At this point I want to go back more than 30 years, when I was counselling people with alcohol problems. Apart from the alcohol, the other thing they had in common was an inability to cope with authority. At that time, I had no time for the church or for God. My view was that the church led people into false dependency and God was a fiction. One day, I glanced at a passage in the Bible. It was John chapter 10, verse 17 "For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father."

Immediately I recognised that I had been holding onto a completely wrong perception of Jesus. His will and his father's will were at one, even in the most difficult decisions that life could offer. Here was someone who had completely conquered the problems of authority that beset the people I was counselling. It helped me to become a better counsellor, but more importantly, it put me on the road to conversion.

Now we come to the exceptionally important question - How does Jesus get his authority recognised?

In our dramatised reading tonight, the religious leaders were questioning Jesus' authority. His answer to their question 'Who gave you this authority?' was a blunt 'I won't tell you!

However, the reading last Sunday evening from John chapter 14 is more helpful. Jesus says "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves."

Works: A word sufficient to raise the hackles on the back of the neck of a confirmed Calvinist; yet Jesus uttered it.

When Jesus was speaking about his works, he wasn't thinking of the number of sermons he had been preaching, the length and intensity of his prayers or his depth of knowledge of Scripture. He was speaking of the signs of the Kingdom that were occurring in his ministry through the integrity of his relationship with God: The healings and the feedings of the multitude, which are now downsized and sanitised by many in the church.

continued