John, the gospel writer, ties the story of Nicodemus with the very next section with two small words, “after this.” After what? After Jesus had explained to Nicodemus that the Kingdom of God is much more than can be understood in human terms, its focus is the presence of Jesus and it is available to all people, we find Jesus back in the desert in proximity of John the Baptist. Here John sees clearly who Jesus is and the nature of his ministry. He becomes for us the model disciple displaying several traits that could help us in our ministry.
John’s follower noticed that Jesus was attracting many people and he was concerned enough that he brought it to John’s attention. John responds with grace reminding his follower that his ministry was to prepare the way for the messiah. He was able to let go of his ministry for the sake of the Gospel. He understood that his ministry really wasn’t his own but belonged to God. How many times are we involved in a ministry and we act as though we own it?
I think that one of the reasons that John was able to let go of the ministry so easily was that he had a very healthy understanding of who he was and his role in the Kingdom. He was content with his ministry that looked beyond itself to the witness of Jesus Christ. His identity was not tied to his ministry. How many times is our identity tied to our particular ministry?
John also had the ability to be joyful in his service to Jesus as well as the success of Jesus’ ministry. John likens his joy to a best man’s at a wedding. The best man knows that he was picked by the groom to be a witness to the marriage and not the groom. To many times we view our ministry as a competition with others. Competition can bread animosity which leads to disunity in the Body of Christ. Joyfulness in the success of others and ultimately the success of Jesus Christ connects us to others and pulls us together. John understood that being connected to the ministry of Jesus means that the success of others is our success too. How often are we joyful at the success of the ministry of others?
When we can understand that the Kingdom of God is more than we can understand in human terms, ultimately centers on the presence of Jesus Christ and is available to all people, suddenly our ministry becomes very small and our role is less significant. Now don’t misunderstand. Each one of us has been called to be in ministry for the Kingdom of God, but we need to remember it is a Jesus thing not a me thing. So when we have a healthy understanding of our roles and we understand that we are children of God and don’t need to derive our identity from our ministry nor do we own our ministry, we can then become joyful in the success of others who are ministering in the name of Jesus. We come more like John the Baptist, the model disciple.
