Easter 5 A
John 14:1-12
Show Us!
04/28/02
I’ll never forget the first day of drivers training. The process in Illinois wasn’t at all like it is here in Iowa. First we had to wait till we were 16 – Juniors in high school, not in Jr. High. Imagine, two years of high school where we could only hear about driving from older brothers and sisters and their friends. Then, before we even got behind the wheel of a car we had to endure a number of weeks of intense book work. 9 weeks of that made an hour of chauffeuring Mr. Conrady to his daily errands like the greatest thing going. We were eager to know more. We had all the skills and rules of the road engrained up here. But it wasn’t enough. We want more. Don’t just tell us. Show us. Show us some more.
It bespeaks an attitude that humbly admits, “There’s so much more for us to learn,” and that eagerly awaits every opportunity to grow. That’s why I so much love the request of the Philip this morning. “Show us! Show us the Father.” This is the request of one of Jesus’ disciples. These men were able to learn of God like none other. They sat at the feet of the Son of God for nearly three years. They heard instruction. They walked in the shadow of Christ’s example. They witnessed miraculous powers mercifully dispensed. They saw him deal in grace with outcasts and sinners. In numerous ways they had seen God at work through His Son. But Philip still wants more.
He’s like us. When were troubled in spirit, when life confronts us with changes, when it becoming more and more clear that we’ll soon have to take charge of a situation or assume a position of leadership; it’s a gut check moment and we begin to wonder whether we’ve got what it takes to carry on.
The disciples were in the same boat. Jesus had just told them that he would be betrayed. Now He was also talking as if it would mean he demise. They would be without him for good. They would be left to themselves on this journey of faith and the thought of that scared them. Are we really prepared? Can we really carry on? There’s so much more we should know. After all, look at us.
And we might say the same. Our conduct betrays us. Our worry and fears would say that our view of God is rather insubstantial. Our actions, measured by the Law of God, would convey the message that we have little or no knowledge of His will. And measured by God’s grace, our bargaining and our thinking that we can somehow buy our way into God’s favor with a set of prescribed acts would convey the thought that we have no knowledge of His mercy either.
In so many ways we do not know him. At least we don’t know Him like we should. We forget, just like Philip forgot or at least needed to be recalled to what He had learned. We need to hear the Word daily to remind us again. (You may be confirmed today. You might have even been able to answer most or all of pastor’s questions, but there’s so much more, so far we yet can go.)
And yet Jesus is right too in how he responds. He sounds incredulous. And maybe he should be. “You do know Him, Philip. You know Him in me… Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father… The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the father, living in me, who is doing his work. To know Jesus is to know the mind of God; His work; His gracious will; His sacrificial, loving care. You do know him and having faith in me you will do what I have been doing and even more.” It’s as if he were saying. I have shown you. Now you can show others.
One of our speakers at last Sunday’s Mission Fest said something to that effect last week. If you were here for his presentation last Sunday afternoon you probably heard him ask why people are reluctant to tell others about their faith. Those in our group hit it right on the nose. We’ll say something like, “Well, we don’t know enough. We don’t know what to say.” But then he followed up and asked, “How is it that you are saved?” to which someone responded, “Though faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord.” What was his response? “You know enough!”
You may not know it all. As your pastor, let me tell you today, that I don’t either. There’s much to learn. Our professors at the Sem were often known to say that in these 8 years of study we’re giving you enough to get through the first 6 months and the knowledge of where and how you can look for the rest. We don’t know it all either. But we know enough.
We know Jesus as “the way” unto the Father. He’s not just “a” way. He’s not even just the source of “knowing” the way. We know Jesus as “the” way itself, the one who has paved the way unto the heavenly Father with His own body and blood and as the one in whom one must believe in order to enter it. We know that apart from Jesus we can do nothing. We don’t even know where to go or even begin to know what to do to attain it. We sin, and we know that even one sin separates us from the heavenly Father and bars us from entering into that heavenly home. But we also know Jesus as the promised savior whom God sent to redeem us, to walk in the way of life, that believing in Him, trusting in Him and His perfect, sacrificial death on the cross we might find the “way” through Him who rose again as our assurance.
He rose to guarantee us that he was the way, and that the same time to assure us that He was the very embodiment of the truth. Only God could make a claim as Jesus did, that He would rise from the dead. It was a ridiculous claim in the minds of most who heard it, and yet he did just that. He rose, verifying the truth of his claim, but proving as well that He could be taken at His word. He, who could rise in victory over sin and death, can do anything else He has claimed as well, even knew life to us as well.
That’s how and why we know Jesus is our life, and not just eternal life. He’s our life even now, strengthening and empowering us to live anew, to live differently, to live more rightly than before.
We don’t know it all, but we know enough. And we go to show with one other promise. Jesus mentions it but just a few verses after our text, but we dare not miss it. He didn’t want the 11 to miss it either. Even as Jesus had said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me,” he also goes on to say in v. 20, “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” There’s one of the greatest promises bestowed in the God’s Word. One pastor put it this way. “He puts unction in our gumption.” That is, he pours all of his strength and power into all we do for Him. When we step out in faith to do bold and daring things, when we endeavor to tell the world what we know, daring to trust in His promises to bless us, God touches that effort, blesses it, applies his divine muscle upon it so that the results go far beyond anything we would expect in us, anything we would expect in others too.
(Read: "An Afternoon in the Park", from A 3rd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Canfield and Hansen) This is not just a fanciful story, but a reminder of the truth of our calling, and that God can work in the smallest of things and through the littlest of efforts, in things we might even discount, to touch people lives, to move their hearts, to introduce them to His love, His care, His forgiving grace in Christ, through me and you.
“Show us!” It’s more than just an attitude for you to develop in your life. It’s your calling. It’s what you were made to do at your baptism. It’s what was determined at your confirmation.
You’ve been taught and you’ve been led. Keep learning. Today is not so much a graduation as it is milestone, a measurement and a determination that the relationship your Lord Jesus initiated at your baptism has continued to grow. There’s still much to know. Keep learning. Keep asking for God, the Father, to show – more of His love, more of His will, more of His grace, more of His power. But be the church your Lord Jesus has also called you to be, would continue to make you to be. Remember, “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it in you.” Still more are crying, “Show us. Show us.” And the Lord would answer them. He would answer them by sending you.
