Jesus and the Nations

In our familiarity with the life of Jesus, it is easy to overlook the degree to which His concern for all nations appears in His ministry.  Some of you might be thinking, "But didn't Jesus say, 'I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel'?"  Yes, but He said it to the Syro-phoenician woman to provoke her faith. And if you are thinking that Jesus confined His ministry to the land of Israel, remember that He had an unusual number of encounters with Gentiles for someone who did not travel very far.  In addition to the woman just mentioned, there was the Roman centurion whose faith Jesus praised, the Gadarene demoniac, the Samaritan who was the only one of ten lepers to thank Him for his healing, and the Greeks whose visit indicated to Jesus that His hour had come (to name a few).

In addition to these encounters, there were subtler indications of Jesus' worldwide aim that set the tone for everything He said and did:

• His preference for the title "Son of man" which came from Daniel 7:13-14 where the One called by that term approached the throne of the Ancient of Days and was given "dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him."
• His connection to John the Baptist, the forerunner prophesied in Malachi who condemned the corrupt worship of Israel and who heard the Lord say, "From the rising of the sun, even to its going down, My name shall be great among the Gentiles [nations] ... for My name shall be great among the nations" (1:11).
• His temptation by Satan to receive all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship, showing that worldwide dominion was something to which Jesus aspired (just the shortcut was wrong)
• His first sermon at Nazareth offended the hometown folk with its examples of how God worked miraculously on behalf of Gentiles in the time of Elijah and Elisha.  Goerner writes that this beginning to Jesus' preaching "demonstrates that His life purpose extended far beyond the nation of Israel."
• His sending out of the 70 is significant because that number represented to Jews the number of nations in the world (based on Genesis 10).  Even the sending out of the 12 (which was confined to Israel) contained these words: "You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles [nations]" (Matthew 10:18).
• His triumphal entry fulfilled Zechariah 9:9 whose following verse includes, "He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be from sea to sea."
• His cleansing of the temple was because "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations" (Mark 11:17).
• His defense of the woman who "wasted" the expensive oil by anointing Him foresaw that her action would be retold "wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world" (Matthew 26:13).
• His prophecy that the end would not come until the gospel had been preached "in all the world as a witness to all the nations" (Matthew 24:14) ended with the sheep/goat judgment of all the nations (Matthew 25:31f).

All these examples (and there could be many others) lead to one inevitable conclusion: Jesus' mission was for all peoples.  As His followers, we can aim for nothing less.  Let us pray like we believe it.