Blog Layout

 The Trouble with Jesus

by Constance Hastings

The Next Right Thing
Jul 15, 2024

The Trouble with Jesus is he loved people 24/7,

even when he needed to take a break. 

Sometimes, it’s too much. Everyone needs a time out, a withdraw from work, people, even the big-purpose parts that keep a person out there, acting, in front. If anyone required it now, it was Jesus. His best friend John the Baptist had been murdered for no good reason, he wasn’t on the best of terms with his family, and with fame came all too constant demands for whatever ails people. The Big Twelve had just returned from their own successful preaching/healing tours, so everyone was ready for a retreat to recharge. Cruising on the lake seemed a good idea.


Scrapped Plans

Can you believe it? Like first-century paparazzi, people stalked their wake. There they were again, hurting and hungry in body and soul. As he disembarked, Jesus recognized in these the lostness they lived, wandering sheep with no shepherd to care, lead, protect. Sympathy, mercy, compassionate love met them on the shore in their only, may even their last, hope. He gave them his best teaching, a way of explaining life for purpose beyond the daily grind to survive.


Not sure if this is good. So when you’re bone tired, wasted in mind and body, keep at it anyway? Let people just keep taking and taking and never mind your own needs. People have heart attacks and strokes from this kind of lifestyle. Doesn’t Jesus recognize healthy boundaries? You know like they say on airplanes, cover your face with the oxygen mask first before helping someone else. Besides, keeping Sabbath is a commandment. But Sabbath rest doesn’t apply when people need you? No wonder Jesus was always getting into trouble over this one.


No Rest for the Weary

So you try again. If you do a quick scan of the chapter,  (Mark 6) there’s the matter of feeding 5000 people, and then Jesus ditches the disciples as he sends them out on the lake again while he escapes into the hills to pray alone. That was a good idea, until he got caught walking on the water and nearly scares the disciples to death. Funny in an almost sad way, but they still had difficulty every time Jesus appeared in an extraordinary fashion. Do all you want for others, but often it’s those closest to you who need the most help. Exhausting.


At any rate, once they land on the other side of the lake, guess what. More crowds rushed in with sick people on woven mats as gurneys needing healing. Many begged to at least touch the fringe of his robe because even with that they knew his restorative power. The point is Jesus was there for them, being who they needed in the way they needed him.


So What You’re Saying Is…

Jesus knows what it’s like to be overworked, having personal needs disregarded over the needs of another. Think it shouldn’t happen? Any mother nursing an infant knows what it’s like to be on demand for the survival of the helpless. Try teaching the mentally challenged how to tie shoelaces. You patiently do it again and again and again until your mind numbs. Then again. Jesus knows what it’s like to be misunderstood. He should have gotten a break once in a while. So should those who work long shifts in hospital wards, stand watch on enemy lines, teach misbehaving children who have little support from home.


The Next Right Thing

The life we know is the life Jesus lived. Love spins on this kind of commitment when needed. It’s his kind of compassion that finds its rest in doing the next right thing, not because we feel like it, even feel up to it. You do it because the world will be a better place for it, your world will be better somehow for it. When you finally lay your head down, you’ll know the best kind of rest.


Jesus finally got to rest in the end.

It lasted three days, but it was enough for what he came to do.


Mark 6:30-34, 53-56


Coming July 23, 2024!

The Trouble with Jesus: Considerations Before You Walk Away by Constance Hastings

PreOrders Available Wherever You Love to Buy Books!


Subscribe to The Trouble with Jesus Blog Here.

 

The Trouble with Jesus is he doesn’t want to fight as much as he wants to lead in Love.
By Constance Hastings 28 Oct, 2024
The Trouble with Jesus is he doesn’t want to fight as much as he wants to lead in Love.
The trouble with Jesus is healing happens in reversal to one’s willingness to see.
By Constance Hastings 21 Oct, 2024
What do you want me to do for you? One’s answer reveals the beggar in one’s soul.
The Trouble with Jesus finds you have to convert more than the world to change it.
By Constance Hastings 14 Oct, 2024
Jesus, if you don’t mind, we’d like to talk with you about what you just said and ask a favor. Sure guys, what’s on your minds.? About your plans, when it all comes about, if the two of us could be seated next to you, one of your right and the other on your left? (long pause…) You have no idea what you’re asking....
The Trouble with Jesus was he didn’t tolerate anything getting in the way of full devotion to God.
By Constance Hastings 07 Oct, 2024
True Story: A husband told his wife he was going the next day to possibly buy a Corvette. (Disclaimer: this did not happen in my house…) She read to him these words of Jesus: “Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” “Now, how do you think you’ll get to heaven if you buy a Corvette?” she challenged him. After a short pause, he smiled, and said, “Fast!”
The Trouble with Jesus: He doesn’t speak from a legalistic mindset. He speaks with the mind of God
By Constance Hastings 30 Sep, 2024
The Trouble with Jesus: He doesn’t speak from a legalistic mindset. He speaks with the loving mind of God.
The Trouble with Jesus is he used graphic and exaggerated devices to teach his slowest students.
By Constance Hastings 23 Sep, 2024
In some ways, Jesus, your radical messages are just what we need. You just said that welcoming children is just like welcoming you. Nice image there. But this time, it’s like you’re pushing radicalization, sending your followers off the deep end. Cutting off one’s hands or feet, gouging out the eye so you’re good enough to get access to your Dad’s Kingdom? Calling people to self-mutilation isn’t going to garner many likes on your page with this kind of talk.
The Trouble with Jesus is a radical reversal of ambition and status in God's love.
By Constance Hastings 16 Sep, 2024
Jesus, oh Son of Man, you gotta lay off this. If you want to get your message out there and have everybody behind you, you have to play to what they want. All this talk about dying and staying in last place is going to destroy you. But no, you just keep repeating it over and over again. Take some good advice even those sorry followers of yours seem to realize. The only thing that needs to raise from the dead is your rhetoric.
The Trouble with Jesus is he will not conform to what we think he should be.
By Constance Hastings 09 Sep, 2024
Don’t you dare criticize him for what he said. Honestly, you’re no different than he when it comes down to it. You claim you believe in God, but when push comes to shove, rubber meets the road, and truth be known, like Peter, you’d rather God follow you than follow Jesus.
The Trouble with Jesus is he gets messy with what we are like even as he meets us in what we need.
By Constance Hastings 02 Sep, 2024
Stories of people bringing the sick to Jesus are not out of the ordinary. Even now, heaven probably shakes constantly with petitions for people to be healed. Give them some credit here. While prayers may come with sobs for God to reverse what could be the worst possible outcome, the proverbial faith of a mustard seed is the foundation of their cries. The heart knows or at least wants to believe that God can heal. The fear is, will God make this miracle or not? Still, we ask.
The Trouble with Jesus: His words stab like open heart surgery, he exposed them and us.
By Constance Hastings 26 Aug, 2024
The Trouble with Jesus: His words stab in every living soul. Like open heart surgery, he exposed them and us.
More Posts
Share by: