All Night


Luke 6:12-19
12In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. 13And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: 14Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, 15and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, 16and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. 17And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, 18who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.

It’s easy to overlook a little passage like this one. It could be viewed as simply a connector between the healing of the man with the shriveled hand and the Beatitudes that follow and subsequently passed over. But these 8 verses are jam packed. We start with a glimpse into Jesus’ private prayer life. “In these days” indicates that to me that this was not an isolated event but His regular practice. Have you ever had a friend with whom you spent the whole night talking? I’ve had that experience a few times, but let me tell you, I was worthless the next day. Apparently, Jesus didn’t struggle with that affliction. He spent the night speaking with His Father and then went to work the next day. And the work was important – thus the need to spend the night in conversation with the God the Father. Here is a time when those lines between Father and Son become a little too sharp for me for God is One. At this point, my mind is too small to grasp how that happened.

Anyway, Jesus emerges from that night of prayer prepared to name the Twelve who would serve as His Apostles. The text even calls them Apostles! There are a couple of things that cannot be lost here. First of all, there are Twelve. This is an important number in God’s economy. There were 12 Tribes of Israel and now there are 12 Apostles of the New Testament. These men (minus Judas Iscariot who is already named as “the traitor”) will go out into the world after Jesus resurrection and begin the most important movement in the history of the world. Twelve is the number of the The Church. We learn in the Revelation that The 12 Tribes and The 12 Apostles represent the entire Church on earth – the Bride of Christ. These 12 guys are important for so many reasons. No wonder Jesus prays all night before naming them.

After naming The Twelve He goes to work doing was He did – healing the people and casting out demons. Immediately following this text is His famous sermon known as the Beatitudes. Jesus is here to die for our sins, but He is also here to introduce what it means to live in the Kingdom of God. He is always about His Father’s business.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Excusez-moi

Image
2 Kings 23:31-37 31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. 33 And Pharaoh Neco put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and laid on the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 34 And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there. 35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money according to the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco. 36 Jehoiakim was twenty-fiv
Read more

יהוה שָׁמַר--Yahweh Shamar (God Watches)

Image
Psalm 121 1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. There are numerous passages I cling to when stress takes over my life. I would be hard pressed to declare a favorite, but this psalm would come close. So this morning I listened to Psalm 121 about 20 times as I meditated through the verses. First, I want to point out that the word or idea of shamar appears in every verse expect 6. The NIV uses the word "watch" while the ESV uses "keep". The
Read more

Narrow Door

Image
Luke 13:22-30 22 He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them , 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ 28 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. 29 And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at tabl
Read more