God is Ordinary

John 14:1-11

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Optional Intro: Portraits

We all take pictures of ourselves and our meals and almost everything we do now, but not so long ago, the only way to have a copy of what you looked like was to sit for a portrait. Painters were Renaissance celebrities, and having your portrait painted was a flex of epic proportions.

[Tip: Do as Google search of famous portraits. Download them and display them as you give your illustration.]

Back in the day, portraits weren't necessarily meant to be a perfect capture of someone's features. Painters weren't trying to get an exact copy on Queen Elizabeth's nose, or fully encompass the color of Lord Darnley's eyes. Instead, portraits were meant to tell a story about who that person was. They were meant to say something about who he or she was, to offer a sense of their presence.

The way a subject stood or sat, the clothes they wore, the props included in the painting, how they placed their hands, where they were looking: it all served to tell a story to someone who needed to understand who this person was without the benefit of words. Maybe it conveyed what kind of job they had or their social status. The painting tells a story that words cannot express. It represents the actual person.

In the same way, Jesus is the representation of God to humanity. When there was no way that we could begin to process the extraordinary mystery of God, He gave us Jesus. As believers, we hold to the idea that in Jesus, God communicated the fullness of Himself and His identity. Jesus came down to our level and gave us a portrait of God in a way that we could understand. In other words, while Jesus shows us that God is extraordinary, God is also different than we think.

Let's unpack that.

Background

The gospel of John is intensely theological, and throughout the book, John reveals how Jesus was God dwelling among us in the flesh (1:14). John knows this better than almost anyone, as one of Jesus' disciples, as well as one of His closest friends. But John also illustrates how the people around Jesus often missed the truth that Jesus is God in the ordinary. Most people of the day completely missed the reality that Jesus was the Messiah that God had promised to send to deliver His people.

People expected the Messiah to be a conquering political and military hero who would deliver Israel from the tyranny of Rome. People expected the Messiah to come from within the Temple system. People expected the Messiah to be powerful and wealthy and influential. People expected to see someone who fit their definition of extraordinary.

But Jesus came outside of those expectations. He was from humble surroundings and parentage. He wasn't born into the lap of luxury; He was born in a smelly, common stable. He didn't come from within the formal, established religious channels; in fact, He often spoke out against them. And He didn't seem to be concerned with overthrowing the Romans.

Still, Jesus developed a following because of His compelling teaching and miraculous works. But even those followers expected more of Him. We discover this in today's passage, which took place in the final week of Jesus' ministry. Jesus and His 12 apostles gathered in an upper room to share the Passover meal. Jesus began the meal by bowing low to wash His disciples' feet in an astonishing display of humility and service for a Rabbi with His followers.

Then Jesus began to tell His disciples that He was about to leave them. As He prepared them for His death, He entered into a conversation with Philip that showed that even the disciples couldn't believe how ordinary Jesus was.

Explanation

[Read John 14:1-11.]

Jesus opens this passage by telling His disciples, “Don't let your hearts be troubled.” But the truth is that their hearts must have been very troubled. How could they not be? The one they had left house and home to follow was going away. Someone in their group was a traitor. Another was about to cowardly deny Jesus. This was not what they had signed up for, and it was less than they expected from their time with Jesus.

Then Jesus made a strange statement: “You know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas, with blunt honesty, disagreed: “We don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” That's when Jesus made the extraordinary statement, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” In this statement, Jesus revealed both the ultimate destination (the Father) and the way to get there (Himself).

This statement gave the disciples an idea about who God is and how to get to Him, but Philip still wasn't willing to let go of His expectations. We sense His longing for a powerful sign from Jesus as he said, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough.” Philip was looking for a burning bush, a soaked fleece, a pillar of fire, or something else extraordinary to assure Him that Jesus was connected to the Father. This was not necessarily a bad thing to ask for; Gideon and Moses, among others, asked God for similar extraordinary signs and received them.

But Philip had something that Gideon and Moses didn't – God in the flesh. In Jesus, God was closer than Philip thought, but because Jesus was underdressed, Philip missed it. Philip was looking for the extraordinary, and so God was less than his expectation. Philip's faulty expectations caused him to miss Jesus in the ordinary.

Optional Illustration: Underdressed

Think of a time when you've been underdressed. Maybe it was a wedding, or prom, or a funeral. Maybe your grandmother made you eat dinner at the country club, and you had to throw a weird sports coat over your basketball jersey.

Have you ever been underdressed? It's an awkward feeling. You walk into a party, and everyone else is wearing a coat and tie or a fancy dress, and you're in jeans. It's hard in these moments to feel like you fit in, and you feel like you're disappointing everyone. No matter how funny you are or how attractive you are or how personable you are, you know that people at this party will only remember you as the person who wore jeans to that party.

[Tip: Tell your own story of being underdressed.]

In today's passage, we discovered that Jesus was underdressed. The people around Him had certain expectations of what He would look like and how He would act, but Jesus came in at less than those expectations.

Application

In Jesus' response to Philip, we see the extraordinary God also wants us to find Him in the ordinary. Jesus said, “Don't you recognize me, Philip?” as if to say, “Philip, I know everything about you. I've studied you in the ordinary. I know your name. (In Bible times, to call someone by name was to know them.) I know who you are. How is it that, walking with me, you haven't noticed the same?”

Like Philip, we love to and long to see God in the extraordinary. We want the God who measures the heavens with His hands to show up next to us and be on our side. And of course, this is who God is.

But God is also ordinary. In a divine paradox, God chooses to be underdressed so that He can be near to us. God is closer than we think, but we make the same mistake Philip did and overlook Him because often, God is less than our expectation.

God is closer than you think because God is revealed through Jesus. It is huge that Jesus is God in human flesh. In Jesus, we see how God cares about every ordinary problem in our lives and our world. In Jesus, we see how God cares about every ordinary person, regardless of status or prowess. In Jesus, we see that God is ordinary enough to reach down into our ordinary lives and make a difference. God is less than we expect, and that means that He is more involved and more concerned than we could ever imagine He would be.

Optional Illustration: Mythbusters

Does anyone here remember the show Mythbusters? It was a group of special effects artists turned scientists, who did experiments to see whether famous myths, folk tales, and rumors were possible. Some of the myths that were tested on the show were: could someone escape from Alcatraz? Can you save a computer hard drive by freezing it? Is a police badge bulletproof? Can an airplane toilet create enough suction to cause a person to become stuck to it?

[Tip: If possible or desired, find a clip of the show on YouTube to show.]

No matter the subject, these guys (and a girl) take an extraordinary myth and put it to the test with some ordinary experiments to find out that the truth is sometimes closer than we think.

When it comes to getting to know God, we need to become mythbusters. Instead of merely wondering about an extraordinary God, we need to dig in and start getting to know God in the ordinary.

Sometimes, God is less than our expectation, but that's because our expectations (like many of these myths) are faulty. But as we change our expectations, we will meet God in the ordinary, and we'll also discover more and more ways that God is more extraordinary than we imagined. In the end, we'll know God better, and we'll realize that He is closer than we think.

Closing

God is a lot of things. But He is not exactly what we expect. We expect a hero to conquer our enemies, but we find a peacemaker who reaches out to them. We expect someone who joins established religion, but we find someone who challenges it. We expect someone who uses power and wealth to impress, but we find a friend to the oppressed. We expect a God who is far off, but we find a God who is closer than we think. We expect judgment, but we find grace.

We expect extraordinarily, but we find ordinary. And as we see who God is, we become thankful that God is less than our expectation.