The Original Google and Youtube

John 14:23-29 New International Version (NIV)

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe.

Friday evening I got home from work after stopping at O’reilly’s to get one bulb for my trunk and one for Cheyanne’s car.  I was able to quickly put the bulb for my truck’s fog lamp in and so I thought it would be just as easy for Cheyanne’s car.  I open the hood, the place where logic tells you to start when replacing the headlamp bulb and see a piece of plastic that goes the width of the car so I start figuring out how to get that piece off.  I finally figure out how to take the clips out, which is not that difficult when I found the right size of Phillip’s screwdriver only to realize that taking the piece out did not do me any good.  I finally locate the back of the headlamp and see a cap that must come off in order to get to the bulb.  Take it off no problem and think “we are cooking with butter now!”  Then I decide to make sure it was the right bulb in that headlamp, this is after already losing an argument to Cheyanne about which side was out to begin with.  The cap that I had taken off was for the high beam and of course it was the low beam that needed replaced.  I then begin the process of wedging my hand and arm between metal and plastic trying to take the other cover off.  I finally succeed and then.... It falls.  My first thought “there is absolutely no way that I am going to find that”.  Only by luck, I took a shot in the dark by climbing underneath the car, bending a piece of plastic to again get my hand and arm through there and I feel the cap.  However, I keep pushing it further and further away with the tip of my finger until I finally clinch my teeth and reach as far as I can to catch it with my fingertip and pull it out.  I then quickly realize there is no way I can get to the bulb from up above.  A job I thought would be pretty easy before I started turned out to be more difficult than I thought.  It left me with only one reasonable and well thought out option......

Youtube.  Yep, the same site that taught me everything from installing a new sink, to the Whip-and-Ne-Ne, to replacing a window, to replacing a bulb in a 2011 GMC Acadia.  I felt incredibly silly when I realized just how easy it was... All I had to do was remove 7 screws from a plastic piece in the wheel well only to create an area barely large enough for my arm to fit through but the guy in the video said this tight space is natural just do not get too hard on the plastic.  Silly me, right?  Any logical person should know that the only way to replace a low beam bulb is through the wheel well.  Why didn’t I think of that.  Anyway, I get the old one out the new one in and the plastic all buttoned back up.... Then I realized I forgot to put that cap back on.  I thought, “well I took it off from up above surely I can put it back on from up there.”  Another totally logical thought blown to smithereens by this now 1.5 hour fiasco!  Yep, that means that I had to take all of the screws back out so I could put the cap back on.  Finally, I got it all put back together and it is still working.  I only have a few scratches and scrapes that chronicle the battle that took place.  

Jesus has more than a few scratches and scrapes that chronicle the battle he endured on our behalf.  As I thought about my struggles with that car and how Youtube helped me tremendously I couldn’t help but to think about how Jesus so radically changed religion more than 2000 years ago.  Youtube has made it easier for me to be more useful and handy around the house.  I have been able to replace and repair many things that I had no idea how to do before watching Youtube or googling something.  Youtube and Google can take any novice and turn them into a relative expert in less than 10 minutes.  These two sites make it so much easier to understand the task in front of you.  I say this because a couple years ago I had to Google where the battery was in Cheyanne’s car.  I know what you’re thinking “everyone knows a battery is under the hood...”  You would be wrong.  It is behind the passenger’s seat, under a couple floor mats.  Bet most of you wouldn’t find that without the trusty Google either.  

I would have been lost without Youtube.  I would have had to approach my wife, defeated, and tell her that she was right... She did need to take it to a professional just to change a headlamp bulb.  I would be lost without Christ as well.  Without the actions of Jesus, I would have to approach God, defeated, head lowered, full of shame and guilt to tell Him that I have fallen short.  Jesus changed that.  Jesus is to me as Youtube is to changing that headlamp bulb.  Jesus gives God a human element.  A way to better understand something that is almost beyond our comprehension like a bulb that you have to change by going through a wheel well and a battery in the middle of a car and in the floor.  Beyond our comprehension.  Thank goodness we have Jesus.  We have a human example of Godliness.  A difficult example to follow but an example after all.  I could probably watch a Youtube video of arthroscopic knee surgery but that doesn’t mean I am ready to perform it.  (vs 27) “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”  Jesus made God easier to understand, easier to comprehend.  Our hearts can be very easily troubled and afraid but when we take a moment to realize that we do not have to change the headlamp bulbs of life by ourselves, we see that God is there with us.

Verse 26 says, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”  Sound familiar?  That sounds a lot like Google to me... So we have the original Youtube in Jesus and the original Google in the Holy Spirit.  Can you imagine how distant God would seem if it weren’t for Christ and the Holy Spirit.  The Israelites didn’t have these tools and we can be pretty critical of their mistakes while wondering in the wilderness.  We have these tools and look at how we still struggle.  We do not have to go to God defeated, heads down full of guilt and shame because Jesus changed all of that and he changed that for all of us.  We no longer have to live afraid.  There is such freedom in knowing that we are loved despite our mistakes.  We are able to be confident in who we are and where we are headed because we carry with us the original Youtube and Google.  Amen.