Jesus’ mission to the world

Luke 4:42-44

42 At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. 43 But he said to them, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.” 44 So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.

Jesus needed time alone, the only way he could get time alone was first thing in the morning in a remote place. (We will see the same problem in Luke 5:15, 16.) In COVID many of us have much time alone – we want to be in the company of others. A question to be asked – what are we doing with our time alone? Are we using it to ground ourselves in who we are in God? Or are we using it to feed discouragement and anger at the situation we are in? We aren’t told what Jesus did when he was alone – but we can assume he used the time to ground himself in God.

The crowd eventually found Jesus and wanted to keep Jesus for themselves. He could heal them when they got sick, and he could preach as well. They wanted Jesus to serve their needs. But Jesus was not going to have his mission, his purpose, limited by the desires of the crowd. He had a grander purpose – to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to other people – in other places.

We sometimes want to keep Jesus to ourselves. Jesus and we have a wonderful time together – and we want that never to end. That deep relationship with Jesus is a significant part of our lives – and that is a good thing. But that deep relationship should not come at the expense of sharing Jesus with other people. It also should not blind us to the fact that other people might also benefit from having a deep relationship with Jesus. Our sharing Jesus with others does not mean that we have less of Jesus.

The good news about Jesus will get out, we have a chance to be part of that process. We rejoice that other people are also hearing the good news about the kingdom of God.

PRAYER:

Lord God, we confess that sometimes we get very possessive of Jesus, trying to keep him just for ourselves. Believing that his serving our needs is the most important thing Jesus can do. Change our attitude that we are prepared to join Jesus on his mission to proclaim the good news to everyone. In Jesus’ name. Amen.