The events of The Galilee Kingdom Tour culminate with the gathering of a climactic crowd accompanied by the performance of a major multiplication miracle followed by a miraculous walk followed by another climactic crowd interaction. Jesus’ schedule is crowded!

Then just like that, the crowd disperses, and life goes on. How does this happen?

Before we answer that question, let us consider the major miracles. Distributing bread to 5,000-plus people in groups of 50 at a time would have taken a couple hours at least, but what did the average person in the crowd witness? Could they see to verify the multiplication of loaves, or were they simply handed a loaf by one of the twelve? They certainly could verify the generous provision even if they could not verify the source.

And what of walking on water? No one else except the few disciples in the small boat saw Jesus in this one-time-recorded event (Jn 6:22). In terms of time, it was just a drop in their lives, yet their witness has caused huge ripples through generations.

Interestingly enough, even after the disciples had gone and Jesus dismissed the crowd, according to John, at least some of the people remained in the area (Jn 6:22). These people sought out Jesus in Capernaum and rather mundanely were apparently looking for more bread (Jn 6:26).

For the participants in the story, the sensational is subsumed by their daily lives and needs. We can look back 2,000 years later and marvel at the miraculous, but if we’re honest, it doesn’t affect our day-to-day very much either. I don’t expect to multiply bread or walk on water, after all.

But when the crowd turns on Jesus (Jn 6:66), that is a repeatable historical phenomenon true-to-life.

When Sabbath comes, the rules of day bring quiet. The energy of the crowd played out. Sabbath provided a guardrail so that events did not careen out of control. . . And another harvest was coming.

Have you ever been part of a big crowd?

To your right, you greet local people who traveled across town. To your left, you meet people who traveled across country. Radio, tv, billboards, Web sites, and word-of-mouth are ways the crowd heard about the event.

Big crowds don’t just happen. They are part of a larger social context and communication network.

In Jesus’ story, we read about three big crowds. On one occasion over 5,000 joined Jesus (Mk 6:44). Later 4,000 gathered to hear him teach (Mk 8:9). A third account mentions a crowd of many thousands around Jesus (Lk 12:1).

Drawing a crowd of thousands today requires a lot of time and effort including marketing plans, venue negotiations, sound system setup, security, etc.

Minus the technology, similar crowd-factors would apply in Jesus’ day such as…

• Since crowds take time to gather, Jesus must have stayed put for a time rather than always being on the move.
• Some marketing-like communication must have let people know where Jesus was.
• A location with great acoustics and low background noise was critical since there was no amplified sound.
• Regional population density and seasonal work demands impacted who could gather and when.

It’s fun to think about the energy of a big crowd around Jesus. It’s important to realize that for that crowd to gather to Jesus, like a crowd gathering today, the factors had to be just right.

Jesus commissioned six disciple-pairs, twelve men, to take his message to the towns of Galilee. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke provide background.

Matthew gives the scope of the operation. Jesus sent the twelve specifically to Israelite towns in Galilee, not to the foreigners of the north or the Samaritans to the south (Mt 10:5-6).

The basic message Jesus gave his men to speak: “The kingdom of heaven is near” (Mt 10:7). Jesus also instructed them to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons, and freely give.

Mark and Luke offer Jesus’ instruction on the logistics of the speaking tour: “Take nothing for the journey” (Mk 6:8; Lk 9:3). So the twelve would be entirely dependent on hospitality.

So without any luggage, the twelve were heading into Galilee, a province that was 50 miles long and 25 miles wide. The mountainous region of Galilee extended from the Lebanese mountains in the north to the Jezreel Plain between Galilee and Samaria in the south, and from Lake Galilee on the east to just inland from the coast. (Tyre controlled the coast.)

Josephus commented that Galilee included over 200 cities and villages (Life, 235). Concerning the economy, Josephus writes, “Their soil is universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts. . . [the land] is all cultivated by its inhabitants, and no part of it lies idle. Moreover, the cities lie here very thick” (Jewish War, 3.43).**

Six teams to cover a populated region about the size of Rhode Island.

** Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).

“Jesus & Co” = Jesus and Community.

Why not say–Jesus and disciples?

Immediately in our year with Jesus, we are confronted with a fact that is implied by the Gospel accounts. Jesus was part of a larger regional community.

Church conversations most commonly refer to “Jesus and his twelve disciples.” This makes sense, because this social group consistently witnessed Jesus’ teaching and healing activity.

Travel to a feast, however, would include the community from Capernaum and its surroundings. Regarding one Feast-travel-community during Jesus’ youth, Luke refers to it as a “caravan” and describes the people in the community as Joseph’s and Mary’s “relatives” and “friends/acquaintances” (Lk 2:44).

We also encounter relatives and friends surrounding Jesus during his last journey to Jerusalem such as the mother of James and John who would be traveling with their father Zebedee (Mt 20:20), Mary Magdelene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and others (Mt 27:56). Reference to these folks indicates that Jesus was traveling to the Feast as part of larger family groups.

It is important to understand at the outset that the economy of Israel had its own family-schedule in which Jesus participated rather than led or disrupted.

Like the people in our lives, there was a web of relationships around Jesus. There were twelve disciples with Jesus as the Gospels relate, but Feast-travel was one context where Jesus was part of a larger community, thus, “Jesus & Co.”

Jesus was a devout first-century Jew. Thus, the calendar from the Torah (or Moses’ Law) in the Hebrew Bible established his yearly rhythm.

Holy-days restricted Jesus’ activities. Holiday Feasts required travel to Jerusalem.

The following are key days and weeks.

• Sabbath, the seventh day of the week
• New Moon, the first day of the month
• Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread in Jerusalem, seven days during the first month, spring barley harvest
• Feast of Weeks in Jerusalem, seven weeks after Passover, third month, spring wheat harvest
• New Year, the first day of the seventh month
• Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month
• Feast of Huts (or Tabernacles) in Jerusalem, seven days during the seventh month, fall fruit harvest

On Sabbath and New Moon the Torah ruled that businesses were closed, and people could travel only a limited distance. These restrictions are called Sabbath-rules.

The Day of Atonement included Sabbath-rules for work and a fast from food.

All adult males had to attend the three major Feasts in Jerusalem (1 Unleavened Bread, 2 Weeks, and 3 Huts).

Jesus lived by the rules of the Torah. The Torah established the schedule through which we better understand the weekly, monthly, and yearly rhythms of Jesus’ experience.

Speaking of travel routines, petty frustrations, and no shortcuts…

I was listening to the Gospel of Matthew as I was driving downtown on my commute. With cars all around me on the crowded six-lane street, I was constrained to the speed and flow of traffic. Stuck in traffic, I felt tense. It seemed like every red light was strategically positioned to stop our progress.

At any rate, inside my car, I listened carefully to the reader and the words of the Sermon on the Mount hoping my ears would spot some significant pattern that my eyes had failed to see. Heard something, I did, but it was not what I expected. There was a soft, subtle, pious-sounding music track playing in the background. And that was not all. I noticed a reverb, a slight echo, in the speaker’s voice.

Please allow me to clarify, Jesus’ life did not have a soundtrack as he lived it. His voice did not have a reverb effect when he spoke. Unlike Hollywood action heroes, he did not move in slow motion as he walked into town.

Jesus’ life did not have a soundtrack . . . then. NOW, we hear the music of his life! The music of Jesus’ life is that epic and melodic soundtrack of faithfulness that resonates through history.

Our lives make music too. As we see his melody of faithfulness played out in Jesus’ experience, may it inspire us to compose our own music of a well-lived life.

I love the authenticity and sincerity of the scene in the “The Bible” mini-series when Jesus meets Peter. First, Jesus walks in water to the boat. Then Jesus reaches out his hand for Peter’s help to climb aboard.

“The Bible” mini-series: Jesus Meets Peter

With so much said and sung about Jesus walking on water, what a great reminder of the fact that Jesus normally walked in water.++

Jesus walked in water with every brief trip to the shores of Lake Galilee, and with every lengthy trip to Jerusalem he walked through the water of the Jordan River.

A trip to Jerusalem with holiday crowds would have been a great venue for walking on water or parting a river. I’m sure that the crowds would have appreciated the shortcut.

Judging from the reaction of his family and the crowds, Jesus’ experience at least when it came to traveling was fairly normal, like ours. No shortcuts.

As we follow Jesus’ experience, we will walk through a lot of water with him. In the long run, that may even be more significant for us.

++ Jesus would have been awfully difficult to baptize if he didn’t sink occasionally. 🙂

We live in space and time. We occupy space, and we pass time–days and distance. When we travel, space and time overlap. We apply both minutes and miles as measures. “How long is your commute?” Are we asking for space or time or both?

Enter twenty-first-century space and time. The provocative and compelling ideas of the authors of modern science fiction imaginatively reorient us to space and time. They give us teleportation devices and time machines to leap through miles and minutes overcoming our present space/time limitations.

Almost imperceptibly, we diffuse the leaps into the day-to-day of Jesus’ experience. I have talked to a number of people during this project, who one-after-another acknowledge with sheepish grin that it is instinctive to teleport or time-machine Jesus from event to event  without considering the limitations of his space and his time. How did he get from one place to another?

Days and even months pass in just a few summary phrases in the biblical accounts as they do in all literature. We live, however, in the minute-to-minute and day-by-day of the routine and frustration of present experience.

While reading a good story, it is easy to forget that life moves more slowly, sluggishly even, as you live it, and naturally speeds up when you narrate it.

SpendaYearwithJesus with its time-limited narration is an opportunity to engage Jesus’ experience more like our experience, even in our experience.

Along the way, we remember that Jesus did not have a teleportation device, he walked; that  Jesus did not have a time machine, he passed time like us.

In fact, he never broke the rules of space and time and human relationships for his own advantage.

SpendaYearwithJesus tells the story of Jesus’ last year day-by-day.

The biblical record provides rich primary source material. With some study of first-century time and space, a natural sequence of events emerges from the details to yield a cohesive account of Jesus’ human experience.

As in any ancient history, there are gaps in the record of Jesus’ last year. We can conclude logically that Jesus’ experience in the gaps follows human experience in general, human experience in first-century Galilee more specifically, and the specific stories recorded in the Gospels.

In terms of human experience in general, we know he ate and slept, for example. In terms of first-century specifics, we can refer to ancient sources such as the writings of Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Mishnah as well as archeological studies that tell us, for example, that Jesus would have eaten two meals a day.

In addition, climate, demographics, topography, as well as agricultural cycles provide a rich context in themselves for deducing events and movements. For example, traveling in the rain or gathering a crowd at the peak of harvest season are both quite unlikely.

Filling in the gaps from the available archeological, historical, and geographical data allows us to meet Jesus in his space and time.

Filling in the gaps also exposes the assumptions that we continuously project onto the past from our own imaginations (such as science-fiction devices to leap through time or space from big event to big event).

I invite you to spend a year with Jesus day-by-day in the hill country of Israel. He was human like us, and like us his context was critically important to his activity and message.

Life stories are made up of big events, but living is day-to-day.

Late writer David Foster Wallace captures this idea in his 2005 college commencement speech. He observed, “The most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.”

I am intrigued by Wallace’s observation. I agree.

In the speech, he refers to the day-to-day trenches of adult existence and unpacks the reality of the “day in and day out.” At one point, he says,

There happens to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine and petty frustration.

If I may repeat/adapt that observation, when it comes to Jesus’ experience, there happens to be whole, large parts of his adult life that nobody talks about. Boredom, routine and petty frustration are imperceptibly obvious in Jesus’ story as well as our own.

Implicit in this observation is a small, quiet encouragement. It echoes through David Foster Wallace’s speech. Pay attention . . . choose to pay attention.

Give attention to those imperceptibly obvious parts of our days that make up a significant portion of adult life. As Wallace observes, the tedium of adult living will drive us senseless, unless we engage our senses to that routine and petty frustration as a meaningful part of life.

In fact, when we pay attention to Jesus and to one another through that tedium–when we engage-to-listen–it is one of the most costly, loving acts we can perform in our brief existence.