“His brothers said, 'Why don’t
you leave here and go up to the Feast so your disciples can get a
good look at the works you do? No one who intends to be publicly
known does everything behind the scenes. If you’re serious about
what you are doing, come out in the open and show the world.' His
brothers were pushing him like this because they didn’t believe in
him either.”
“Jesus came back at them, 'Don’t
crowd me. This isn’t my time. It’s your time—it’s always your
time; you have nothing to lose. The world has nothing against you,
but it’s up in arms against me. It’s against me because I expose
the evil behind its pretensions. You go ahead, go up to the Feast.
Don’t wait for me. I’m not ready. It’s not the right time for
me.'”
“He said this and stayed on in
Galilee. But later, after his family had gone up to the Feast, he
also went. But he kept out of the way, careful not to draw attention
to himself.” John 7:3-10, Msg
•••
Genie: Phenomenal cosmic powers!
[shrinks down inside the lamp]
Genie: Itty bitty living space!
Genie in Disney's
Aladdin
 |
| Genie could do a lot of cool stuff |
What if you could
wield the same power Jesus did? To what end would you use it? To
empty out the local hospital and special care unit at the nursing
home? To work such wonders within the county jail that in a single
day the sheriff would have to lay-off staff as there were no more
inmates to supervise? To visit every household where a hospice nurse
was keeping vigil and essentially raise the dead? Or what other
miraculous deed could you imagine completing with the cosmic powers
of the Most High at your disposal?
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| Not once and for all but an ongoing reality |
I'm a
Pentecostal and by definition and implication I believe in the Holy
Spirit's ongoing ministry in the world today. The Day of Pentecost,
the historical birthday of the Church, is not just a day we
commemorate annually; rather, it is – or, at least, supposed to be
- an ongoing reality. Jesus told his first disciples not to leave
Jerusalem but “wait for what the Father has promised. You
heard Me speak of this. For John the Baptist baptized with water
but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts
2:4-5). And a week and a half later his promise was made good when
the Holy Spirit rained down in buckets upon them and about a hundred
others. The courage they had lacked they now had in abundance. Boldly
they proclaimed the message of Jesus to whomever would listen to
them. A professional, lame beggar is wonderfully healed and a
decidedly dead woman is brought back to life. Nothing, it seemed,
could stop them now. But it didn't end with them. The ministry of the
Holy Spirit is not a movement regulated to the early half of the
First Century AD. He's alive and well and working in the earth today.
And yet, in over twenty-five years of
pastoral ministry, truth be told, I have seen and experienced few of
what John Wimber used to describe as “power encounters”. I've not
seen anyone raised to life. I've never seen a person in a wheel chair
rise out of it and run. Once my wife and I were personally used to exorcise an unclean spirit out of someone and while the person knew
she was delivered of the thing when it was over, it was definitely
not a Linda Blair-like a la The Exorcist event.
For a six-year period our fellowship held a monthly healing service
and while we prayed with lots of folks who ultimately felt comfort,
encouragement and love, we really didn't rack up significant stats to
submit to Charisma.
Nevertheless, I remain a committed Pentecostal believing fully that
if we see little demonstration of the power of the risen Savior in
our midst the problem isn't with heaven. It's somewhere on this end
of the equation. Or is it?
My
personal devotions have been in the Gospel of John this year. Unlike
the other gospel accounts where Jesus will frequently work acts of
power, the way John tells it Jesus will perform a miracle now and
again but under the radar, as it were, and frequently - if a miracle
can be described as such - in a demonstratively subtle manner. In
chapter 2, at a wedding where he is a guest he transforms water into
wine, an event that Michael Card refers to as “one of his most
unmiraculous miracles.”
There was no waving of arms, no
calling attention to himself. Jesus simply takes the water of the old
orthodoxy and unassumingly transforms it into the wine of the new
reality. His other miracles in John will follow the same pattern,
except for one:
- In chapter 4 he will heal the official's son in abstentia.
- In chapter 5 he will cause the lame to walk by simply saying “get up.” This man does not even know Jesus' name.
- In chapter 6 he will feed the five thousand by simply pronouncing the blessing over the meal.
- Also in chapter 6 he will walk on the water. Mark observes that he was walking past them, his purpose simply to get to the other side of the lake (Mk 6:48).
- In chapter 9 he will heal the blind man, also in abstentia.
- The single exception of the rule in regard to Jesus' unmiraculous miracles is the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11. This he accomplishes by means of a loud shout. (John: The Gospel of Wisdom by Michael Card)
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| Jesus at the Pool of Bethesda |
A
well-meaning and sincere member of our fellowship once affirmed to me
that if we had the power of God like Jesus and the first disciples
had we could empty out Lake View Medical Center (the largest hospital
in our county.) John's testimony seems to suggest otherwise.
In
John 7, the Feast of Tabernacles has arrived and as was the custom
Jewish men were to make pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate and
remember their ancestors' wilderness wanderings. While people are
packing and making ready for the journey south, curiously Jesus goes
about his business as if it's just another day of the week. His
brothers chide him and remind him that if he's serious about being a
public figure than he shouldn't be hanging around the backwaters of
Galilee. Jerusalem is where the limelight is and where stars are
born. “Work some of your magic there,” they opine, “and watch
how your following will grow again” (recall that at the end of John
6 a lot of people “unfriended” him with his Capernaum sermon
about the necessity of “eating his flesh” and “drinking his
blood.” You'll have that.) But Jesus won't be manipulated by them
or anyone; he'll go when he feels the time is right and not a moment
before.
 |
| Obi-Wan sorta looks like Jesus, too |
Of
course, as soon as his brothers leave town, he gathers his things and
begins the journey by himself. In my mind, I envision Jesus making
that ninety mile trip incognito, dressed like some First Century Jedi
complete with hooded cloak. He lingers on the fringes of the caravan,
hearing the occasional camp fire conversations about him whether or
not he is a good man or little more than a snakeoil salesman. Like
the genie in Aladdin's lamp, phenomenal, cosmic powers are at his
command within the “itty bitty living space” of himself. But he
doesn't wield them dramatically like a light saber or as Master Yoda
might by raising an X-Wing fighter
out of the muck of a Dagobah
swamp. He doesn't because as he asserted with the audience that
gathered around him following the healing of the man at the Pool of
Bethesda, “...the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only
what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the
Son also does” (John 5:19, NIV). And as the feeding of the
multitude outside of Bethsaida demonstrated, miracles don't normally
spur people on to true faith. Quite the contrary. As Bruce Milne puts
it, “Hunger for spectacular signs is the enemy of real faith, since
it leaves the fallen, self-centered heart untouched and unrebuked”
(The Bible Speaks Today: The Message of John).
 |
| If you've seen the movie, I think you get it |
I
used to feel inadequate when a sick person came to me for prayer and
despite my most sincerest intercession “nothing” came of it. They
were still sick after the fact. Most people don't blame their
ministers for not making them better. They know it doesn't usually
work that way. (I do recall a very distraught woman who called me
once and cried electronically on my shoulder about her husband who
had left her. When I tried to comfort her with a “I've been praying
for you” remark, she screamed into my earpiece, “WELL, IT'S NOT
WORKING!” Admittedly, she had had a bad week.) I still pray for
healing. I still believe that the Jesus I follow has real,
phenomenal, cosmic power that if he so chooses can cause dead limbs
to be whole again and set bound persons free from unclean spirits.
But as John's gospel tells it, our Savior came serving. “When
the disciples were hungry, he fed them. When their feet were dirty on
the night of Judas' betrayal, he washed them” (A Better
Freedom
by Michael Card). This
reminds me that as I go about my ministry which frequently seems to
major in little more than in handing out cups of cold water in his
name (Matthew 10:42), it is no little thing after all to emulate the
One who usually sought a low profile and did not try to make the
headlines – until it was absolutely necessary.
 |
| Granted, he didn't do this all the time |
