Matthew 14: 13-14 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick (NIV).
Please close your eyes for a short bit and attempt to imagine people running and walking swiftly along the shore of a big lake to get to Jesus.
The reason Jesus set off in a boat on a lake to a remote location: Having been told about the murder of John the Baptist by the king, Jesus sought solitude.
Before this, Jesus had been doing much ministry work. Recorded in the 13th chapter of Matthew, Jesus gave some short sermons involving parables. The first was given from a boat to a group of people who stood on the shore. Then His disciples got a big follow up explanation after the sermon. Then Jesus told more parables to people, and then there were more explanations to His disciples.
These parables involved telling about heaven. “The kingdom of heaven is like….” is the beginning of parables recorded in Matthew 13:24, and 13:31, and 13:33, and 13:44, and 13:45, and 13:47. Heaven is the focus of these parables of Jesus.
Yet hell is also revealed, as Jesus speaks of the “fiery furnace” in Matthew 13:42 and 13:49-50.
Then after much preaching using parables, Jesus went to His hometown and taught in the synagogue there, but He “offended” many people (verse 57). Then came the big tragedy of the murder of John the Baptist.
Though Jesus had revealed the subject of hell, and though the political climate was spooky after the murder of John the Baptist, crowds of people ran after Jesus in the countryside. In the midst of strife, thousands of people chased after Jesus!
And Jesus, rather than taking off in His boat and going somewhere else to get the solitude He was seeking, went ashore and healed more sick people. Why? Scripture states Jesus had “compassion” on them.
This passage speaks to me today after I have had such an “up and down” time this year. I have had some big blessings, and I have had some disappointments. Being unemployed, there have been days when I was optimistic that a great job was going to be given to me at any moment, and then there have been even more days when I considered I may never get a ministry job.
This passage, in the context of all that went on in Chapter 13, has a message for us: Keep focused on Jesus during up and down circumstances. And keep doing what He did in Chapter 13: Preach heaven with a passion, with your lips and your lives. Keep focused on Jesus, whatever the nature of the political situation where you live. And even though physical death continues daily in this world, keep trusting Jesus, the One who overcame death.
May you have a great day!
Hunter Irvine
