The Personhood of Jesus

We forget that Jesus came to earth as a person. He was fully human as we are. His ministry wasn’t out of compulsion or polite obligation because He was God. He wasn’t magically given a superpower potion of goodness. Everything He did was out of the same human abilities, will power, and weaknesses which you and I have. Jesus wasn’t forced to serve, love and ultimately sacrifice Himself for us, He wanted to. 

Life before ministry

Jesus' ministry on earth began at the age of 30. Carpenter by trade, He held a lowly but respectable position in society. He loved to create and build with His hands. Those in His profession are gifted in finding potential in things which are often overlooked. Jesus found beauty and purpose in the ordinary. 

Jesus’ mission in life was established long before He was born, but He didn’t begin until nearly the end of His life. Those first 30 years weren’t wasted. There are likely many untold stories of the lives He touched prior to His official ministry. Jesus spent years refining His skills in hard work and pouring His life into learning more about God while deepening His relationship with Him.

Notice Jesus didn’t overlook His day job while lost in a performative faith. God used Him through and by His work for an eternal investment. Instead of anxiously awaiting Jesus’ purpose, He found meaning in the everyday, carefully refining His craft. He didn’t view ministry apart from His work but rather as an instrument for it. 

We know that He prioritized His relationship with God, denying His own needs so that He could grow deeper with Him. After all, one doesn’t simply jump into a 40-day fast and prayer session with God merely from reading their Bible for 30 minutes every day while reciting a quick prayer. He didn’t accomplish this because He was God’s Son and had supernatural powers either. He chose God over the comforts and distractions of life the same as we can.

Modeled obedience

One day, Jesus knew He was ready for what God had called Him to do. 30 years of training, and the wait was finally over. Jesus set down His carpenter tools to build something bigger, the cornerstones of the first church.

This ministry was a calling from God which Jesus answered with obedience. Most of His life was spent living a quiet, ordinary life. But in His ordinary life, He chose to deepen His relationship with God into an extraordinarily rich and fulfilling spiritual life. 

Each of us can experience the same closeness Jesus had with God while on earth. This is one of the many things He demonstrated for us, how to be a finite human in relationship with an infinite God.

Jesus also showed us what true, Biblical obedience looks like throughout His ministry. While He served others to the point of exhaustion, He always found time to slip away and be with His Father. He couldn’t serve us without the spiritual strength given only through His Father. Again, we see His humanness here. Notice also that Jesus isn’t frustrated or short with those He ministers to, He doesn’t see them as chore but rather a delight to love. 

In Matthew 14, Jesus is overcome with grief after hearing of John the Baptist’s death. He rowed off in a boat to a secluded place for some solitude. Yet, the crowds quickly find Him. 

“When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick.” (vs. 14)

Here, Jesus seems to be strengthened by His love. His desire to care for us outweighs His weariness.

As Jesus’ power in God increases, He doesn’t go to more places of prestige and honor, instead He’s found in the lowest places where people of power wouldn’t dare to be seen. We don’t see Him becoming more self-important as His fame increases, rather we see more of His humility. Matthew 9:36-38 records another interaction:

“Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’”

Jesus was depleted mentally and physically from tirelessly serving and preaching to the crowds and constantly traveling to new cities. The motivation for His ministry was led through compassion for us. The more He obeyed God, the greater His heart was enwrapped in what God cared about. 

Jesus obeyed God when He didn’t want to. The night He was betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, He wept and grieved and asked God to remove this cup of wrath from Him. He knew what He was headed into: to be separated from God and completely abandoned by Him. 

Before this point, Jesus had never not been in perfect community with God. He had spent an eternity loving and being loved by His Father. Even in those moments in the garden, He felt the impending separation. It’s more than we can comprehend yet Jesus’ body and soul faced the full reality of what this meant for Him in utter anguish. 

All the while He said, “not my will, but yours” (Luke 22:42). He wanted there to be another way to accomplish salvation. But God’s holiness required that a sacrifice must be made in order for our sins to be wiped clean so that we could take part in His righteousness.

Jesus didn’t have to obey God, but He did. Because He loved Him more than what He got out of the relationship, even if it meant total separation from Him. Jesus obeyed God because He shared in His love for us. Knowing there was no other way to bridge the gap which sin had widened between us and God, Jesus willingly accepted to be our sacrifice. 

There was nothing in it for Him, God didn’t need us for more glory, power or love. He has an unending supply of this already. God sent His Son for the singular purpose of getting us. Think about that, He doesn’t need us for anything. Knowing everything He does about us, God simply wants us because He loves us. 

We don’t have to feel the utter despair He did on the cross. Unlike Jesus, God will never abandon His children. Because He sees us as clean, with no trace of any sin. That is what it means for Jesus to take on our sin and shame. Our sin was swapped with His righteous. So that God would see His perfect Son when He sees us. Which means, when God looked on Jesus that dreadful night, He saw us and our sin and shame. 

Jesus’ birth reminds us what He came for, what He didn’t have to do. Jesus lived a perfect life so that we never had to rely on our own efforts to be “good enough” for God’s love.

He was despised so we never have to live in shame. He was abandoned by His Father so we can always find communion with Him. Jesus was acquainted with grief so we might find joy.