Nothing Except: The path of the apprentice
Jesus rarely talked about the intimate connection between himself and the Father. His teaching and discussions were focused much more on obedience, service, compassion, money and leadership. But occasionally we are allowed to glimpse this vital relationship that permeated his life. We see it in its darkest hour in the struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane. We hear about it in the high priestly prayer in John 17. And in one passage (John 5) Jesus teaches publicly about this vital relationship. He paints the picture of an apprentice.
The story begins with the healing of the cripple at the pool of Siloam. Since this healing occurred on the Sabbath, the religiously rigorous Pharisees were upset. They objected to breaking the Sabbath law, but Jesus responded with a lesson about authority. In this lesson we discover something amazing: Jesus was an apprentice of the Father.
Verse 19 opens the discourse. Jesus says, “The Son is not able to do anything under His own initiative. He does nothing except what He sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son copies.” If we remove the identification of the speaker, this statement sounds very much like any trainee in the employment of a master. “I watch what the master craftsman does. I observe carefully exactly how he performs his tasks. Then I just copy what he is doing. My skills become perfected in copying him.”
We have a tendency to overlook the imagery simply because it is Jesus who is speaking. But the imagery is there nonetheless. Jesus learned carpentry from his stepfather Joseph in exactly this way. He was no different that the dozens of men who stood in the audience that day. Trades, skills and professions were passed from father to son by way of copycat instruction. Want to know how to be a mason? Watch me! Want to learn about being a shepherd. Watch what I do! Want to be a baker, a farmer, a shopkeeper or a carpenter? Then observe exactly what I do and try to do it yourself. If you make a mistake, I will be there to correct you. If you don’t understand, I will show you again. If you forget, I will remind. Just watch me and do the same things.
The problem is not the training technique. We all understand how this works. The problem is that Jesus is pointing to this training technique. And Jesus is God. Why would he ever need to be an apprentice?
We are theologically confused because we constantly slide across the line from the human Jesus, the man who is just like us, to the divine Messiah, the One who is not like us at all. We constantly attribute to the human Jesus those characteristics that belong to the divine Son of Man. The result is that we assume that Jesus is not painting pictures for us to follow. We assume that only God can do what He does.
But Jesus is a man! There is a great line in a film starring Anthony Hopkins. Faced with nearly impossible tasks required to survive in the wilderness, Hopkins repeats the mantra, “What one man can do, another man can do.” We are equally human, equally dependent and equally capable. What Jesus learned on the path of apprenticeship, we are also expected to learn. We are instructed to use copycat training to fulfill God’s purposes in our lives.
Two questions must be answered. The first is the nearly universal concern of every believer. “But I don’t have that kind of intimacy with God. I don’t hear His voice in everything I do. How can I possibly be like Jesus when it comes to knowing God’s will?”
The purpose of apprenticeship is training toward perfection. The apprentice is not expected to be the master craftsman. That is the goal, not the reality. The process of apprenticeship is to do what you can do now with as much expertise as you are able. Each time the skill is repeated, the process grows. Instead of complaining that we cannot hear God’s voice in all that we do and therefore doing nothing at all, God asks us to obey His voice in what we do understand, even if it is only the smallest part of the craft of the master. In fact, God promises that if we do what we know to do, He will provide the next training step in the process.
My friend Joe is a master cabinetmaker. What he can do with wood I can only dream of doing. But until I am willing to sit under his tutelage and learn the simplest skills of measuring, cutting and drilling, I will never come closer to being a master cabinetmaker myself. It is useless for me to complain that I cannot make perfect miter joints if I refuse to learn how to measure. My understanding cannot grow until I am willing to commit myself and I am ready to make mistakes. Anthony Hopkins was entirely right. What one man can do another man can do. But only if the other man is willing to make mistakes in the process of learning. An apprentice is an apprentice because he makes mistakes. That is the only way to learn the skills of the master.
If you do not hear God’s voice in all that you do, do what you do hear Him saying! And be ready for Him to show you your mistakes. It is the direction that matters, not the number of times you must start again. God has all the patience in the universe. Most of us need it because we are such terribly slow learners.
There is one more powerful motivator in this regard. Jesus had to learn obedience too. What one man can do another man can do. The only difference between Jesus’ apprenticeship and ours is that he didn’t make any mistakes. But he still had to travel the path.
Do you really believe that you can have the same intimacy that Jesus had with the Father? Not, of course, the intimacy between the Father and the Son, hidden mysteriously in the persons of the Trinity. Do you believe you can have an intimacy like the intimacy that Jesus shared with the Father as a man here on this earth.
This raises the final question. Jesus says that he only does what the Father shows him. The imagery is observation and repetition. So, where can we look to see what God is doing in order that we may copy Him? Once again we must be careful not to be theologically sloppy. Jesus, as a man, needed to observe God’s hand in order to copy what God did. Jesus was not born the omniscient baby boy with divine telepathy. He learned what God did by observing God’s history with men in the same way his human compatriots learned. He studied the revelation of who God is in the historical record that God left. Jesus was a man of the Word. It informed every aspect of his life. His command of Scripture makes itself evident in all his teaching, in his metaphors, his parables and his prayers. God’s Word was Jesus’ passion. He knew what God was like because he was saturated in God’s revealed character. This apprentice read the book.
Jesus coupled this disciplined training with constant communication. The reason that Jesus could say that he did nothing except what the Father showed him was that he was constantly watching for God. Jesus does not suggest that God’s will is mysteriously hidden from those who want to follow Him. He does not say that we have to go through all kinds of incantations, rituals, postures or appeals to know God’s will. God’s will is as clearly seen as the birds in the air, the flowers in the field and the fruit on the trees – if you know how to look. The critical passage in this section in John is found in this phrase, “The Father loves the Son and shows to him all things that He does.” God is not a miserly master craftsman. He is anxious to impart the knowledge and training that will bring all of his apprentices to the status of “Master”. The fault in training is not on God’s side. It is on ours. The difference between Jesus and us in this regard is not found in His divinity. It is found in obedience. Jesus put aside all the clutter, distractions and temptations in order to tune himself to God’s voice. God willingly delivers the instruction. The question is whether or not we are willing to receive it.
“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” is a critical part of the apprentice training program. God gives a pure heart to those who know they are spiritually defective. God does not require His apprentices to compete for the position. He gives each candidate an equal opportunity. All that is required of the candidate is humility. As a result of God’s gift and our humility, we will see God, not only at the end of this age but right now, in His involvement in this world. We will be shown what God is doing so that we can copy it.
Apprenticeship boils down to this: Watch, do, correct and do again. Do you want intimacy with God? Be like Jesus. Be an apprentice.
