How can Jesus say this? Of all the promises He made to His followers on this fateful night, this is probably the most incredible of all. Jesus looks the Disciples in the eye and says, “You know the amazing things you’ve seen me do? Well, you’re going to do greater things than those!”

Jesus had done some amazing things. He had turned water into wine. He had basically read the mind of a Samaritan woman. He had healed an official’s son, just with a word spoken from a distance. He healed a man who had been crippled for 38 years. He had fed over 15,000 people with just five loaves and two fish. He walked on water. He healed a man who had been born blind from his mother’s womb. He raised Lazarus from the dead.

To understand what Jesus is saying, you have to understand something about His miracles. Jesus never performed a miracle on this earth just for the sake of performing a miracle. He didn’t heal a sick person just to fight disease, or open the eyes of the blind because He meant to bring an end to blindness. There were sick people and blind people and lame in the world while Jesus was on earth that He didn’t heal. Jesus didn’t feed that hungry crowd just because He wanted to bring an end to world hunger. After all, a few hours later, they were hungry again.

Every miracle Jesus ever worked was for a purpose. They were signs to point to something bigger. People were struggling to believe in Him, and Jesus worked those miracles to show who He really was. But the miracles themselves were not what He came to accomplish; they were not the definition of Jesus’ mission. They were meant to reveal His identity, and to point to something bigger – a greater healing – a permanent healing available to us all – the Jesus accomplished that at Calvary, and He said that because of what He did there, all who believe in Him will never perish but have everlasting life.

Jesus made provision for our sin, and allowed us, as sinners, to be reconciled to God. When He walked out of that tomb He declared victory over sin’s offspring – death. He brought forgiveness, transformation, and eternal life with our Heavenly. That’s the most miraculous miracle of all!

And get this – Jesus entrusted us, His Church, with that life-giving message. We hold the very words of life. We lead people to the kind of healing that lasts forever. That’s what Jesus means in this verse. That’s the power of the Church. Are you in awe of that? You should be.

We are part of something wonderful and powerful. God has entrusted us with the very words of life, and every baptism represents revolutionary healing and new life. Every testimony is a miracle. That’s the power of what Jesus accomplished on Calvary.