When the seventy-two, sent out by Jesus to prepare the towns
and villages for his arrival, return full of joy at their major success, they
share with Jesus their enthusiasm that “even the demons submit to us in your
name.” Jesus confirms their success by
relating to them that he witnessed the fall of Satan, “like lightning”, and
then he goes further by telling them that they will do even greater things for
the kingdom because he has given them his authority and power. With that ability the followers of Jesus,
soon to become the Church after Pentecost, are entirely capable of overcoming
the forces of darkness and carrying the Gospel’s saving grace to the ends of
the earth. There is much in Jesus words
to give us confidence and hope as we continue to be beacons of light in a dark
world.
After
building up their enthusiasm and expectation, Jesus ends the conversation by
reminding his followers that wielding power in his name, even over the forces
of darkness, is not an end in and of itself, but rather an outcome of the
foundational work which he is about to accomplish on Good Friday and Easter. Jesus reminds them that the most important
thing is that they can rejoice that their “names are written in heaven.” If we, as individuals and as a Church, don’t
have that, we don’t have anything. This
perspective has major implications for each one of us and for our collective
efforts to do fulfill our mission through the ministry of his Church.
Is this
then a call, by Jesus, to place our focus entirely upon evangelism to the exclusion
of service? Of course not, that would
fly in the face of the approach that Jesus himself used as he continually met
the physical needs of the people he met in the process of sharing with them the
Good News of the Gospel. This is not a
call to divorce evangelism from service, rather it is a reminder that the two
must be inextricably linked, because the evangelist who cares not for the
people will soon have no audience, and the servant who doesn’t bring the Gospel
with him/her will have no message. In
the end, figuring out how we combine service and evangelism in our personal,
Church, and para-church efforts will be an ongoing task, but as long as we keep
the proper perspective from Jesus that there is only one foundation we can
build upon, we will continue to be useful to the kingdom of God.
To watch the video, click on the link below:
No comments:
Post a Comment