Author: Josh King

Jesus sees and Jesus acts, do we?

When Jesus sees the crowds He is moved with compassion. The word behind compassion has no one English equivalent. It means compassion, pity, and sympathy and more. It is a visceral, gut-grabbing kind of compassion. Why don’t we see this way? The answer – sin. Sin blinds. It can blind in numerous ways to the crowds all around us. Prejudice, racism, hatred are all obvious blinders, but selfishness, materialism, and lust are equally as effective.

God’s Word, especially the truth of the gospel, helps us to see. We have to be taught to see. We have to be sanctified to see. Other tools are helpful as well, perhaps none more so than Operation World.

So what do you see when you look at the Muslim world? The Hindu world? The Buddhist world? The materialistic, pluralistic, atheistic, humanistic world? Are you moved deeply in your gut with compassion? When you look at India do you see the largest concentration and variety of the least-reached peoples on earth? Do you even look at India? When you look at Afghanistan do you see the 48,000 mosques, the absence of even one church building, and 70 unreached peoples? When you look at Africa do you see 13 of the worlds 20 least-evangelized countries? Do you see the 240 million Bengali who comprise the largest unreached people in the world? Yet, these statistics mean nothing if we have not been gripped by the glory of the gospel, that God saves sinners, for there is no one else to save.

But Jesus not only sees, He acts. His action is a call for action. He calls for His disciples to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send laborers into His harvest. Some might see the need as so great and say, “What? Pray? That’s it?” No prayer is not to be our only action, but it is to be our first and greatest action. John Bunyan said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” Prayer calls down heavenly firepower, the only firepower that can storm the gates of hell, advance the kingdom, and rescue captives. The greatest doers are the greatest prayers, relying on power from above and not from within. God may bless in spite of us, but when we pray we will most often get what we can do – nothing (John 15:5)! But when we pray we get what God can do. The harvest is God’s. He sends out laborers, He gathers in the nations. Prayer is our greatest weapon. Nations are won because of prayer.

But Jesus’ action doesn’t end in His calling his disciples to prayer. He then answers that prayer in authorizing and sending His disciples to proclaim and act. We must be willing to be God’s answer to our own prayers. Really we should all be the answer to this prayer, the question isn’t whether or not we should be involved in world missions, but to what extent should we be involved? Really our hearts should be burning with desire asking, “To what extent can I be involved?” We shouldn’t have to wrestle so much with going to the mission field as much as staying here.

Do you see? Do you pray? Do you act? Do you proclaim? Do you act?

Do you sing?

May God be gracious to us and bless us

and make his face to shine upon us, Selah

that your way may be known on earth,

your saving power among all nations.

Let the peoples praise you, O God;

let all the peoples praise you!

                                                    – Psalm 67:1-3

We all mourn differently. This is especially true across cultures. In our western culture we mourn very quietly, not so the Jew. The cacophony, commotion, and chaos of Jarius’ house were a common scene. Among this mournful crowd there would have been professional mourners hired by the family. One Jewish writing says that even the poorest of families was expected to hire not less than two pipers and one wailing woman. Biblically we can trace the custom as far back as Josiah at the latest. (2 Chronicles 25:35). Jeremiah uses this common imagery when He writes:

Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Consider, and call for the mourning women to come; send for the skillful women to come; let them make haste and raise a wailing over us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with water. For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How we are ruined! We are utterly shamed, because we have left the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’” – Jeremiah 9:17-19

Jarius’ being a ruler, and thus no doubt a man of some means, would have been expected to have several professional mourners. Also a frenzy of activity would be taking place as the family scrambled to make all preparations to bury the body within twenty-four hours.

Jesus comes on the scene and dismisses the crowd. Remember His presence necessitates feasting not fasting (Matthew 9:14). The King is present, the kingdom is breaking in, away with such mourning, she is only sleeping. They laugh taking Jesus literally.

Sleep was a metaphor for death, but it is easy to see how the crowd misunderstood Jesus. If simply taken as a euphemism he would be in effect saying, “Go away, for the girl is not dead, but dead.” So Jesus isn’t simply using a euphemism for death, but He isn’t saying she is just snoozing either. Again, Jesus isn’t using a euphemism for death, He is euphemizing death. Jesus is saying is that because of Him, death is just a nap.

All this foretells a far greater awakening. Paul says we will not all sleep (1Corinthians 15:51), but be assured, all those who die in Christ are only sleeping; they will rise again with renewed, sinless, glorified bodies. All mourning will be eternally dismissed.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 6:23

Tax collectors were unacceptable in every way: socially, politically, and religiously. Some might say that things haven’t changed much, but really the plight of the tax collector is so much better in our day. We might despise the IRS auditor in our own house, but we like the idea of him in the house of a scoundrel. Further, no one ever thinks the IRS employee a Benedict Arnold because of his job. He may be one, but it is not inherently related to his job. But to the Jew, the tax collector was the worst of traitors. Backed by Roman soldiers he extorted his own countrymen to finance the enemy. Rome grew stronger, the Jews grew weaker, all while the tax collector grew wealthier. In addition he would be religiously unclean because of his frequent dealings with Gentiles.

There was only one reason to be a tax collector in this society, money. You were virtually free to charge as much as you want and any surplus collected was pocketed.

Now imagine the kind of company that such a person who has so ostracized himself form respectable Jewish society would keep. They would be the sort of riffraff who have nothing to lose by associating with him. Jesus was dining with the likes of pimps, prostitutes, thieves, and gamblers.

Jesus seems to call the oddest of disciples and keep the worst of company. Isn’t it wonderful that we’ve now refined the church so that such persons rarely have any dealings with the church except perhaps to beg outside its doors? Evidently Paul still had this problem, the early church being made up of those with less than desirable backgrounds (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Jesus may still call such disciples, but the church rarely does.

But our “health” may come at a cost. If we keep our illusion of health, the Great Physician will have nothing to do with us, He came for sinners.

Sinner, never fear of being too sinful for Jesus, rather, dread thinking yourself too healthy.

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and power.

Let not conscience make you linger,
Not of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth,
Is to feel your need of Him.

I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
O there are ten thousand charms.

– Come Ye Sinners by Joseph Hart