ONLY THE ONE WHO CAME FROM ABOVE could speak so knowingly and so intimately about the One who rules from above. Jesus’ transcendent and supra-natural knowledge of the “silver thread” (Ecc. 12:6) of life that so powerfully connected him to the Father had been woven consciously into the fabric of his existence since he was twelve. (c.f. Luke 2:41-50) His parents, thinking him lost after the Feast of the Passover, “found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” (Luke 2:46) Jesus then replied to his mother’s relieved but frustrated queries, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49) This is not yet Jesus’ time, but he is preparing, and being prepared, for his calling and mission. Nevertheless, learning the necessary practice of obedience, he returns home with his earthly parents, where he “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” (Luke 2:52)
This same quality of obedience comes to initial fruition at the front end of Jesus’ calling. The scene is the Jordan river, and the anointing over the silver thread, so necessary for what is to come, is clearly seen as Jesus rises from John’s baptism in the muddy water into the baptism of the Spirit from above. “When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’” (Luke 3:21-22)
This is the anointing that commands our attention. The one who speaks out of this anointing is the one we listen to, because this is the voice of truth that we have always been seeking. When a man or woman of God speaks a word of God under inspiration, that word must and will accomplish God’s purpose. “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isa. 55:10:11)
And so it is for the disciples as they engage with Jesus and as he invites them into his mission. This begins for them when he calls the first four away from their fishing boats and way of life. “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matt. 4:20) He knows what is coming, even as he speaks these words into existence. Over the course of his ministry, he prepares them, as best he can, for what is to come. Then comes the night he will be arrested, and by sundown the next day he will be tried and crucified. He tells them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” (Matt. 26:31-32)
The fabric holding together the universe as they have grown to know it is going to be torn open; he will be taken up, and they will all be shaken out. Jesus prays to the Father for them, “For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.” (John 17:8) And he pleads to the Father for their safety: “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” (John 17:11b, 15) These words for his disciples, spoken to the Father as prayer on their behalf, are incredibly important; this is the last time that he can impart words of life into his disciples before he is crucified, and they are words that they will need to have working within each of them if they are to survive the painful birthing of their calling.
Jesus’ disciples today need these same encouraging words. We need to hear, to know, and to understand that we, like them, “are not of the world, even as he is not of it.” (John 17:14b) We need to hear, to know, and to understand that we, like them, are being “sent into the world.” (John 17:18b) And we need to know that Jesus sanctified himself for us—made himself holy, as an offering of sacrifice. His death on the cross was for each of us, and was the price he was willing to pay.
Father, we are grateful beyond measure; more definitively, our gratitude can only truly be measured in light of the scope of the sacrifice of Jesus at Golgotha. It is a measurement weighed on a scale from a different realm. One indication of this is the curtain torn top to bottom in the temple; another is the number of capstones moved off their open-air stone mausoleum, freeing dead spirits to life; yet another is the tongues of fire on the believers in the Upper Room. The one who came from above was untethered from the gravity of this realm, and we are untethered from a low view of existence. Father, thank you for Jesus.
Q. How can I know I am my designated place in this temporary lower world?
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