by Jake Embleton
It was the summer of 2015, I’d been asked to go on an Israel/Palestine trip. I was beyond excited. I had lived in Cairo, Egypt for about a year from 2012-2013, had learned some Arabic, and had developed some great relationships. Jerusalem is only about 300 miles from Cairo and many people speak Arabic. I knew I would be able to practice my Arabic (albeit, not very good) and learn about the culture of Israel and Palestine. And to think that I would meet the people, see various historic places, and walk where Jesus walked, was intriguing to say the least.
On the second morning of our trip, we drove on a bus from Nazareth to Capernaum, the place where Jesus set up his base of operations during ministry for three years or so. While on the drive, I could not get over how long it was taking to drive between these two places. Was it my excitement that made it feel like the bus ride was so long or was it because it truly was a long distance? It got me thinking; Jesus walked this and probably did it a number of times. I started wondering how much did Jesus walk throughout his three or so years of ministry? I did some research and found out that others had thought this same question and had come up with a reasonable answer. Do you want to hear it...? From many biblical accounts, we can reasonably estimate that Jesus walked over 3,000 miles during his earthly ministry years! Many estimates say that Jesus walked over 20,000 miles during his lifetime! Wow, Jesus was a strong man to be able to handle that kind of walking mileage!
It also got me thinking how much time Jesus spent with the disciples, because that is certainly a lot of walking. As I calculated the time that Jesus spent with his disciples, I was even more blown away. I did a conservative estimate and found that Jesus more than likely spent more than 10,000 hours of life on life with the disciples! That is incredible. I like to call this life on life that Jesus spent with the disciples, “The With Factor”. He had a number of meals with them, walked with them, taught them, laughed with them, had tough conversations with them, probably had a number of campfires with them, and simply did life with them.
Why am I sharing all this? I am sharing it because Jesus did a great job of entering into our humanity, our pain and our brokenness. He did not stand from far off and tell us how to live this life. He could have avoided all the pain that he endured and wrote in the clouds some basic messages for us to live by but he did not do that. He became one of us. He taught us not only as fully God but also fully human. It has called the hypostatic union. Jesus was fully human and fully God at the same time.
I share this to simply say, we serve a God who knows our struggles, he knows our pain, and he knows our brokenness. He can identify with what we are going through and while times are tough right now – the world is in a pandemic, and our country is navigating racial tension, an upcoming election along with economic challenges – we have a God who identifies with us. We can take our anxieties and fears to Him as we go through tough times. 1:Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
My encouragement to you is to remember that God is with us. What better news is there than this? God is beside us as we go through these challenging times. Another verse that is comforting and encouraging is, Philippians 4:6-7, that can bring comfort is this, “do not be anxious anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
As we grieve how our lives have changed, let’s continue to put our trust and hope in Jesus, who identifies with our pain and knows what we are going through. He is with us.