Abstract
A Day in the Life of Jesus
The period on which we focus our attention starts with a bereavement—with news of the grim death of John the Baptist who was more to Jesus that a fellow-prophet. He was a kinsman, first of all, and equally important, he had ministered to Jesus both in word and sacrament. He had baptised his cousin Jesus and encouraged Him, and now he had been murdered. The crowds were gathering already when the bad news came; and Jesus wanted, understandably, to have a moment to Himself, a respite from the pressures of His public ministry. ‘Let us go off by ourselves to some place where we will be alone’.
So off they went, by boat; but they were seen, and people guessed where they might go, and hurried round by land, the numbers growing as they passed through villages and steadings and infected others with their eagerness—so that when Jesus came ashore He was immediately confronted by a throng of people clamouring for help.
In some such situation you and I might well have been indignant or depressed or bitter; but Jesus’ heart, we read, ‘was filled with pity.’
So what had been intended as a rest day—a day in which to come to terms with His personal bereavement—became instead a crowded day of teaching. ‘He began to teach them many things’—and hour followed hour, each one filled with questions and answers, instruction, explanation, exhortation, each hour taking virtue out of Him to an extent that only those who have to deal with people and their problems can begin to comprehend.
When it was getting late, His helpers came to Him and said, ‘Send all these people away; it’s supper time. They must be getting hungry’. But Jesus’ store of pity was by no means yet exhausted; and so the people were divided into groups and told to sit down on the grass—a seated crowd is so much easier to manage—and somehow they were fed and filled to overflowing. And only then did Jesus send the crowd away, and even then not hastily or brusquely. He said Good-bye to them, dismissed them with a blessing. He sent off His disciples too, and so, as darkness fell, he had a moment to Himself. He climbed a hill and had a time of prayer and maybe even snatched a little sleep—a little only, for another human need burst into His precarious peace. He sensed that His disciples were in trouble on the windswept water —‘ha’en a sare fecht’, says the Scots version. He watched them for a time, by moonlight, one presumes; watched them for a time, for Jesus never rushed to help folk with a problem they could solve themselves. He watched and saw that they were losing their ‘sare fecht’ against the elements, and went to their assistance, arriving on the scene about the fourth watch of the night, that is some time between 3 and 6AM.
The walking on the water, like the feeding of the multitude, is something we may try to rationalise or may accept, according to our personal theology. What is miraculous, utterly defying explanation, is Jesus’ inexhaustible concern—His readiness to suffer interruption after interruption in the name of mercy. He came to them and spoke to them His words of cheer and they were lifted out of their alarm—and so they took Him on across the water to Gennesaret, where they tied up the boat; and as they left the boat, people at once recognized Jesus. His foot had hardly touched the ground before the crowds began to gather yet again. The people who had recognized Him ran, we’re told, throughout the whole region—spread the word that Jesus, teacher, healer Jesus had arrived—and right away the queues began to form, the lines of sick and sorry folk, surrounding Him there on the shore, and then awaiting Him in every village and at every cross-roads in His progress.
It’s a day calculated to humble the busiest of us; more than a day, I reckon, 36 or 40 hours with no explicit mention of sleep—a day that Jesus wanted for refreshment and renewal, and deserved to have, which yet was crammed with its full complement of cripples and crises. It is a day when Jesus plans were disrupted and His schedule shattered—and through it all He moved serenely, His gracious good-will never flagging.
In this the Master doesn’t only humble us—He teaches us. He says that we must plan our day, indeed, with care and order, as the faithful stewards of our allotted time; but that we must be calm and cheerful when the plan is sabotaged by human need of any sort; He says that openness and flexibility are Christian graces; that irritating interruptions may be golden opportunities provided by the Holy Spirit—which all makes our discipleship still harder than we thought. An ordered pattern of Christian life is not, or may not be, enough.
We may be heading for the weekly choir-practice when some neurotic neighbour comes with an anxiety to share. To flee or not to flee? We may be elders visiting our district homes against the clock, and wondering how long to spend in this home, where some problem seems about to be unveiled. How do we balance this need with the needs of other people waiting for our call? What do we do about the ’phone call that erupts when we are halfway through our Quiet Time? Do we ignore it on the grounds that nothing should intrude upon our time with God—that if it is important then the unknown caller certainly will call again; or do we let the interruption interrupt, in case it is an urgent cry for help?
No doubt a certain priest and levite had crowded diaries and engagement books—important meetings to get back to, a list of invalids who needed visiting, a special service to conduct—and so they turned their backs on any interruption like the body in the gutter.
Never so Jesus! He took interruption, crisis and confusion in His stride—and in doing so forever blessed the disorder and untidiness of lives alert to other people’s needs.