth and breadth of those statements can seem so overwhelming that it can be hard to know where to start in understanding what Jesus is getting at. Every statement could be the seed for a sermon. I think the key to understanding the material is this: Jesus is talking about our knowing God and sharing the powerful and intimate relationship between Jesus and the Father. Jesus is talking about who we are and the new life that is now accessible to us.
Remember that the Gospel of John is the latest of the gospels to be written, more than sixty years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Christian community is acutely aware of Jesus’ absence. They had expected him to return and take them to glory. Many have died while waiting. Many have been martyred. The church of that time was troubled. Was Jesus really with them? How could they know? Was he coming again? We noted a few weeks ago how John put the words of the early church into the mouths of Martha and Mary: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
In the 14th chapter, John depicts Jesus teaching his disciples in order to assure the early
Over and over, Jesus has described and demonstrated with deeds of power his intimate relationship with the one he called Father. He reached out to the unclean, healed the sick, rebuked the rich and powerful, raised the dead and upset the religious authorities by claiming to be the very presence of God. Everything Jesus does in the Gospel of John is a sign, a demonstration of his unique identity and authority. John wants there to be no doubt that Jesus has the power of God. So imagine how shocked the disciples (and the early church) are to hear that they will do greater works than Jesus! Does the power of God really reside in the church? Was the power of God really accessible to that suffering, struggling, outcast group of Christians who lived under Roman persecution? Is the power of God really available to you and me because we are Jesus’ disciples today? Jesus says yes. Because we know him. Because we share the same powerful love that he knew with his Father. The work Jesus did was God’s work, the work God had given him. The work we do is God’s work, the work Jesus has given us. We do the same things. We reach out to the unclean, heal the sick, rebuke the rich and powerful, and upset the authorities by claiming to be the very presence of God.
But what about that claim that we do greater work than Jesus? The explanation is simple. When Jesus spoke to his disciples, his work was not yet complete. The disciples’ work is to reveal the completed story of Jesus’ saving power. Look at what has happened in twenty centuries. The good news has been proclaimed around the world. Christians have been active in healing diseases, opening the eyes of the blind, bringing education and dignity to the poor, ending slavery, being advocates for equal rights and liberation for the oppressed. All of this because we know Jesus. Who we are is the presence of Jesus in the world.
Jesus told his disciples that they now knew God because they had seen him. Something new had happened in the world. The holy, mysterious, unknowable God had come close and lived among us, in the flesh. If you know me, you’ve seen the Father. Think how comforting those words must have been to a fearful, doubtful group of Christians who wondered if their lives had any significance.
Jesus told his disciples, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Too often, Christians have used that verse to beat opponents over the head. “See, Jesus said he’s the way; you have to believe it!” These words were addressed, not to a world religion up against unbelievers or other world religions in some kind of religious competition. These words were addressed to believers to assure them that they had access to the one Jesus called Father through their relationship with their Lord. They are not left alone. They have real power to live the life that Jesus lived. Those words: “I am the way, the truth and the life,” are words of comfort. They affirm that the truth is not a bunch of ideas, but a person. The truth is Jesus and his relationship with the Father. The truth is the way he lived. The truth is the work that he gives to his disciples, the work of bearing witness to who they are. The truth is not about knowing ideas but living out a relationship.
These words in the 14th chapter of John are a confession of who we are. We are people who have an intimate relationship with God through Jesus and continue and expand his work in the world. Were we to use these words as a weapon, as too many have done, were we to engage in a militant Christianity that seeks to force others into an acceptance of belief, it would no longer be the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus shares his relationship with God with us, so that we can live it, bear witness to it, share it with each other and with our neighbors. These words are not about a controlling or domineering Christianity. Rather, they are about sharing the life of our Lord. They are about being who we are, unashamedly, lovingly, for the life of the world.
William Martin, in The Art of Pastoring, reflects on the all too human tendency to want to control events and people and to forget to live the truth.
If your congregation does not know the Word, they will be greatly concerned with right and wrong.
If they do not experience grace, they will argue constantly about proper doctrine.
If they do not live in harmony with one another, they will talk endlessly about love.
If their life as a congregation is dying, they will concern themselves with church growth.
A healthy congregation seldom talks about growth, morality, or doctrine – they are too busy living the Truth behind the words.
We are people who have been drawn into an intimate and loving relationship with God. What is important for us is that we live the truth. We don’t need others to approve of us, to agree with us or to obey us. We need to bear witness to the Truth of Jesus in our lives by doing his work. We know Jesus and bear witness to him by living his life, following his way and doing his work. That is who we are. Thanks be to God.