Show and Tell

Since that lady sued McDonald's a few years ago because she burned her leg with spilled coffee, it sure has become hard to get a hot cup of coffee. Yesterday I had a cup while meeting someone at Starbucks. It started off on the low end of hot and was lukewarm with about 3/4 of the cup to go. I asked the barista to heat it up. Looking confused, she said, "I guess I could put it in the convection oven." They don't even have a microwave! So I drank lukewarm coffee.

* * *

I've been thinking lately about what we refer to as The Great Commission (Mt. 28:18-20):

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (TNIV)

Because of the context of Jesus' words--right before his ascension--and because he prefaces his remarks by calling upon his authority, there does seem to be something significant going on here. THE Great Commission seems to fit. I feel comfortable interpreting this as the marching orders for the church. This is what Jesus wants his people to do; go and make disciples.

I don't hear this language very much; I certainly don't use it much. We tend to talk of our churches (whether large institutional ones or newly planted house churches) in terms of "sharing the love of Jesus" or "helping others find God" or "serving people in the name of Jesus" or "Lifting up Jesus." Those are all good things to do, but the language Jesus uses makes me think those should be means of accomplishing the task of making disciples.

If our goal or the mission of our Christian community is to do something like "Lift Up Jesus," could we be aiming at something that is short of what Jesus asks? Lifting up Jesus is a crucial and mandatory component in making disciples, but people can see Jesus and not necessarily follow that up with "See, here is water..." Perhaps we at times are over-responding to those attempts to get people into the water without first lifting up Jesus, but I wonder if we are substituting the means for the end.

Twenty-five years after reading Michael Green's "Evangelism in the Early Church," I am still struck by these words he wrote (p. 194): "Christianity is enshrined in the life; but it is proclaimed by the lips. If there is a failure in either respect the gospel cannot be communicated."