A couple weeks ago I spoke at Newport Beach Cafe on Luke 6:17-19… two of the most powerful verses in the gospels.
17He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, 18who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil[a] spirits were cured, 19and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.
I have skimmed over this passage about a dozen times. It simply looks like just another description of Jesus drawing the masses and performing miracles, but as I meditated on it these words jumped out at me:
He stood on a level place.
Up until this point Jesus has been doing a lot of crowd-control. He has spoken to them from a boat in the lake, left their cities depsite protest, snuch off to solitary places and teaching in synagogues. People have run around lakes to catch him before he can arrive by boat to the other side, crashing through roofs and abandoning their familes to be with him… they can’t get enough of him.
And now he descends from yet another un-reachable location, a mountain, to a level place, and says, “Here I am. Bring it!” Everyone now has access to him, everyone has a chance to reach him… no roof, no lake, no mountain, no boat. He is totally, utterly available and vulnerable. These two brief verses sum up the entire ministry of Christ.
The inclusion of the cities Tyre, Sidon and Jersusalem are important to understand. Jersusalem is the very center and heartbeat of Judea. It’s hard to come up with a modern-day example of the importance of this city. This is probably the best I can do. It’s safe to assume that everyone in the US knows where New York City is. Even though it is located on our Eastern coast, I would say it’s the center of our country. Big important stuff happens there and we are fascinated with it’s history. Now, imagine the mass majority of our country is Catholic and New York is the Vatican City. It is the religious pulse of the nation. Tyre and Sidon are the furthest cities on the Western coast… as far as you can go without falling into the Mediterranean Sea. Oh, and they’re completely gentile cities, void of all religion.
Can you see this? Jesus is drawing crowds from the inside and the outside… the religiously trained and the gentile ignorant. Without going into the details of ancient forms of travel, I’m sure you can picture the transportation hurdles here. People would’ve abandoned their jobs and possibly their familes to find a man who doesn’t even have an exact location. Throughout the course of his ministry Jesus wanders all over the area of Galilee. He’s pretty much homeless.
“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
They’ve traveled arcross the whole nation on a mule that, on a good day, moves at a brisk 3 miles-per-hour because Jesus is in the city of Capernaum. By the time many of them arrive he has already moved on to another town.
Last week my sister visited me from Chicago via Megabus, which drops off and picks up it’s passengers in a commuter lot in Ann Arbor. This is just about an hours drive from where I live. On the drive back to catch her bus we encountered so many stumbling blocks it was rediculous. First we were late getting started because it was too nice sitting on my front porch and talking. Then I realized I was out of gas. When we finally got going the on ramp to US23 was closed and we didn’t understand the detour. We missed our State St. exit and wandered around the outskirts of downtown hopeing we’d just stumble across State st. When we finally arrived downtown to the UofM area we realized the annual art fair was going on… people and cars everywhere. EVERYWHERE. All the crossroads we needed were blocked off. By then we were more than 1/2 hour late for her bus, frustrated and my kids were hungry and complaining.
We turned around and headed right back to Monroe. (She bought another ticket and went home the next day.)
I wonder what it would’ve been like to drag my children, one demon-possessed, the other paralyzed from the waist down on a stubborn mule that stops every couple of hours for no reason. My sister is no help because she’s blind as a bat but at least my kids complaining doesn’t bother me because I’m stone deaf. I push on cause I know that the trip home is going to be a totally different event.I finally approach the city where Jesus has been hanging out only to find that he has moved on and there is so much confusion that no one can even figure out where he went.
GAH!!!!!!!
I wonder how desperate I would have to have been to press in, repack my mule and set out again in search of the only hope I’ve ever had for the relief of my bondage.
I wonder if I’ve even been that desperate in my real life?
I want to point out another story though, one that is in paradox to this one.
1Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.[b] 5One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked – John 5
Here is another desperate crowd, but this time we are priveledged to see a single desperate man in the mass of people… a man sitting on the outside, listening to the joyous cries of people being and delivered and never achieving deliverence himself. What always strikes me is that he is probably more disabled than most of these people, because he can’t even make it to the pool with the stronger ones are pushing him out of the way. The desperation that once drew him to the pool has been replaced with hopelessness.
I’ve always identified with him man because many times I’ve felt abandoned to the outside, watching people getting what I wanted the most. These situations create a mindset that I’m not important enough, not loved enough, not worthy enough to be included.
It’s very, very lonely.
Jesus seeing this man sitting on the outside is beautiful. He doesn’t care that the man has given up, that he is just sitting there feeling sorry for himself. He asks him, “Do you want to get well?” He doesn’t ask him how much he wants to get well or how desperate he is to get well… only if he wants to. And the man doesn’t even answer the question! Jesus tells him to pick up his mat, and he is healed.
Jesus desire to touch us is not based on nor effected by our desire or level of faith.
Whether we are part of the ‘in crowd’ or stuck on the outside, whether we are full of religious knowledge or have never had an encounter with him… he is desperate to reach us.
It is my desire that you would be so moved by the truth of these passages that you would either step out in desperation or sit back and allow him to approach you. Each are equally difficult, but remember that in the 100 steps it might take for you to reach him, you take one and he takes the other 99.
Actually, I’m not overly-fond of that expression. I understand the message it’s trying to bring across, but many times I’ve sat and cried while he leaped over all 100 of those steps.
