One Day In The Ministry Of Jesus

Lately on the Television and radio there has been the typical commercials for singers trying to sell their CD’s and tapes.Among them is an advertisement for the Jamie Kennedy rendition of the song – “What a difference a day makes.”The line got me to thinking and I got thinking about the life of Jesus – about the day he was born and the difference that day made to the world and also the day he died and the permanent impact that that day made on all of humanity.Then I remembered some years ago hearing about an ordinary day in the life of Jesus as recorded in scripture and the impact that day made.

This day was a business as usual type day for Jesus. I ahstened to find it because I was asking the question – What can we learn and what can we do thaty would enable us to have aspects of this day in our own lives?Then I stumbled across a typical day in the ministry life of Jesus Christ.In the scriptures we read words of Jesus that would suggest our lives should have some common threads to His life.For example Jesus says “Pick up your cross and follow me.”Twenty times in the gospels, the hearer or reader, encounters Jesus using the words follow me – usually in the context of emulating Him:-

MK 8:34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

If that is the case. I thought, there are valuable lessons to be learned for our own lives in considering how Jesus spends a typical day.

It is a popular literary style today to trace through the events of one day in the life of a person. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has given us a remarkable book in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich-Book Report Setting This book explains a single day in Ivan Denisovichs live in a Siberian prison camp. The story is taking place during Joseph Stalin’s Red Terror program between 1945 and 1953. But I think this specific day is in no case different from any other ones of his possible 25 year prison term. Major Characters Ivan Denisovich Shukhov: The main character of the story, Ivan Denisovich is in the eighth year of a ten-year prison term. Imprisoned unjustly during WWII for treason, he has learned over the years not to be bitter, but live every day for itself. He is the consummate prisoner, with the know-how and optimistic attitude to get through the tortuous days. The story follows one day of his life in a Siberian labor camp, from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to bed.

What about, then one day in the life of Jesus Christ.

Unlike Ivan denisovich Jesus is not in prison. But there are comparisons.

As the sinless son of God Jesus is living in an alien world – a world created and sustained by His Father, yet, none the less, very different from the character of heaven – spoiled as it was by the mark of sin upon it.

In that sense it is similar to the Siberea prison that Denisovich finds himself in – part of the USSR yet strangely different – It is under the same authority but it’s citizens are deprived of freedom and liberites that the normal citizens do not have.

Jesus is living in this strange – halfway world and it is in the midst of this world that our passage finds him.

It begins in the bright sunshine of a Galilean morning when Jesus walks out alongside the lake, moves into a mid-morning visit to a synagogue in Capernaum (for this was a Sabbath day), takes in an afternoon visit some hours later at the home of Peter and Andrew, and traces the events of a busy evening in that city, as thousands gathered to be ministered to by Jesus. The account concludes with a solitary prayer vigil in the hills during the lonely hours of the early morning. Thus a full twenty-four hours is given to us in this account—put together from the memories Mark had of Jesus and the stories Peter had told him. (Ray Stedman.Sermon Central.)