The Lord did not make most shorelines straight and square. Nor did He make most lakes totally round – most lakes and shorelines are quite convoluted. Depending on the shape of the shoreline and number of bays and inlets, getting to the other side can be a long and arduous journey even if the straight-line distance between the two points is relatively short. Unless of course you have a boat! So when we read Matthew’s account of how the people responded to Jesus’ travel by boat, we are taken aback by their determination, “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.”
Jesus goes to a solitary place. Peter will later remark that it is ‘remote’. The crowd therefore had to undertake considerable effort to get to where Jesus was. The astonishing thing is that Matthew is talking about the crowd. He wasn’t speaking of the disciples or even Jesus’ inner circle. We might have suspected those groups to work so hard to follow Him, but the crowd? The crowd was fickle. The crowd was those not fit to hear direct teaching. In fact, Jesus had been using parables on account of that very point. The crowd was those who Matthew obviously felt could not yet be called disciples. Yet they are so enraptured with what Jesus has been teaching that they take the extraordinary measure of walking for most of a day – if not longer – to a remote shoreline so they can get more of Jesus
It ought not to surprise us that people would do such things. In every town and village are people who God is making into disciples for His Name. They will naturally be drawn to Jesus by His Word, and they will actively work to hear His Word. As Jesus Himself would teach later, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” They follow Jesus. They cannot help but to follow Jesus, no matter where Jesus goes.
The numbers of people who come to your church may not be a true indicator of how many belong to Christ in your town. They may not come to church because they do not know they will get Jesus’ truth there, or they do not trust that they will get His truth there. But they will respond to Jesus’ truth all the same. We just need to first go to where they are. After they have heard the truth, they will follow. They will even go to extraordinary measure to follow. In fact, this particular crowd goes to such extraordinary measure they actually find their way to the other side before Jesus gets there in the boat, “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd…”
The kingdom of God is a very attractive place, because it holds the love, peace, health, blessing, fellowship and joy that we all so desperately want. Likewise, the workers of the kingdom are highly attractive to lost people, because they bring the blessing of God’s kingdom wherever they are. So if our ministry is not drawing lost people, we have to ask if we are doing the work of the kingdom, or if we are doing something else.
Whatever your thoughts and feelings, seize the moment. Come up, yourself, in the crowd. Come close enough to Jesus so that you can talk together. He will have enough time to listen to you, too. Perhaps he will ask you what you most want him to do for you.
Tom Wright
APPLICATION: Thankfulness
Thank Jesus that He is always close enough to hear us and close enough to touch us, even when we are in the largest crowd or the most remote place.