On Mission 2: Walk with Jesus

 The second in a series that unpacks our church's mission statement: Helping people walk with Jesus in faith, hope, and love to the glory of God.

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[Jesus, having] offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, sat down at the right hand of God. - Hebrews 10:12 

But before he sat down at the right hand of God, Jesus walked. He walked and walked and walked.  

He walked from town to town, from house to house.  

He walked on paved roads, dirt roads, through wheat fields, along the lakeshore, and then hooked left and out onto the water. He walked on the stone floors of the great Temple of Jerusalem. He walked into synagogue every Saturday. He walked every day toward the appointments that God had set for Him, whether they were with religious rulers, the wealthy and powerful; with widows, with frightened or grieving parents.  

Jesus walked toward outsiders. He walked toward people who were oppressed. He walked toward women and foreigners and children. He walked toward people who were blind or crippled, and asking him to heal them. Jesus walked.  

The only exceptions I could find to Jesus walking on foot overland were the ‘triumphal entry’ when He rode on a donkey to make a point, and when He was carried by His friends, dead, to be laid in his tomb.  

So what does it mean to us today to walk with Jesus and to help others walk with Jesus? 

First question: where did Jesus walk? Mostly in Galilee which was about 3000 km square. Adding the area to the south where Jerusalem is, and Perea to the east, you're looking at a region about 5000 km square. That's where Jesus walked. That was where He did His ministry and had His conversations. That was the whole world that He saw through His human eyes. Which is amazing when you consider that the dry land area of earth is about 149,000,000 km square. Jesus only walked about in 5000. He did not see much of the world, but what He saw, He saw deeply and well.  

Because He walked in His world. He walked among His people.  

Jesus’ walk on earth was defined by His humanness. He could only walk so fast, He could only talk so fast, and there were only so many hours in a day. Jesus’ walk on earth was also defined by His task, by the job He had been given to do: to continue and to complete God's communication with the world through the people of Israel, which had been going on for thousands of years. 

Jesus’ work on earth was focused entirely on the particular group of people to whom He had chosen to be sent. Jesus walked in His world, and He walked among His people.  

Second question: how did Jesus walk? Sometimes alone, but mostly with other people.  

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we first see Jesus walking alone:  

Jesus went to a solitary place... - Luke 4:42  

On the day before He finalized His 12 apostles—an important decision—He needed to spend time alone with God, so He walked away to a solitary place to pray.  

During the years of Jesus’ ministry:  

Jesus often withdrew to lonely places to pray. - Luke 5:16 

Jesus made it a consistent part of His life to spend time alone with God. 

At the end of Jesus’ life, in chapter 22, Luke tells us that He, knowing that His arrest was imminent, went to the garden of Gethsemane. He left His apostles in one spot, then “withdrew about a stone's throw to pray.” That's not a lot of steps. That's not a lot of distance. But in that moment of walking away from His apostles to pray, Jesus was arguably the most alone He had ever been in His life.  

Jesus knew there were times when He needed to walk alone.  

But mostly—the vast majority of the time—Jesus walked with other people. He walked in community.  

At the beginning of His ministry, in Matthew chapter four, we read about Jesus calling His disciples, telling them to, “Follow me. Accompany me. Come with me. Walk with me.”  

During the years of Jesus’ ministry He gathered more disciples. Uncounted people followed Him: men and women who saw in Jesus something that was irresistible. They knew that Jesus was a Rabbi. They knew they wanted to be His disciples, learning to be more like Him, following Him figuratively and literally, learning His ways, understanding how He lived, hearing and coming to understand His teaching. Carrying that teaching on into the world.  

At the end of Jesus’ ministry—again in Gethsemane after Jesus had gone away to pray by Himself—He came back, found His apostles, gathered them up and said, “The hour is near. The son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up. Let's go.” He brought them with Him to experience possibly the darkest moment of His life to that point: His moment of betrayal.  

There were times when Jesus walked away alone because He knew He needed to spend time with God. But every time He walked away, He always came back.  

Jesus walked alone and in community. 

Jesus also walked in the moment and for the long game.  

Jesus walked in the moment. He was aware of what was going on around Him. He was mindful of His world. He had peripheral vision. He had His radar turned all the way up, and this made Him interruptible. That interruptibility is a beautiful and powerful part of Jesus’ ministry. Classic example: Luke chapter 8. Jesus is walking through a crowd with His apostles towards Jairus’ house to raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead. In all of that hubbub, and all of that busy-ness, knowing where He's going and what He's going to do when He gets there.... Jesus. Stops.  

He turns around, looking for the woman who had reached out to touch Him from within the crowd. Knowing that He needs to be someplace else, down the road, He stops. He shares that moment with that woman. Comforts her fear, celebrates her joy at having been delivered and healed—this woman who had been alone for 12 years, untouchable. In the middle of the crowd, she and Jesus had that moment together because Jesus was interruptible. He stopped because He knew He was needed. Jesus was unstoppable... But interruptible.  

Jesus also walked for the long game. 

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set his face toward Jerusalem. - Luke 5:16 

This launches the final year of His ministry. He knows where He's going. He knows when He has to be there. But He's going to travel His own way.  

During that year-long journey, Jesus, with every conversation, every encounter with every person points people toward the Kingdom, the Kingdom that He Himself is building on earth. Luke records for us an absolute torrent of teaching about the Kingdom: 

• In Luke chapter 12: “Do not worry about your life, but seek his Kingdom and everything else will fall into place... Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also... From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.”  
• Chapter 13: “The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, tossed aside, but then growing into a tree where birds may nest.”  
• Chapter 14: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. The one who humbles himself will be exalted in the Kingdom... Which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost?... Salt is good, but if the salt loses its savour, it is worthless.”  
• Chapter 15: Jesus tells 3 parables about what the Kingdom is like, saying, “What if you had a lost sheep? A lost coin? Lost sons?”  
• Chapter 16: “Whoever is faithful with very little will also be faithful with much... No servant can have two masters. You cannot serve both God and money.”  
• Chapter 18: “Let the little children come to me. The Kingdom of God belongs to such as these... It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, but what is impossible with man is possible with God.” 
• Chapter 19: “The son of man came to seek and save the lost.” 

Jesus knew exactly where home was. Once He set his face toward home and He knew how He was going to get there, He spent that journey gathering as many people as He possibly could to come along with Him. 

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