Love versus glory
This week's verses are Luke 4:40-41:
These verses describe Jesus performing "ministry" in Capernaum, a small Galilean town. There are a couple interesting points to dwell on. The first is that everyone who was around Jesus brought their sick relatives to him to be healed, with a 100% success rate. The other is that Jesus wouldn't let the demons glorify his name.
Think about the healing thing for a minute. What clinic anywhere offers an instant 100% success rate on an unlimited range of medical conditions, let alone free of charge? Imagine, if that place existed anywhere on earth, how desperate people would be to get there. Planes would be landing every thirty seconds in the closest airports! And yet we have an eyewitness account here that says that place did exist one evening in a somewhat out of the way place. You have to ask yourself, why Capernaum and not Jerusalem or Rome? Clearly Jesus needed better marketing staff, right?
Earlier in the day, Jesus had demonstrated his authority over sickness and demonic oppression. You can imagine that people recognized their once in a lifetime opportunity when they saw that. Remember, this is before modern medicine and healthcare. If you were sick, all you had were home remedies and witch doctors to turn to. That desperation not to miss their chance gave them a better response rate than you'd see nowadays, even with social media. How many times has something cool happened during the morning session of a conference or the morning service of a larger church community and the evening attendance is unchanged? In eternity, we'll probably look back and share our heads at what opportunities we missed in our modern age.
The rebuking of demons who called out that Jesus was God was interesting too. People sometimes criticise religion as if God were a sort of cosmic narcissist who only does stuff in order to be praised. But here is a situation where he prioritised helping people even when it meant cutting down on being glorified in front of people. We can see that God's miracles aren't just advertising gimmicks but are also designed to set us free and help us live better lives. How many ministries would much rather have people in the back yelling out "Jesus is Lord" than have people silently leave better off than when they came?
So we can see here than Jesus is very much about loving people and helping them, even when it isn't optimal for his platform. He's not going for the show, but to care for those he loves wherever he happens to be. That should be our strategy too. If we help our neighbour at the end of the street, and they accept Christ, and nobody finds out, is it invalid? Do we not get credit? Was our work incomplete? Seeing how Jesus prioritised his ministry makes it clear that it's just as good as something done on stage at a tent meeting.
And if we help someone out, and they are touched by God, but they go on and say bad things about us or our ministry, or maybe they don't do anything to promote what we're doing when they could have, does that invalidate the miracle? Was it a bad use of our resources? Not at all! Jesus prioritised setting people free over having them hype his ministry. There are even times he tells people he helped not to go around telling others. Can you imagine someone performing a miracle nowadays and asking people not to record it or tell anyone about it?
So when looking at the road map and deciding whether to prioritise love or optics, compassion or likes, or any other similar dilemma, we should always choose love, compassion, charity, and service first. Jesus spent his time on earth, even to the point of unjust crucifixion, in order to love us and give us what we couldn't produce on our own. Most of his miracles, and most of the miracles in history, have never been recorded. So if you find yourself in some out of the way place, with people who don't matter to anyone, and you have an opportunity to share God's love with them, you are following in Jesus' footsteps by serving them. There is no need to look any further than where you are.
As the sun was setting, all those who had any relatives sick with various diseases brought them to Jesus. He placed his hands on every one of them and healed them. Demons also came out of many, crying out, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them, and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.
These verses describe Jesus performing "ministry" in Capernaum, a small Galilean town. There are a couple interesting points to dwell on. The first is that everyone who was around Jesus brought their sick relatives to him to be healed, with a 100% success rate. The other is that Jesus wouldn't let the demons glorify his name.
Think about the healing thing for a minute. What clinic anywhere offers an instant 100% success rate on an unlimited range of medical conditions, let alone free of charge? Imagine, if that place existed anywhere on earth, how desperate people would be to get there. Planes would be landing every thirty seconds in the closest airports! And yet we have an eyewitness account here that says that place did exist one evening in a somewhat out of the way place. You have to ask yourself, why Capernaum and not Jerusalem or Rome? Clearly Jesus needed better marketing staff, right?
Earlier in the day, Jesus had demonstrated his authority over sickness and demonic oppression. You can imagine that people recognized their once in a lifetime opportunity when they saw that. Remember, this is before modern medicine and healthcare. If you were sick, all you had were home remedies and witch doctors to turn to. That desperation not to miss their chance gave them a better response rate than you'd see nowadays, even with social media. How many times has something cool happened during the morning session of a conference or the morning service of a larger church community and the evening attendance is unchanged? In eternity, we'll probably look back and share our heads at what opportunities we missed in our modern age.
The rebuking of demons who called out that Jesus was God was interesting too. People sometimes criticise religion as if God were a sort of cosmic narcissist who only does stuff in order to be praised. But here is a situation where he prioritised helping people even when it meant cutting down on being glorified in front of people. We can see that God's miracles aren't just advertising gimmicks but are also designed to set us free and help us live better lives. How many ministries would much rather have people in the back yelling out "Jesus is Lord" than have people silently leave better off than when they came?
So we can see here than Jesus is very much about loving people and helping them, even when it isn't optimal for his platform. He's not going for the show, but to care for those he loves wherever he happens to be. That should be our strategy too. If we help our neighbour at the end of the street, and they accept Christ, and nobody finds out, is it invalid? Do we not get credit? Was our work incomplete? Seeing how Jesus prioritised his ministry makes it clear that it's just as good as something done on stage at a tent meeting.
And if we help someone out, and they are touched by God, but they go on and say bad things about us or our ministry, or maybe they don't do anything to promote what we're doing when they could have, does that invalidate the miracle? Was it a bad use of our resources? Not at all! Jesus prioritised setting people free over having them hype his ministry. There are even times he tells people he helped not to go around telling others. Can you imagine someone performing a miracle nowadays and asking people not to record it or tell anyone about it?
So when looking at the road map and deciding whether to prioritise love or optics, compassion or likes, or any other similar dilemma, we should always choose love, compassion, charity, and service first. Jesus spent his time on earth, even to the point of unjust crucifixion, in order to love us and give us what we couldn't produce on our own. Most of his miracles, and most of the miracles in history, have never been recorded. So if you find yourself in some out of the way place, with people who don't matter to anyone, and you have an opportunity to share God's love with them, you are following in Jesus' footsteps by serving them. There is no need to look any further than where you are.
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