Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.” (John 5. 17-30)
“God wants to communicate with humanity, and … Jesus represents the essence of that desire to talk,” says Mike Riddell. As God’s Son, Jesus was in a constant conversation with both God the Father and with God the Spirit. In these verses and others, the Son claims that he hears from the Father and speaks just what the Father has taught him (John 8: 26 – 29). He also claims that his relationship with the Father is not just one way, rather the Father also always hears the Son (John 11: 41 & 42). Similarly, he says that the Spirit will not speak on his own but only what he hears (John 16: 13). The Spirit is sent, like the Son, by the Father, but comes in the name of the Son to remind the disciples of everything that the Son said to them (John 14: 26 & 27). This interplay or dialogue within the Godhead between Father, Son and Spirit can be summed up in the words of John 3. 34-35: “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.”
Stephen Verney calls this interplay between Father, Son and Spirit, which he believes we are called to enter, ‘the Dance of Love.’ He writes: “”I can do nothing”, [Jesus] said, “except what I see the Father doing”. If he lays aside his teaching robes and washes the feet of the learners … it is because he sees his Father doing it. God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, is like that; he too lays aside his dignity and status as a teacher. He does not try to force his objective truth into our thick heads, but he gives himself to us in acts of humble service; he laughs with us and weeps with us, and he invites us to know him in our hearts through an interaction and an interplay between us. It is this knowledge that Jesus has received from the Father, and in the to and fro of this relationship he and the Father are one. They need each other. That is the pattern of how things potentially are in the universe, and of how God means them to be”.
Just as Jesus does nothing on his own but does everything together with the Father and the Spirit, it is to be the same for us. Jesus told his disciples that he was going to leave them (as happened at the Ascension) and then that he would send the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, the comforter and advocate, to them (as happened on the Day of Pentecost). The Spirit speaks to the disciples whatever he hears from Jesus; both the many things he wanted to say to them but which they could not bear at that time and also the things that are to come. Earlier, he also said that the Spirit will teach them everything and remind them of all that Jesus had said to them. The result will be that they will do greater things than him.
Jesus said many amazing things that people still repeat regardless of whether they follow him or not. But his farewell discourse to his disciples must be among the most amazing, because in it Jesus says that those who follow him will do greater things than him and will be led into all truth. When you think how amazing Jesus’ own actions were, it is hard to imagine how people like us could do greater things than that, and, when you think how profound his teaching was, how could we be led into deeper or greater truth than that?
But Jesus was articulating something that all good teachers think and feel; the sense that all the time he had spent with them and invested in them was not so they would be clones of him, simply repeating the things he did and said, but instead that he had equipped, empowered and enabled his followers to follow him by using their own gifts and abilities and initiative which would inevitably mean that they would do and say different things from him but still with his Spirit and based on all they had learnt from him. He was saying that each one of us is a unique combination of personality, abilities and potential and, therefore, each of us can make a unique mark on the world. His followers can do greater things than Jesus because they will do different things from him in his name and Spirit – things that only they can do for him because they are that unique package of personality, ability and potential.
As Jesus put it, the Spirit will teach us everything and remind us of all that Jesus said so that we intuitively do those things on an improvisational basis. The Spirit comes to remind Christians of all that Jesus did and said, so we embody it in our lives. In this way we can do greater things than Jesus because we will do different things from him, but in his name and Spirit. Like him, we can do nothing on our own, but only what we, through his Spirit, see Jesus doing. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.
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Inner City - Unity.
