Jesus’s life between age twelve and age thirty is a bit of a mystery. Nothing was recorded and it leaves me wondering, what was he like as a young man? He was fully God, yet fully man… sin free but still had the full range of human emotions. I remember back to specific points in my life in this span of time and I wonder – did he ever have the same experiences I did? Did his parents continue to worry about him? Did he surprise them again and again, like he did when they found him in the temple? Did he get scraped knees and what about math? Did math come easy to him? Did he have a good friend group that he confided in? Did he tell his parents about the future? It’s pretty amazing that Jesus walked this same earth and lived and breathed just like us.
As we open up to Mark 1, Jesus is 30 years old and this chapter is full of Jesus’s ministry kicking off. His cousin, John the Baptist, has been preaching repentance and baptism to the Jews and prepping the people for Jesus to come. Jesus is baptized and tempted in the wilderness by Satan. Jesus then calls his first disciples, Simon, Andrew, James and John. They were fisherman by trade, and Jesus instructs them to follow him and become fishers of men, and they immediately obey. I wonder what they thought they’d be doing?!
During this first period of time in Jesus’s ministry, he is teaching and instructing his disciples, performing miracles of healing and driving out evil spirits. He also takes time to step away from the crowds and pray.
One thing that is evident in this chapter is that God had the details planned out. He used John to prepare the people for Jesus the Messiah to come. He prepared the fisherman to become disciples. Jesus waited for the right time to announce “the time has come, the kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the Good News”! John the Baptist and the disciples believed this to be their calling and went forward in faith. Without knowing how Jesus’s ministry would unfold, or how their lives would be impacted, they believed and acted. God had a plan for their lives and used each of them to accomplish his will.
In my early twenties, I worked in Chicago as a project manager. My boss was an executive of a large corporation, with a lot of influence and a lot of responsibilities. it was evident (in no time) that he was a Christ follower and his most important work was to be the hands and feet of Jesus. It wasn’t the Bible on his desk that gave it away – it was how he cared for each person he interacted with, from the doorman to his own boss. He would ask about their family and how he could pray for them. He had real conversations about real stuff, not just pleasantries. He didn’t worry about oversharing or overstepping his boundaries with religion in the workplace – ‘God would take care of that’. Our offices were separated by a thin wall, and for three years I was able to witness his “work”. I learned so much from observation alone – not to mention all the ways he directly mentored and encouraged me. I could fill a book with the scriptures and wisdom he shared – one thing that reminds me of our passage today is a belief he has:
My desk is my alter, my work is an extension of his ministry.
He believed this and he lived it. He saw his position as one given to him so he could have more opportunities to talk to people about Christ. To help people. To share with people. Yes, he had important business to do, but he had even more important kingdom work to focus on. He reminds me of the fisherman turned disciples… yes, they knew how to fish – but Jesus was teaching them how to REALLY FISH!
I love how God positions each of us to be a part of his kingdom. From John the Baptist, to the disciples, to you and me. It’s pretty humbling that each of us are not just called, but also equipped, to be an extension of his ministry.
