J. Douglas Dortch, Jr., Ph.D.
First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL
“Christ: It's Who You Know That Counts ”
From the Series "Beliefs that Build Community"
Scripture: John 14:1-7
February 3 , 2008
I feel that way about a story I came across regarding a sweet grandmother who called Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, seeking information on a patient. If you’ve ever tried to get information about a loved one who’s in the hospital, you know what a challenge that is. Privacy rights prevent hospital staff from divulging information on patients, and while as a pastor who spends a good bit of time visiting in the hospitals, that can get awfully frustrating, but in the end, I understand the reasoning and really can’t argue with it. But back to the story.
This grandmother somehow worked her way through all the operators and volunteers to the nurse’s station of the patient she was checking on. In her sweetest and most grandmotherly voice, she asked, “Is it possible to speak to someone who can tell me how a patient is doing?” The nurse who answered the phone couldn’t turn down this matronly woman who sounded so much like her own grandmother. “Yes, I’ll see if I can help you. What’s the name and room number?” And in her most weak and tremulous voice she answered, “Holly Finkel in room 302.” The nurse pulled up Holly’s chart on the computer and said, “Well, I’m really not supposed to be telling you this, but there’s really good news. Her chart shows that Holly is doing really well. Her blood pressure is fine; her blood work just came back normal, and her doctor, Dr. Cohen, has scheduled for her to be discharged tomorrow.”
The grandmother answered, “Oh thank you; that’s wonderful. I was so worried. God bless you for the good news!” The nurse then said, “You’re more than welcome. Is Holly your daughter?” “Oh, no,” the grandmother replied. “I’m Holly Finkel. Dr. Cohen doesn’t tell me anything!”
“Shame on Dr. Cohen!” He should have told that woman where she stood. And many of you in the medical or legal professions would add to that, “Shame on that nurse!” She obviously didn’t know who she was talking to, and if she had been talking to the wrong person, there’s no telling what damage might have been done.
But in this story as in most, all’s well that ends well. And life goes on until the next challenge comes our way.
But let’s not leave the story without pointing out one very important truth. When faced with a challenge to be overcome or even a task to be accomplished (depending on how you hear the story), it’s rarely what you know that matters as much as it is who you know that counts.
Now, isn’t that the resounding note sounded in this passage from John’s gospel? “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus said to his disciples. Those were important words in and of themselves. But then lest anyone misunderstand what he was saying, he added to those words with this important truth: “And no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
I don’t think I have to tell you that this one passage, as simple as it is, and as gracious as it is, drives more people batty than virtually any other verse in the Bible. Why is that the case? People read it as being rigid and exclusive, when Jesus meant it to be open and inviting.
Understand the context. Jesus is preparing himself for the cross and everything that is to follow. He is in the process of trusting himself to the Father and is therefore modeling for his disciples how God wants all of us to live. He knows how anxious they will be. He knows how fearful they will be. He knows it, because he himself is anxious and fearful. But there’s one thing he is that none of the others is. He’s faithful. And in the process of expressing his faith, Jesus is at this point in his ministry inviting his disciples to join him in a world where fear and anxiety have no place. He’s offering his disciples an opportunity to experience with him God’s abundant life and to give us the good news that God’s salvation is available to everyone who will trust themselves to him as he trusts himself to the Father. When Jesus speaks of himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, he’s not saying to his disciples that it will be hard to get into heaven and that he will look at those who wish to find God with a critical and suspicious eye. On the contrary, he’s telling his disciples that anyone can know God, if only they will seek Him through His Only Begotten Son.
That’s what put Jesus at odds with the religious leaders of his day. They were the ones who were interested in controlling how people came to God. Using ritual and knowledge, they had become the way by which the common people were to access God. “It’s what you know and what you do that matters,” they told the people. “And we will tell you what to know and we will tell you what to do.” Then here comes Jesus, undermining their authority by giving people direct access to the Father. “If you believe in God,” he told his disciples, “believe also in me.” The religious leaders couldn’t accept that, because it was too inviting and too encompassing. And yet they could not ignore his message. He wasn’t just pointing the way to God; he was offering himself as God.
Who among us can ignore Jesus? Deep down in our hearts of hearts, we know in our bones that there is, as the old hymn puts it, “something about that name.”
Phillip Yancey picks up on this reality in his wonderful book, The Jesus I Never Knew. Yancey is intrigued by the manner in which people bear witness to the significance of Jesus’ name even when they use it in vain. For example, he says, “How strange it would sound if when a businessman missed a putt on the golf course, he yelled ‘Thomas Jefferson!’ or if when a plumber hit his thumb, he hollered, ‘Mahatma Ghandi!’” Understand that Yancey is not condoning using Jesus’ name in that way, nor am I. It’s just that Yancey sees such expressions as just another indication of how none of us can ever really “get away” from Jesus. He is always there before us, inviting us to follow him that he might lead us to God. Some of us follow, some of us don’t. But the opportunity is there for everyone who would take it.
Have you taken it? Have you given your life to Jesus so that you might be able to know the Father and the life He created you to enjoy?
In my opinion, N.T. Wright is one of the foremost theologians Christianity has today. Wright is at the same time a serious scholar and serious churchman. He has a tough mind and a tender heart. He is the closest thing our generation has to a C.S. Lewis. Wright did an interview recently with Christianity Today magazine in which he focused on the mission of the church and what we must do to improve our efforts at relating the significance of Jesus to our postmodern world.
The interviewer asked Wright about the emptiness that so many today have and how they are laboring to fill it with everything but the real thing, faith in God. Wright answered by saying that the task we face today is not simply addressing the “God-shaped blank” that people think that they’ve got. If we only do that, then the God a person ends up with is a God that is shaped by the blank, which means that we get a financial God, or a family God, or an occupational God, or a rational God. Meanwhile, Wright reminds us, the real God is working to take the blanks in a person’s life and pulling and tugging and turning them into a new shape. The real God is making us to look more like Jesus.
I love the story of the preacher who had come to a new church and had decided to get acclimated to his new congregation by making the rounds of the church roll, trying to get to know his new congregation. Part of the visit involved the usual stuff – family background, job, hobbies, etc. But the preacher always ended the visit by asking the question, “Does Jesus live here?” As you can imagine, some people handled that question better than others.
One couple didn’t handle the question well at all. When the pastor asked it, the husband and wife didn’t know how to respond, and ended up not saying anything. The pastor was gracious, thanked them for their hospitality, and then left, wishing them well and letting them know that he was hoping to see them that coming Sunday.
As soon as he left, the conversation began. “Why didn’t you say something?” the wife asked the husband. “Why did you just sit there?” “Why didn’t you say something?” the husband shot back. “I asked first,” she replied, as if that was all that needed to be said.
“Well, what do you think I should have said?” “Why couldn’t you have told him that we’re respectable people?” “That’s not what he asked.” “Why didn’t you tell him that we go to church on a regular basis?” “That’s not what he asked either.” “Why didn’t you tell him we read the Bible…sometimes?” “You’re not listening, wife; that’s not what he asked at all. He asked, ‘Does Jesus live here?’” And for the next couple of hours, that husband and wife quit arguing and started talking about what it means to give a home to Jesus and in the process to be experiencing the life such faith enables that home to know.
The same question can be posted to a business person or a student, to a single adult or a retiree. “Does Jesus shape every contour of my life because I am following him in everything I’m about?”
Life is tough, and not a day goes by when we don’t face some kind of challenge. Some of them we can handle. Others are way beyond us. But none is beyond God, who gives grace to those who invite Jesus into their lives and commit themselves to his way.
God knows who you are and where you are. And if like Holly Finkel in Mount Sinai Hospital, you ever wonder how things stand, you don’t have to go through a mountain of red tape or around someone’s back. You can go to God directly, and through Jesus, all you have to do is ask.