Now I have seen all kinds of miracle workers on television and in real life -- I’m sure you’ve seen them, too -- who have healed people, who have raised people up. I’m impressed by that, but I’ve got to say I’m always suspicious of healers who are bald. If I had that power, the first thing I would do would be to take care of my own problem! But I believe in healing. I’m sure you do, too. Most of us know people who have been miraculously healed by the grace of God, by the intervention of God in history. I believe in healing, but I have never known of anybody who could match Jesus. I’ve never known of anybody who could measure up to the works of the Lord. And yet this is what he says, "See what I’m doing. What I’m doing you’ll be able to do," and then he adds, "and greater works than these shall ye do because I go unto my Father."

When I asked my pastor about that when I was a young boy he said it’s because we don’t have enough faith. That didn’t quite wash with me because Jesus doesn’t say you might do it if you have enough faith. He says, you will do it. I think that the problem is this, that we are so impressed with the power of God that we fail to see that the miracles are not about his power but about his love. What Jesus did he did not so much to demonstrate his power but to express his love. How many times does he perform a miracle and say to the people who benefit: don’t tell anybody, keep it quiet; I don’t want people to get the wrong idea.

Jesus broke into history not to demonstrate his power. He came to express his love. That’s what his miracles were about. In the first of the miracles, at the Cana feast, he and his disciples arrived at this wedding. They were about half way through the thing and were running out of wine. The father was distraught, he didn’t know what happened. He thought he had enough wine. He mortgaged the house, he took all the money out of the bank. But this Rabbi from Nazareth showed up with his disciples and they’d been guzzling all afternoon! That’s probably what went on. The young bride was in tears. The new husband was perplexed, they don’t know what to do. For the ancient world to run out of wine in the middle of a feast was to be disgraced publicly. Mary went over to Jesus and nudged him: "Do something." I can just hear her saying, "Do something. Do something." Jesus said, "What have I to do with thee, woman?" which is an ancient way of saying: "Mom get off my back." (So young people, if your mother is driving you up a wall answer her as Jesus would. Say: "What have I to do with thee, woman?" It will go over real big I assure you.) I can just hear Mary saying, "You never have lived up to your potential." You think you’re the only one who has a mother like that? Jesus had never performed a miracle, but at his mother’s urging he does perform one. He calls for them to bring in containers, fills them with water and he turns the water into wine, not to show his power, but to express his love for people who are in a difficult situation. He did not do it for his power, he did it to express his love.

This is what the gospel’s about. It’s about love. We can’t duplicate the power of Jesus. I mean we can’t walk on water. I don’t have the ability to raise up people from the dead, neither do you. But this we do have, the opportunity to express the love of Jesus. and when it comes to the bottom line, Jesus was more committed to expressing love than showing off his power.

I was in Haiti. I checked on our missionary work there. We run 75 small schools back in the hills of Haiti. I came to the little Holiday Inn where I always stay and shower and clean up before I board the plane to go home. I left the taxi and was walking to the entrance of the Holiday Inn when I was intercepted by three girls. I call them girls because the oldest could not have been more than 15. And the one in the middle said, "Mister, for $10 I’ll do anything you want me to do. I’ll do it all night long. Do you know what I mean?"

I did know what she meant. I turned to the next one and I said, "What about you, could I have you for $10?"

She said yes. I asked the same of the third girl. She tried to mask her contempt for me with a smile but it’s hard to look sexy when your 15 and hungry. I said, "I’m in room 210, you be up there in just 10 minutes. I have $30 and I’m going to pay for all 3 of you to be with me all night long."

I rushed up to the room, called down to the concierge desk and I said I want every Walt Disney video that you’ve got in stock. I called down to the restaurant and said, do you still make banana splits in this town, because if you do I want banana splits with extra ice cream, extra everything. I want them delicious, I want them huge, I want four of them!

The little girls came and the ice cream came and the videos came and we sat at the edge of the bed and we watched the videos and laughed until about one in the morning. That’s when the last of them fell asleep across the bed. And as I saw those little girls stretched out asleep on the bed, I thought to myself, nothing’s changed, nothing’s changed. Tomorrow they will be back on the streets selling their little bodies to dirty, filthy johns because there will always be dirty, filthy johns who for a few dollars will destroy little girls. Nothing’s changed. I didn’t know enough Creole to tell them about the salvation story, but the word of the spirit said this: but for one night, for one night you let them be little girls again.

I know what you’re going to say: "You’re not going to compare that with Jesus walking on water." No, I’m not, for very obvious reasons. If Jesus was to make a decision which is the greater work, walking on water or giving one night of childhood back to 3 little girls who had it robbed from them -- giving one night of joy to 3 little girls that armies had marched over -- which do you think Jesus would consider the greater work, walking on water or ministering to those 3 little girls.

And Jesus said, "The work that I do, Ye shall do and greater works than these shall Ye do because I go unto my Father." I can’t replicate the power acts of God in Jesus Christ, but every time I perform an act of love in his name, I am imitating Jesus and he is saying, "Well done thou good and faithful servant."

I have another story I want to tell. It’s about a friend of mine whose name is John. He and I went to a little airport in Farmington, New Mexico. We were waiting to board a plane that would take us to Denver where we could head on home, and as we were waiting, there was an elderly woman sitting in the place. She looked mean and she looked unhappy and I was determined to do something about this, so I started joking with her. It was hard to get a smile out of her but I finally did and when the dike broke she laughed convulsively. As a matter of fact, she laughed so hard I thought she was going to pass out. She finally said, "Stop, stop!", and the others in the airport, the four or five men that were there gathered around, all began to have a good time with this old lady.

The little commuter flight arrived and she hugged her friend and left. I waited for them to call us to board the plane and as I waited I looked out the window and I saw her car coming back up the lane. The old lady got out of the car and shuffled back into the airport. She came up to me and she said, "Mister, you couldn’t have possibly known this, but it was three years ago today that my husband of 54 years died. And I didn’t realize it until I was half way home that today was the first day since then that I have been able to laugh. I wanted to come back and thank you."

And Jesus said, "The work that I do ye shall do and greater works than these shall ye do because I go unto my Father."

You see, Jesus did perform miracles and I believe he still does. But there’s something even greater than miracles that God has called us to do. He has called us to be instruments of his love to people who need to experience love. And when we do those things, these acts of love are greater than the work that he did when he walked on water.

But there’s even a deeper meaning to that verse than that. Here it is: When Jesus was here in the flesh he was only able to look into the eyes of one person at a time; only able to express love personally to one person at a time. But he has ascended to be with the Father and has come back as a spirit, the Holy Spirit that comes into our lives and fills us and drives us to love. Now if thousands and thousands of people go out tomorrow morning and each of them performs one act of love in his name, then it can be said -- you can hear Jesus uttering these words -- "The work that I do you are doing and you’re doing it greater than I did it because thousands are greater than one. I could only love one person face to face at the time. But there are thousands, yea, millions of you now and each of you at any given moment can love someone intimately and powerfully in my name."

You say, "You’re an evangelist, you’re an evangelical, don’t you believe that you have to tell people about Christ and what he did on the cross?" Yes, yes we must do that, but we dare not talk about the love that was expressed on Calvary unless people feel that love coming from us in acts of compassion and grace.

Jesus calls us to do the kinds of things that he did. Everyone of his miracles was an act of love. A funeral is coming out of Nain, there’s a young dead man, and Jesus raises him up, not because he wants to show off his power. He says to the woman, who is a widow and has now lost her only son, "Take your boy home with you." He does what he does, not to show off how powerful he is, but in order to demonstrate how loving he is. When you accept Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord it is not just so that you are now ready to go to heaven when you die. Jesus saves you from sin and fills you with his presence, that, through you, his love might be expressed to all of those people that you meet day in and day out, who need your love and need it so desperately.

Let me quote the scripture one more time. Jesus says to his disciples, even as he says to you and me "The work that I do, ye shall do and greater works than these shall ye do because I go unto my Father." John 14:12. May each of us live out this verse and may it be said of you, he did, she did the work that Jesus would have done if Jesus was here in the flesh. It’s in that context that we have authority when we declare the good news of what Jesus did for us on the cross. May God bless us and do great things through each of us in his name.

Tony Campolo: Sometimes those who operate and function as Evangelicals have the idea that the purpose of salvation is to get people saved so that when they die they can go to heaven. When I come to the Bible I read about a God who wants to save us, transform us, not so that we can go to heaven but so that through us he can express his love to people in this world. He saves us not for heaven but for this world, so that we can be agents of change in the world in which we live.

Talbot: You’re talking about the cost of discipleship and faith without action is no faith at all. Tony, I have to ask you, in 1992 you wrote an article about a new breed of activists. You predicted that American university students would wake up again in the middle of this decade. Have they?

Campolo: They have. Actually I have so many volunteers on my hands right now with what we were doing in Philadelphia, and then came to New Jersey with university students who would take a year off from school, we’re having to do nation-wide, even world-wide. We expect to recruit 5000 young people this next year to take a year off of school and work with the poor in desperate places in the name of Christ. That’s the kind of salvation story that the world needs to hear.

Talbot: Now you and your wife Margaret have two grown children, Bart and Lisa. How are they living out their faith?

Campolo: My daughter is a lawyer and I don’t know what to say about that. She’s a good lawyer. My son is a missionary. He started a missionary organization in Philadelphia called Kingdom Works, which is working ecumenically, Catholic and Protestant churches, with young people, taking these inner-city churches that have weak youth programs and revitalizing them so that inner-city churches can have strong youth programs for the boys and girls and teenagers in their neighborhoods. That’s what he’s doing and I’m very proud of him.

Talbot: Tony Campolo, in our final seconds, you prayed at the Democratic National Convention. In 15 seconds, how did you do that?

Campolo: Well, I prayed this: that politicians should remember that their obligation is to be a voice for those who have no voice; to speak for the poor, the oppressed, the down trodden, people who are hurting, the gays, the lesbians, the abused women, the people that the churches often turn their back on. To speak for them, that’s the job for a great leader.