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When you think about great orators in history, who comes to mind?
Maybe Martin Luther King Jr, whose legacy we celebrated last month? Or
perhaps Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln? Patrick Henry or Queen
Elizabeth I? When a great speaker is giving a speech, everyone wants to
go listen. Great speakers attract great crowds.
Jesus probably
was a great public speaker. He certainly did attract great crowds. But
His disciples weren't called to Him by His attractive oratory skills,
they were called to Him by the supernatural power of His Word. Jesus
said to Philip, "Follow me." Jesus was a powerful speaker. But His power
wasn't in the tone of His voice. His power wasn't in the way He spoke.
His power was in the Words He spoke!
Jesus' Word draws people to
Him. Jesus told Philip, "Follow me." And Philip's obedience was
immediate. On his own, Philip didn't have any power to follow
Jesus and be His disciple. Quite the opposite. It's our
sinful nature to actively reject Jesus. It's our sinful nature to
resist the pull of Christ's call. But the power of God's Word far
outweighs the puny power of our sinful nature.
It was the power
of Jesus' Word that led Philip to believe who Jesus is and what Jesus
was going to do. It's the same Word and the same power that worked in
you at the moment faith was created in your heart. It's the same Word
and the same power that works in your heart to sustain and strengthen
that faith day by day. Jesus told us, "I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of
life" (John 8:12). Jesus' Word gives faith. A faith which follows Him
to His cross and to His empty tomb -- and to everlasting life.
Go to dark Gethsemane, All who feel the tempter's power
Your Redeemer's conflict see. Watch with him one bitter hour;
Turn not from his griefs away; Learn from Jesus Christ to pray.
Follow to the judgment hall, View the Lord of life arraigned;
Oh, the wormwood and the gall! Oh, the pangs his soul sustained!
Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; Learn from him to bear the cross.
Calvary's mournful mountain climb; There, adoring at his feet,
Mark that miracle of time, God's own sacrifice complete.
"It is finished!" hear him cry; Learn from Jesus Christ to die.
Early hasten to the tomb Where they laid his breathless clay
All is solitude and gloom. Who has taken him away?
Christ is risen! He meets our eyes. Savior, teach us so to rise.
(Lutheran Service Book, 436)
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