Last week we left off our trip with John in Luke 9 with John and the other disciples arguing over who was the greatest. John had just gone through an incredible few weeks, during which time he was given authority cure diseases and cast out demons, took part in what was probably the largest scale of Jesus’ miracles, with bread multiplying itself in his very hands, and, to top it off, had seen Jesus transfigured and speaking with Moses and Elijah, making John one of only three people to see Jesus transfigured and one of only four people in all of history to see both Moses and Elijah. We had decided that it was understandable, then (though certainly not right or excusable) that John would begin to ask why all these amazing things were happening to him. Why was he selected as one of the Twelve and then again selected as one of the three Jesus made into His inner circle? Why was he so privileged? Surely it had to do with something about him; he must be special! Why else would Jesus have chosen him?

And so John began to base his identity upon what happened to him, how successful he was. He began to wonder, since he had attained to membership in the Twelve and the three, how he ranked among the three. Which of them was the greatest? This kind of thing, it seems, was also going through a good number of the disciples’ heads, and then became a topic of conversation. Jesus would have none of it, understandably, and took a child and stood the boy next to Him, telling the disciples that whoever was least among them was the greatest. Of all those present, the boy was the least in the disciples’ eyes and thus the greatest! Well! This shook John’s identity up a bit, threatened it.

So, what did John do, now that his identity had been questioned? A lot of us secretly live with inner feelings of inadequacy. Despite our worldly success, achievements and the way people respect us, many of us fear that these aren’t deserved, that inside, deep down, we are really losers, inadequate. Since we base our identities on our achievements and reputation, we quell these doubts about who we are with success and accolades. “The whole world can’t be wrong,” we tell ourselves when it applauds us. But what happens when the world stops cheering us? It threatens our very identity and our fears and doubts about ourselves resurface. In order to quell our doubts again, we desperately attempt to re-establish our position of success and reputation. This is what John did.

To what Jesus said, John responded by telling Jesus that he and the other disciples had seen a man casting out demons in Jesus’ name, but who was not one of the disciples. John and the other disciples had tried to hinder him; he wasn’t, after all, one of them. John seems to have expected approval for such an action– this is his chance to re-establish his position– but Jesus instead reproves him. This other person, this outsider who isn’t even a member of the Twelve, is able and allowed to cast out demons! Not only is John rebuked, but his special status is threatened even more!

Some time later, Jesus is passing through Samaria and sends messengers ahead of Him to arrange for places to stay along the way. In one village, the Samaritans refused to give Jesus a place to stay. John saw another opportunity to re-establish his place. He and his brother, James, fulling living up to their nickname of “Sons of Thunder,” ask Jesus if they can call down fire from heaven and level the village. Surely this would regain their special status! These, obviously, were Jesus’ enemies, and surely he and James would gain approval for the genius idea of killing them with fire from heaven. Instead, though, Jesus rebuked them.

All this must have shook John’s identity some. When he tried to guard the safety of his position, to make sure that no one else found out that he might not be up to the job of one of the three, it seemed like all he got was rebuke from Jesus! All the while, the little kid who had done nothing but stand there but was greater than him in Jesus’ eyes must have been galling him! Couldn’t he do anything right? What was wrong with him? John’s identity must have been further challenged when, in the next chapter, Jesus sends out seventy people with about the same commission John probably assumed was exclusive to himself and the other disciples. We see that John didn’t learn his lesson, though, for a while, as the question of who is greatest among the disciples comes up again.

At some point, though, John did learn his lesson. He learned that basing one’s identity upon one’s status and accomplishments is wrong, both morally and factually. He learned that when one becomes desperate in one’s attempts to shore up one’s status and identity one begins to counter God’s work and hurt others as one flails about (remember how John attempted to stop someone from casting out a demon and would have called down fire on an entire village?). Most of all, he learned to base his identity Outside himself. By the time he wrote the Gospel of John, he had gotten to the point where the only way he wanted to refer to himself, at least in literature, was as the one Jesus loved.

John learned that God loved him no matter what and that He always would. He learned that his identity would be safe with God and that God’s opinion, after all, was more important than anyone else’s. He learned that the most important thing about him was that God loved him. I invite you to learn that yourself today and to entrust not only your eternal security but your identity with Him.

Oh the deep deep love of Jesus
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!

*This post is shamelessly and almost wholly based on a study led by Neil Cole a few weeks ago.