Jesus, The Restorer of the Universe

My son, Caleb, is in the superhero phase of his life. It was clear that Caleb had entered this phase when he bought me a superhero t-shirt for my birthday (I guess this was better than socks or a tie!). Now he gets so excited when he sees me wearing this t-shirt that he almost loses control of his bladder. This isn't the only sign that Caleb is obsessed with superheroes. He also runs around the house acting like he's Batman or Spiderman. And he spends countless hours making his Larryboy Veggietale's superhero fly through the sky by throwing him down the stairs. Superheroes consume his life! As I have watched Caleb's life I was reminded of the fact that Jesus wants me to have a similar obsession with him. This shouldn't be surprising because Jesus had a reputation for having a superhero persona during his life and was always seeking a following of fanatics (that is, people who would give up everything to follow him).

But while Superheroes are the "Defenders of the Universe," Jesus is the "Restorer of the Universe." The Gospel of John makes this abundantly clear. John equates Jesus with the same Word of God that originally created everything when he writes, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...and the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." And just like God created everything over a SIX day period using his WORDS and then RESTED, John retells SIX of the miracles that Jesus performed during his life using his WORDS before he RESTED. Jesus turned water into wine by TELLING the servants, "Fill the jars with water." Jesus heals the son of a royal official by SAYING, "You may go. Your son will live." Jesus heals an invalid by SAYING, "Pick up your mat and walk." Jesus feeds five thousand by SPEAKING a blessing over the bread and the fish. Jesus heals a blind man by putting mud on the man's eyes and SAYING, "Go, wash in the Pool of Saloam." Jesus revives Lazarus from the dead by SPEAKING in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." After Jesus performed these SIX miracles he said, "It is finished" and rested (John 19:30). God did the same thing in Genesis 2:2-3.

Many people believe that John organizes his gospel with these parallels to the Genesis account to show that Jesus was God. While that might be true (because John clearly equates Jesus with God), I believe that John organizes his gospel account this way to show that Jesus' mission is to restore creation back to its original form and design. Jesus is the one who can and will reverse the curses of Genesis so that "no longer will there be any curse (Revelation 22:3)." Through the power of God's Spirit, Jesus overcame sickness, death, famine, blindness, and sin. Now John makes it clear that the same Spirit that empowered Jesus' ministry is available to his followers (John 15-16). This is why Jesus is able to say such things as, "I tell you the truth anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father (John 14:12)." And so Jesus ended his ministry by saying, "As the Father sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world (John 17:18)." Jesus wants his followers to continue His restoration project and has given them the power to do this! He wants me to passionately take on the role of a superhero.

So how can I do this? I need to ACTIVELY set out to reverse the curse. And so, where there is hate, I need to bring love. Where there is injustice, I need to bring fairness. Where there is impatience, I need to bring patience. Where there is lies, I need to bring truth. Where there is jealousy, I need to bring encouragement. But the mission extends beyond MYSELF to my INFLUENCE in other people's lives. And so, I need to be actively introducing people to Jesus and his power to transform lives so that the world becomes filled with people who are seeking to live under God's leadership and design. God wants to use my INFLUENCE to restore people back into a right relationship with Himself. God wants me to be a restorer of the universe! May I make it my aim to bring God glory on earth by completing the work he gave me to do (John 17:4)!

Jesus is ONE-denominational

I am amazed by the sheer number of different things people place a primary emphasis on in their Christian faith these days (and throughout history). This week a pastor I was talking with said that with the de-emphasis most younger people today are placing on denominational distinctions he feels a strong need to get his congregation to understand the history of his denomination so that people will retain their loyalty to it. With this in mind, he is planning on teaching the denominational history of his church during Sunday School classes (not just during his membership class).

Now the problems I have with this emphasis are that the denomination becomes more important than Jesus and people become more loyal to their denomination than to Jesus! The result is that the church slowly abandons its mission to bless the world with the message of Jesus (and in the above case the new mission becomes keeping Christians loyal to a denomination). In 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, Paul saw how a misplaced loyalty away from the person of Jesus was negatively impacting the church in Corinth. Rather than focusing their attention on blessing the outside world with the message of Jesus, they were focusing their attention on increasing their status within the church by aligning themselves with certain Christian leaders. I guess that they had forgotten that Jesus taught us to "deny ourselves" and that "the last shall be first, and the first shall be last."

Another problem I have with the emphasis on denominations is that I didn't realize that denominational distinctions were so important to Jesus, the founder of the Christian faith. In fact, I thought that he founded only one movement (or denomination). And I thought that the inspired history and distinctives of this movement were found in the pages of the Bible. And I didn't realize that whether someone was Reformed, Arminian, or Dispensational was all that important to Jesus. Maybe I'm just missing something by wanting to make Jesus the sole emphasis in the Christian faith.

Anyway, I love the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:2, "For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." And in the same letter (11:1) Paul writes "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ." I think Paul agrees that living two six (1 John 2:6) requires that Jesus and his example get the sole emphasis in our Christian faith! After all, Jesus is our faith!