To Follow In His Steps

1 Peter 2:11-25

Sorry I did not post anything related to last week's sermon: The Goal of the Christian Life: Perfection.

Anyway, this week I was taken in a bit by the word "example" in 1 Peter 2:21. The Greek word lying behind our English one is hupogrammos. It literally means "to write beneath" but more practically was the word used to describe what we would call tracing. I was taken back to my early school years when I learned to print letters by tracing them on paper.

To follow Jesus means to trace his life. It means to draw my life over his; to pattern my living along the lines of his life. I found that to be an interesting way of looking at this call.

In the sermon I explore three things Jesus said would mark us as genuine disciples.

One of them is John 8:31-32 where he asks us to practice the things he taught us. This being World Communion Sunday, I naturally thought of the words of institution in the Gospels where Jesus says, "Do this in remembrance of me." Thus we take up the bread and wine of Holy Communion and celebrate his work on our behalf.

But doing what Jesus asked us to do involves more that a bit of bread. I also thought of John 14:12 where he says that those believe would do greater works than he had done. Wow.

This led me to think about what those works are. Naturally, our mind first of all goes to the actual things Jesus did, especially his miracles. But the word "work" here is ergon not semeion (which is John's word for miracle). Remember context, context, context. In the verses surrounding this and especially preceding it, Jesus is responding to Philip's question about how we can know the Father. Herein is the clue to what Jesus meant. He said he is going back to the Father and because he is, we will be able to do the work that he has been doing, which primarily was revealing the true nature of God the Father through his life, work and, yes, miracles.

Because of the work of Jesus, we can know God, intimately and personally, and the better we know him the more clearly we reveal him, and that is the central, most important work ever.

Of course, this got me thinking about miracles which got me thinking about some lofty theological ideas like the current discussion going on in theological circles around what is often called Open Theism (check it on wiki)...which goes way beyond the scope of this sermon.

Thanks for digging deeper.