¹² “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”

Speaking to the future apostles (who they were going to be), not the present ones (who they are now in the Upper Room), this statement of Jesus would probably lay dormant for the time being. We the readers know where this is going and how God will tremendously fulfill this promise for the followers of Jesus Christ for two thousand years. But in the darkening atmosphere in this Palestinian house, He was preparing them, training them for life without Him (physically).

They needed to know His promise before the crucifixion and resurrection. Though the power of the promise would lay dormant during the terrible time of Jesus’ torture, crucifixion and death, the disciples would probably have wrestled with everything He said just hours before. What do those things mean now, as Jesus was dying or when He was dead in a grave? Indeed, the promises of God become most precious precisely when we are not experiencing the fulfillment of them, when things couldn’t possibly get darker. The sustaining power of His promises is that they give us hope in our darkest moments, when we cannot see their fulfillment. When God seems to be “not there,” when we are not hearing from Him. That is when the His promises germinate and bear the fruit of hope.

The specific promise is reminiscent of 2 King 2:9-10 when Elisha was promised a “double-portion” of the prophet Elijah’s spirit, which translated into twice as many miracles being performed. Here Jesus promised that believers in Him would perform similar kinds of works and even “greater” ones than Jesus performed. These were the powerful, confirming signs that He did to demonstrate that He was the Messiah. These would happen at the hands of His followers.

Clearly the men in the Upper Room, the original apostles, performed great miracles. At last count in the Upper Room Jesus had eleven disciples (maybe a few women as well, though that is nowhere stated) and in the Upper Room just prior to Pentecost, there were 120 people (Acts 1:15). Then, at the preaching of Peter, three thousand were saved and baptized, while a short while later the number grew to 5,000 (and that’s not including women and children). Already in a few days, the crowd of followers was comparable to what Jesus had at His largest count (5,000 in Mark 6:42). In fact, miracles at the hands of the apostles preponderate (see Acts 4:16, 8:13, 19:11, 2 Cor 12:12, Heb 2:4).

Lord, Your promises give me hope, even in dark times when I feel alone and abandoned. But I believe because of Your power in me, I will someday prevail.