"GOOD GREAT THINGS FOR YOU AND I" One thing our Wednesday Bible Study has caught on to in our study of John's gospel is how slow people are in general, and the disciples are in particular, when it comes to catching on to what Jesus keeps saying. Things get repeated two, four … even six times, and Jesus' listeners still don't get it. This is especially true when it comes to his foretelling his death and resurrection. Even his closest friends can't put it all together. It seems that the disciples – and the crowds – had a limited notion of God's working. Maybe hundreds of years of being dominated by foreign powers does that to you. Maybe being a millennium removed from the founding events of the Exodus, wilderness and conquest causes one to forget what God is capable of. Jesus' presence with them was a good thing. His teaching was a good thing. His healings were even very good things. They couldn't wrap their minds around the notion that through Jesus God was going to do a great thing – comparable with parting the Red Sea, bringing water from a rock, or sending bread from heaven – namely, defeating death. Too often we in our churches are willing to settle for good things. Good fellowship. Good programs. Nice music. We're satisfied when we can commend our church to someone by telling them, "I belong to a nice church." Maybe we don't see God doing great things in our churches and in our communities because we have lowered our expectations from God. We don't look for God to do great things anymore. Pastor Jim Cymbala of the Brooklyn Tabernacle wrote in his book Fresh Power, "God wants the church to be a place of awe and wonder, two qualities that we have largely lost in our meetings." As we consider what God did when he raised Jesus from the dead, let's look for – even expect – God to totally transform lives that are dead in sin. Let's look for God to deliver people from life-draining addictions. Let's look for God to restore life to nearly-dead relationships. Let's look for God to bring hope and healing to hopeless situations. Let's look for God to do the great things for his sons and daughters that he is able to do. Let's look for great things from God because Christopher Hitchens was wrong: God is great!
