Reflective Bible Study

One of the most surprising statements the gospel writers record Jesus saying is found in Luke’s gospel, and it comes as Jesus and His crowd of followers meets a funeral processional. I am sure that both the woman who had just lost her only son, as well as both crowds present believed Jesus’ remark to be pretty insensitive.

Perhaps this is why Luke prefaces the statement with a brief statement clarifying Jesus’ thoughts. On meeting the funeral processional and seeing the mother crying, Luke tells us, “When the Lord saw her, he felt sorry for her. So he said, ‘Don’t cry.’” (v. 13)

Now in my mind, it is perfectly acceptable for Jesus to feel sorry for this mother, but telling her to not cry when her child has just died seems a little insensitive – especially for a loving perfect Messiah.

But perhaps Jesus says this to help break the woman and the funeral procession out of the sadness they are in. It may be that Jesus wants to redirect those present onto what God is about to do instead of on what has recently happened. Jesus may be focusing instead on the joy that comes as a result of the upcoming resurrection than on the sadness that comes with death.

When we face death in this life, we are reminded how special life is, and it is perfectly natural to feel sad and shed tears. However, as a way of moving past the sadness, it is also good to remember the future resurrection that comes through having faith in Jesus. This woman didn’t have to wait until Jesus’ second coming to benefit from His power to resurrect. She simply had to have enough faith to pay attention to where He wanted to redirect her focus.

In Jesus’ ministry, often He said things that rubbed people the wrong way. During one of these times, John shares with us an interesting verse in his gospel record. While teaching in the temple during one of the festivals, He said some things that seemed to claim equality with God – which was something that was punishable by death and it was crossing a line that the people had determined should never be crossed.

“When Jesus said this, they tried to seize him. But no one was able to touch him, because it was not yet the right time.” (v. 30)

John points us to an interesting theme that runs throughout Jesus’ life on earth: God gave Him protection that allowed Him to speak the hard truth without being harmed while leading up to the cross. No one was able to touch or arrest Him because God had placed Jesus under His protection.

This is incredibly important for us to pay attention to.

First, this tells us that God is willing to protect us. While not everything bad will be avoided, God will only let bad through that fulfills a purpose or gives us an opportunity/experience we can use later in life.

This also tells us that Jesus lived intentionally knowing this protection existed. Jesus didn’t abuse the protection with the goal of drawing attention to Himself. Instead, He lived entirely within this protection with the goal of pointing people to God by showing His character. God is full of love, not afraid to speak the truth, and is wholly interested in placing us ahead of Himself. Jesus modeled this, and God gave Him all the protection He needed to live life this way.

This leads me to some questions that I challenge myself with:

What would happen if we lived 100% for God knowing His protection exists in our own lives?

What if we lived with the understanding that no one could touch us until God’s timing is right?

If we knew God is protecting us, would that allow us to live more outwardly like Jesus in a world looking for selfless examples of love?

With Jesus as our role model, why not live like God fully protects us – especially since we are called to be His witnesses to a world in need.

While the gospel of John shares with us Jesus’ first encounter with some of the men who would ultimately become Jesus’ closest disciples, Luke’s gospel includes the details that prompted these four early disciples to leave everything to follow Jesus.

In this event, we see an amazing example of faith in the midst of doubt from the man who would become the most famous disciple of them all: Simon Peter.

The event begins one morning as Jesus is teaching by the lake. In my mind’s eye, the crowd was getting a little big, and the people kept crowding closer and closer to hear Jesus, and the space between Jesus and the water kept getting smaller and smaller.

Seeing a couple of boats and recognizing their owners, Jesus walks over and asks to use one of the boats to teach from. Jesus finishes His sermon while in the boat, and Simon (also known as Peter) and Andrew continue cleaning their nets from inside the boat.

After finishing the sermon, Jesus turns to the men and says, “Take the boat into deep water, and put your nets in the water to catch some fish.” (v. 4)

Here is where Peter gives us an amazing response – even before accepting the call to be a disciple. He answered, “Master, we worked hard all night trying to catch fish, and we caught nothing. But you say to put the nets in the water, so I will.” (v. 5)

It is like Peter is telling Jesus, “Hey, I’m the expert fisherman and you are the expert preacher. I didn’t catch anything last night during the prime fishing time. I don’t want to offend you, so I’ll try again, but if your plan doesn’t work, then perhaps you should just stick to preaching while I stick to fishing.”

But while Peter was doubtful of Jesus’ plan, he decided to try it out. By casting their nets into the water, these two early disciples displayed a willingness to test Jesus’ words with their actions. The result was the opposite of what they expected, and their catch was so large that it took multiple boats to drag it to shore.

Simon Peter was willing to act even though he was doubtful of the outcome. This shows way more faith than we might realize. Too many people today reject God’s plan because it doesn’t make sense in their mind, or because they don’t have all the answers for their questions. These people choose to skip testing Jesus because they are certain it wouldn’t work.

Peter’s decision in the boat is exactly like our decision is today: Do we test Jesus, even if we are almost certain of the results, or do we simply not put forth the effort and never know if things would have been different?

The call of these four disciples by the lake shows us that it is worth testing Jesus’ teaching, and seeing for ourselves – from our own experience – if following Jesus is worth it.

During one of the many times that Jesus and His disciples crossed the lake, the disciples forgot to bring bread with them. While this probably already irritated the disciples enough, since they may have been hungry, an interesting conversation takes place. This conversation highlights one big challenge we all face in human nature.

In my imagination, probably about half way across the lake, the disciples realize they had forgotten bread. At about this very moment, Jesus gets their attention to say, “Be careful! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” (v. 6)

While it is pretty clear to us that Jesus is speaking in a metaphor about something that is below the surface, the disciples didn’t catch this at first. The disciples did grasp that there was something more to Jesus’ words, because they started talking amongst themselves about what this phrase meant. It seems like they concluded by coming to what must have been the plainest, most surface-level, rational answer they could imagine in their moment of hunger: “He said this because we forgot to bring bread.” (v. 7)

The disciples might have also came up with the thought that if they saw a Pharisee or Sadducee merchant (which would be unlikely) selling yeast, or even one of these two groups of people giving yeast away, then they shouldn’t even consider getting any from them.

However, we know from how Matthew frames this event that Jesus is speaking with a simple metaphor: yeast equals something else. The context for the statement and the frame of mind of the listener both matter. Had there been an abundance of bread on this trip, the disciples may have realized that Jesus was speaking about something not directly related to bread.

It is the same for us when we communicate. For us to communicate without the message being lost when it reaches the listener’s ears, we must pay attention to the context. Otherwise, when we are trying to share a metaphor to help people remember a concept, they could be too focused on taking it literally.