Some time ago when I was browsing through St. John’s gospel, I came
across these reassuring words of Jesus: “Whoever believes in me will do
what I do - yes, he will do even greater things” (Jn 14:12). That is
surely an exaggeration, I thought. It cannot be true. This has to be understood
as hyperbolic language. Doing greater things than Jesus has done! But when I
studied the context and began to think about it, the full impact of Jesus’
statement dawned on me. Jesus meant what he said, and its message has weighty
implications.
Jesus has just declared, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” He goes on to say that he is in the Father and the Father in him. Also his teaching is not his own teaching, but the Father’s. Jesus’ activity, in other words, what he does and says, reveals the Father. Then he continues:
“The Father, who remains in me, does his own work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. If not, believe because of the things I do. I am telling you the truth: whoever believes in me will do what I do - yes, he will do even greater things, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask for in my name, so that the Father’s glory will be shown through the Son” (Jn 14:10-13).
Whatever Jesus does - the preaching on the kingdom, the manifestation of his power, his service to the people - is all work done by the Father. In the same way the Father will work in Jesus’ disciples. Jesus is going to heaven, but in the disciples the same work of the Father will go on. The disciples, therefore, will do what Jesus did - yes, even greater things than he did.
This Johannine definition of discipleship struck me so forcefully because it shows that Christian discipleship is of a totally different nature than rabbinical discipleship. Jesus’ disciples depend on their master’s words, as talmidim learn words from their rabbi. But there is a difference. The word becomes active in them. They receive their own mission. They are Jesus’ successors, rather than only followers.
The true model for Christian discipleship can be found in prophetic succession. God tells Elijah, “Anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet” (1 Kgs 19:16). The account also tells us how Elisha was called.
Elijah left and found Elisha ploughing with a team of oxen; there were eleven teams ahead of him, and he was ploughing with the last one. Elijah took off his cloak and put it on Elisha. Elisha then left his oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me kiss my father and mother good-bye, and then I will go with you.”
Elijah answered, “All right, go back. I’m not stopping you!” Then Elisha went to his team of oxen, killed them, and cooked the meat, using the yoke as fuel for the fire. He gave the meat to the people, and they ate it. Then he went and followed Elijah as his helper. (1 Kgs 19:19-21).
Commentators differ on this text. If I read the text correctly Elisha did not kiss his father and mother goodbye. He interpreted Elijah’s answer as a refusal. His new commission was far too important. So he made a meal with his oxen to indicate that his old job was over.
The vocation stories in the gospel follow this pattern. This is true of the way they are described, but also, I believe, of the way Jesus himself approached the call. Like Elisha, the apostles are called away from their jobs: Peter and Andrew from their fishing boat, Matthew from the customs house. Jesus called them to a prophetic task, not to classes about the Law. Great urgency speaks from his stern demand of unconditional and immediate following-expressed in the three words of Luke 9:57-62, the last one of which was obviously modelled on Elisha’s vocation:
Another man said, “I will follow you, sir; but first let me go and say good-bye to my family!”
Jesus said to him, “Anyone who starts to plough and then keeps looking back is of no use for the Kingdom of God” (Lk 9:61-62).
If Jesus called successors as Elijah had done, it is worth studying the relationship between Elijah and Elisha. The actual handing over of power is described in an unusual narration. Elisha knows that Elijah will be taken up to heaven, so he stays close to his master. Eventually, when they have crossed the Jordan, Elijah asks what Elisha wants.
“Let me receive the share of your power that will make me your successor,” Elisha answered. “That is a difficult request to grant,” Elijah replied. “But you will receive it if you see me as I am being taken away from you; if you don’t see me, you won’t receive it” (2 Kgs 2:9-10).
Elisha actually saw Elijah being taken away, and so he knew he had become the successor. He picked up the cloak which Elijah had dropped and performed the same miracle of dividing the water of the Jordan which Elijah had done previously. The subsequent deeds of Elisha demonstrate the same point. Elijah made a bowl of flour and a jar of oil last through a whole period of famine; Elisha miraculously multiplies a jar of olive oil; Elijah raised the dead son of a widow to life; Elisha does the same for the woman of Shunem. Elisha did the same marvelous things Elijah had done; yes, even greater things, because he cured Naaman the leper.
The gospels, of course, portray Jesus not only as the new Moses but also as the new Elijah. Jesus compares himself to Elijah and Elisha (Lk 4:25-27). Some of Jesus’ miracles remind us of these prophets: his healing, the multiplication of the loaves, the raising of the widow’s son. Most telling, perhaps, is the way Luke brings out that the disciples saw Jesus when he was taken away.
As he was blessing them, he departed from them and was taken up into heaven (Lk 24:51).
After saying this, he was taken up to heaven as they watched him, and a cloud hid him from their sight (Acts 1:9).
In the light of Elijah’s words to Elisha, seeing Jesus being taken up to heaven confirmed the power of succession.
Elisha’s request, translated as “the share of your power that will make me your successor,” reads literally as, “Let me inherit the double share of your spirit.” The double share was the right of the first son, the successor. Elisha, therefore, literally asked that he might inherit Elijah’s spirit as his full successor. Again, we fnd the same theme repeatedly brought out in the gospel. Jesus passes on the Spirit to his disciples.
“When, however, the Spirit comes, who reveals the truth about God, he will lead you into all the truth....He will take what I say and tell it to you” (Jn 16:13-14).
He breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:22). Because we have Jesus’ Spirit, we have succeeded fully in his mission. “As the Father sent me, so I send you” (Jn 20:21). We have the double share of his Spirit!
How much Elijah’s and Elisha’s missions were intertwined may be seen from this observation. While Elijah was on the Sinai, God told him to anoint Hazael as king of Syria and Jehu as king of Israel. He received these orders before he called Elisha. He didn’t execute either commission. It was Elisha who put them into operation. Elisha told Hazael he would be the future king of Syria. And Elisha sent one of the young prophets to anoint Jehu as the new king of Israel. Also in this way he proved that he was Elijah’s true successor: He continued and completed the tasks that had been entrusted to his Master. In the same way we find that Jesus entrusted his own commission to the disciples. “Go, then, to all people everywhere and make them my disciples...teach them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20).
What conclusions may we draw for these reflections’ First of all, as Jesus’ disciples we are not his servants, but his equals! This seems a daring assertion. Yet it is true. We can say, as Paul does, that we serve Jesus, that we are his servants. We say so because we help him, assist him, obey his instructions. But we may not say it with a feeling of inferiority, with a sense of misguided submissiveness. Just as Elisha, though a disciple, became Elijah’s equal through succession, so we, too, have become real children of God and co-heirs with Christ. Christ is the first-born and “the only Son,” yet all of us have become God’s sons and daughters, Christ’s brothers and sisters. That is why Christ does not consider us servants but friends, because “I have told you everything I heard from my Father” (Jn 15:15). We are Christ’s equals.
It also follows that we are more than secretaries and copyists; we are prophets and witnesses. Not that we are called upon to invent a new message, a message that would deviate from Christ’s. Rather we are called to continue his teaching, to enlarge it so that it becomes “the full truth,” to make it develop so that it increases a hundredfold. We have to become teachers who can produce new and old things according to the requirement of our mission. We are exercising a prophetic teaching function and Christ will back us up: “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me” (Mt 10:40). Our prophetic message will so much be part of ourselves, that we can be called “witnesses” (Lk 24:48) and witnesses “filled with power” (Acts 1:8). Witnesses are not parrots who repeat someone else’s thinking. Witnesses communicate what they themselves have seen and heard and are convinced about.
We are not just followers, but leaders. Followers play a secondary role. They put into practice what their master told them. They execute plans formulated by someone else. But Elisha was not Elijah’s follower. He became a new leader in his own right. In the same way Christ makes us leaders in our own right. He has given us the initial capital: one, two or five talents. He expects us to enlarge that capital through our own creative skill and hard work. He wants his disciples to learn from the inventiveness and dedication of shrewd businessmen, even though they are “children of the darkness”” (Lk 16:8). Whenever Jesus sends his disciples on a mission, he gives them a share in his power. Thus we become more than followers; we are enabled to carry out our tasks through a new source of power in us.
Equals to Christ; prophets and witnesses like him; leaders. This means that each disciple does to some extent become a new Christ. Discipleship implies full succession. It is here that the teaching in St. John’s gospel becomes crystal clear: Jesus was filled with God; he was in his Father and his Father in him; no one has ever seen God, but Jesus made the Father known; Jesus’ deeds revealed the Father; whoever saw Jesus, saw the Father. In the same way the Father will take full possession of the disciple. The Father loves such a person, comes to him and lives in him. The Father prunes such a person as the branch of a precious vine to make it bear fruit. The Father dedicates such a person to himself by means of the truth. The Father guides and strengthens such a person through the Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus was filled with the Father, so the disciple will be. That is why the disciple will do the great things Jesus did - yes, even greater things.
This also explains why Jesus can say that it is better for us that he goes.
“If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for he is greater than I” (Jn 14:28).
“I am telling you the truth: it is better for you that I go away, because if I do not go, the Helper will not come to you. But if I do go away, then I will send him to you” (Jn 16:7).
Though Elisha loved his master, it was better for him that Elijah was taken up to heaven. This was not only because it would give his master the reward he deserved, but also because only then could Elisha succeed to his master’s task and receive “the double portion of his spirit.” In the same way, it was better for Joshua that Moses was taken up to heaven.
Joshua, son of Nun, had been Moses’ assistant since he was a young man. He stood by Moses in the rebellion of the ten spies. He led the people in the battle against the Amalekites. When Moses was going to be taken up to heaven, God told him to make Joshua his successor:
“Take Joshua son of Nun, a capable man, and place your hands on his head. Have him stand in front of Eleazar the priest and the whole community, and there before all proclaim him as your successor. Give him some of your own authority, so that the whole community of Israel will obey him” (Nm 27:18-20).
Moses did as he was told. He encouraged Joshua with the words:
“You are the one who will lead this people....The LORD himself will lead you and be with you. He will not fail you or abandon you, so do not lose courage or be afraid” (Dt 31:7-8).
Joshua was “filled with wisdom, because Moses had appointed him to be his successor” (Dt 34:9).
Joshua’s greatest confirmation, however, came after Moses’ death. For until that moment he had somehow derived all his authority from Moses. But now God himself spoke directly to Joshua and commissioned him to occupy the promised land, something Moses had not been able to do:
“My servant Moses is dead. Get ready now, you and all the people of Israel....As I told Moses, I have given you and all my people the entire land that you will be marching over....Joshua, no one will be able to defeat you as long as you live. I will be with you as I was with Moses....Make sure that you obey the whole Law that my servant Moses gave you....Do not be afraid or discouraged, for I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go” (Jos 1:1,3,5,7,9).
If we turn to the end of St. Matthew’s gospel, we will see that this was the scene Matthew had in mind. Moses saw the Promised Land from Mount Nebo, but he himself could not enter it. Jesus, too, saw all the nations of the earth but left their conquest to his successors. As Joshua was given power, so Jesus gave it to his disciples. As God would be with Joshua, so Jesus would be with his disciples “always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). The disciples would be leaders in their own right as Joshua had been - in faithfulness to God’s plan.
This commission, like other words through which Jesus conferred power, applies to his disciples in degrees. Through their specific ministry some partake more of one kind of authority, others of another kind. But the concept that discipleship implies succession, not merely dependence, applies equally to all Christians. The basic equality of all as Jesus’ disciples, as second Christs in the world, is fundamental to Jesus’ idea of the kingdom. All of us are called to be “the chosen race, the King’s priests, the holy nation, God’s own people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God” (1 Pt 2:9). Each one of us is to Christ what Elisha was to Elijah, what Joshua was to Moses.