We'll do greater works than Jesus?
Today is the Thursday before Easter, also known as Maundy Thursday. “Maundy” is a shortened form of the Latin word “mandatum” which means “command”. This Thursday remembers the day when Jesus held His Last Supper with His disciples and gave them their marching orders for when He would be gone. In John’s record of Jesus’ teaching, three times Jesus commands them to love one another (John 13:34, 15:12, 15:17) and two more times He urges them to follow this command (John 14:15, 15:14).
There is a part of Jesus’ Last Supper teaching that has always sat a little odd with me. Philip has just asked Jesus to show them God the Father, and this was Jesus’ reply:
John 14:9-12
Jesus said to him, “Have I been among you all this time and you do not know Me, Philip? The one who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on My own. The Father who lives in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves.
Truly I tell you, the one who believes in Me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”
Greater works than Jesus???
That’s a hard concept to wrap my mind around, let alone accept.
Many commentaries and preachers will say that Jesus’ “greater” comment was more about scope rather than size. They’ll argue that we’re not running around performing even bigger miracles than Jesus did, but that because He went to be with the Father, the Holy Spirit indwells all believers – the result being that the good news of Jesus is spread to the entire world, instead of the small section of Israel that Jesus ministered in.
While that answer makes sense, I’ve never been fully convinced it fits what Jesus was talking about here. However, I came across an explanation from Donald Barnhouse that both helps me understand…and blows my mind. He takes an analogy from a real-life hero, Wheeler Lipes, who was an officer in the Navy. In 1942, Wheeler was a Pharmacist’s Mate aboard a submarine and had to perform an emergency appendectomy. He did not have the proper medical equipment, nor any formal surgical training…but the procedure had to be done, as a fellow sailor’s life was at stake.
Here is Barnhouse’s retelling of Wheeler’s story and his analogy back to Jesus’ Maundy Thursday statement:
Aboard a United States submarine in the enemy waters of the Pacific, a sailor was stricken with acute appendicitis. The nearest surgeon was thousands of miles away. Pharmacist Mate Wheeler Lipes watched the seaman’s temperature rise to 106 degrees. His only hope was an operation. Said Lipes: “I have watched doctors do it. I think I could. What do you say?” The sailor consented. In the wardroom, about the size of a Pullman drawing room, the patient was stretched out on a table beneath a floodlight. The mate and assisting officers, dressed in reversed pajama tops, masked their faces with gauze. The crew stood by the diving planes to keep the ship steady: the cook boiled water for sterilizing. A tea strainer served as an antiseptic cone. A broken-handled scalpel was the operating instrument. Alcohol drained from the torpedoes was the antiseptic. Bent tablespoons served to keep the muscles open. After cutting through the layers of muscle, the mate took twenty minutes to find the appendix. Two hours and a half later, the last catgut stitch was sewed, just as the last drop of ether gave out. Thirteen days later the patient was back at work.
Admittedly this was a much more magnificent feat than if it had been performed by trained surgeons in a fully equipped operating room of a modern hospital. Study this analogy and you will know the real meaning of Christ’s words. “Greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” For Christ, perfect God, to work directly on a lost soul to quicken and bring out of death and into life is great, but for Him to do the same thing through us is a greater work.
Jesus can represent the Father perfectly. He said, “the Father who lives in Me does His works.” As such, Jesus can flawlessly show who God is to everyone He interacts with. We are as far from perfect as Wheeler Lipes was trained to perform emergency surgery. We are rudimentary and broken and unrefined, having no merit to partner with the Creator of the Universe in anything…let alone to be the ones to share the Father with other broken humans. And yet…we who believe in Jesus as the Messiah are the ones whom God partners with. That is the greater work. This partnership is far better and more eternally impactful than performing physical miracles of restoring sight and healing broken bodies. To use lesser instruments and still achieve the results that would come from perfection…that is a magnificent feat indeed!
So, on this Maundy Thursday, remember Jesus’ command – love one another. But do not forget that we will participate in greater works as we partner with Jesus and show others who the Father truly is.
Keep Pressing,
Ken