In His Hands
Jesus’ ministry was relatively short. Three years was all it took for Him to accomplish everything the Father intended Him to do. If we allow Him about eight hours a day for sleeping, He had a shade over 17,000 hours in which to establish His identity, preach to the crowds, heal individuals, train His disciples, deal with His detractors, and hang out with sinners sufficiently to get a bad reputation.
For much of Jesus’ ministry, He was dramatically active.
- He instigated confrontations with His enemies.
- He always had snappy comebacks and amazing answers when they tried to trap Him.
- He acted in great power over nature, illness, death and demons.
- He was the leader, the teacher, the master. People looked to Him for their cues.
- He invested in His disciples almost non-stop, instructing, training, admonishing them according to their need and the situation.
- He was constantly the centre of attention, whether He was in the temple, in private homes, in vineyards, by the sea or on the road.
- He was in control of every situation. He decided where He would go, often setting up “chance” encounters with people. He directed the flow of conversations. He came and went without deferring to anyone.
- He never missed an opportunity to make a point of some kind, even if no one got it and He had to explain it later to His disciples.
We admire this about Jesus, even if our own personality tendencies and mode of handling things run in the opposite direction. What He was able to accomplish in those 17,000 hours dazzles us. And He did it with such style, such confidence, such brilliance and such consistency. He was always on His game. He always had the right answer for the question. He made the nit-picking scholars look like nits. He lifted the saddest sinners to undreamed of realms of dignity.
But… from His arrest in the garden, at about 10 PM one evening, to His death on the cross, at about 3 PM the next day, Jesus doesn’t look like the man His disciples spent three years getting to know. In those 17 hours from the garden to the grave, we see a side of Jesus that seems totally out of character.
A reading of any of the crucifixion accounts leads us to see Jesus as a helpless victim. Military, religious and civil authorities acted upon him, but other than uttering a few short phrases He was entirely passive. There were no clever answers, no stunning miracles, no evasive manoeuvres. He was, as Isaiah said, “oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7 ESV).
In Luke 9:51, we read of a seemingly small decision that Jesus made which precipitated a chain of events which had the appearance of completely taking over His life. “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (ESV) This wasn’t something that He decided on a whim at the moment. Clearly what he set into motion here was the purpose of his coming to earth in the first place. However, this moment of determination to go to Jerusalem is recorded for us and gives us the start point for the culmination of Jesus’ earthly ministry.
That one deliberate decision launched a series of events in which Jesus appeared to be entirely passive, but which ultimately accomplished the entire will of God concerning His plan for rescuing humanity from the clutches of death.
When we intentionally commit ourselves to fulfilling God's purpose for us, we can rest in the knowledge that however out of control things seem to be, they are proceeding according to His plan and will accomplish what He intends for them to do. Though we find ourselves in the midst of circumstances which make little or no sense to us at the moment, we can be sure that they have meaning and significance in the plan of God. In observing the life of the Lord, we see the best example of all things working together for good, when we place ourselves in His hands.
Ron Hughes
© April 2008
