By Eric Rafferty
Last week my three year old son, Memo, had the experience of going through Vacation Bible School for the first time. As a three year old all I really wanted for him was to get through the week without hitting anyone (he did great on that front by the way). Learning deep truths about Jesus wasn’t really an expectation I had for him, and I definitely didn’t expect him to teach me a foundational truth about mission with Jesus. But that’s exactly what happened.
First, his theological background:
The clearest thing that Memo understands about Jesus is that he is with us! He is close to us, he loves us, and he protects us. He is present with light in the midst of our darkness (or a dark bedroom in Memo’s case). I love hearing him reassure himself and me that he’ll be okay in the dark because “Jesus is with me, and he’s made out of light.” Or, “I don’t have to be afraid of monsters because Jesus is in my room and he’ll protect me.”
Honestly, I think that’s some great theology for a three year old! But that theology almost came crashing down after the fourth day of VBS. That day the kids got to watch a simple drama where an older kid playing Jesus went to the cross, came down, and finally went to heaven. All true things, right? The gospel was articulated with a picture of sacrificial love.
But at the end of the day Memo came running over to me and said, “Daddy! I saw Jesus!” Then he paused, his lip and chin started to quiver, his eyes watered, and he screamed, “But he’s gone! He went back to Kevin (Heaven)!” Then he held me and bawled like I had never seen him cry before.
For the next 15 minutes he just wept and kept saying that Jesus was gone. At one point he even said, “Jesus went to Kevin’s house. We need to drive over there and get him back!”
He was devastated that the nearby, close at hand Jesus, who had always been with him would be absent or distant.
From there I tried to explain omnipresence, the Holy Spirit, and God’s eternal plan of dwelling with his people. That didn’t get us anywhere. At the end of the day I was able to convince him on some
level that Jesus is in heaven and he is also with us. So he’s still safe in his room at night.
It was funny to hear him talking about going to Kevin’s house to get Jesus, and it was touching to see him so shaken up by the idea that Jesus would leave. But really, I think he’s on to something significant. In fact, I was deeply convicted.
If Jesus is not with us, then what’s the point?
We can start all kinds of ministries, keeping busy with endless activities, but if Jesus is not present with us, then what’s going to change? Where is the power in our lives is Jesus is not with us?
Jesus’ final words to his disciples in Matthew’s gospel are not just the Great Commission:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them inthe name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
They are also the Great Promise:
“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
If the Church were given this ridiculous command to make disciples in every corner of the earth but we were not promised the very presence of Jesus always with us, then all of our work would be fruitless. The Great Commission would be utterly unattainable without the Great Promise.
Take a look at Moses’ interaction with God in Exodus 33:
After the Israelites’ embarrassing incident with the golden calf, God still planned to give them the Promised Land, he just wasn’t going along.
3 “Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”
15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us?
For Moses, going anywhere (even the Promised Land which his people had been anticipating for 600 years) without the Presence of God was completely out of the question.
Moses got it. The disciples hearing the great commission got it. And my three year old gets it!
Why then do I find it so easy to busy myself “working for Jesus” but ignoring his presence?
Whenever I find myself feeling really stressed out, irritable, or impatient in the midst of ministry, there’s a good chance that I’m trying to live out the great commission without the great promise. Complete reliance on the power and presence of Jesus with us is the crucial foundation for any Christian who would follow Jesus into his mission.
The idea of leading without dependence on the presence of Jesus should be as horrifying to us as it was to Memo (and Moses).
What do you do to cultivate reliance on the presence of Jesus with you?
How do you feel tempted to lead without His presence?
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Jesus is with us…through the actual presence of the Holy Spirit. That is the presence that Jesus promised us. Without the HS, we would be powerless to bring the Kingdom of God to those around us. If Jesus hadn’t left, he couldnt have sent the HS to us.
I guess what I’m saying is that our ministry (yours in Nebraska and mine in Utah) would be impossible if Jesus had stayed. The Holy Spirit empowers us to carry the kingdom of God wherever we go.
Yes! Jesus said that his followers would do even greater works than he did, but only if he returned to the Father. (John 14:12)
Jesus leaving his mission in the care of 11 questionable dudes looks like a terrible plan… except that he gave them his Holy Spirit to be with them, to instruct them, and to fill them with power.