The death of John the Baptist must have been a blow to Jesus. John was the only one who knew at least some of what Jesus was going through and would go through. John knew who Jesus was. John was Jesus' forerunner, and he was a loyal friend right to the end.
And so it comes as no surprise that when Jesus received word of the death of His friend, He withdrew by Himself. He wanted to be alone to grieve His friend, and perhaps process His own death that He knew would not be too far off.
But this time, this precious time to mourn His friend, was not to be. The crowds figured out where He went and they followed Him. And what did Jesus do? I know what I would've liked to do (and probably would've done!) - I would've told them to get lost. But Jesus didn't. In the midst of His own grief and pain, He saw the grief and pain of the crowd and He had compassion on them.
In what turned out to be an extremely busy (and certainly draining) day, Jesus healed the sick, fed the crowd of thousands, finally got time by Himself to pray, walked on water, and calmed the sea.
Sometimes we can best heal by giving of ourselves to others. But even then, Jesus did eventually take time to be by Himself and pray. We need to make sure we don't give of ourselves without replenishing ourselves by spending time with Him.
Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage: Psalm 1-3, Matthew 15
No comments:
Post a Comment