BRIEF OUTLINE OF JESUS’ MINISTRY

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The following is a brief chronology of the principal events in the public ministry of Jesus in the first three gospels.


  • John the Baptist, the Elijah-like “messenger” prophesied by Malachi (3:1; 4:5), announces that Jesus is the one Israel has long been waiting for, Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River, receives God’s Spirit and is led into the wilderness where he is tested by Satan.
  • Following his baptism and temptation, Jesus returns to Galilee, saying, “The time is fulfilled . . . the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15).
  • Jesus calls twelve disciples and begins his ministry, much of which occurs in and around Capernaum, a fishing village and commercial center on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, which became Jesus’ home after he was rejected in Nazareth (Luke 4:24-30). The people are amazed by Jesus’ teachings and healings, but don’t understand him to be the hoped-for Messiah.
  • Conflicts erupt between Jesus and the religious leaders having to do with Jesus’ association with sinners (tax collectors, lepers, the unclean), his nonobservance of certain Jewish rituals and his breaking of the Sabbath.
  • At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, “You are the Messiah (Mark 8:29). Peter and the others, however, do not understand that Jesus’ messiahship means suffering and death, which is why they abandon him after his arrest: they think that he and his mission have failed. It is only after his resurrection that they understand.
  • After Peter’s confession, Jesus turns his attention from the crowds to his disciples to prepare them to take the good news to “the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
  • Jesus predicts his suffering and death and then sets out for Jerusalem where he is betrayed, arrested, denied, tried, beaten, crucified and buried - and then raised from the dead to confirm that he was and is who the Gospels claim him to be: the only begotten Son of God.

JESUS’ BAPTISM, TESTING AND CALLING TWELVE TO BE HIS DISCIPLES


Most of what we know about Jesus occurred during his public ministry - probably the years A.D. 27 to 30 - as reported in the Gospels. We know almost nothing about his life before he was baptized by John, other than that he grew up in Nazareth, a small town (perhaps five hundred people in the first century) in the hills of Lower Galilee; that he had four half brothers - James, Joseph, Judas and Simon - and unnamed haf sisters (Mark 6:3); and that his father’s vocation was carpentry. The years between his birth in 6 or 5 B.C. and the beginning of his public ministry in A.D. 27 are referred to by scholars as Jesus’ “hidden years.” The event that launched Jesus on his mission was his baptism by John the Baptist (or Baptizer), the last great Israelite  prophet, John and Jesus were related through their mothers (Luke 1:36). John had disciples, and Andrew and Peter were John’s disciples before they joined Jesus (John 1:35). John was killed early in Jesus Ministry by Herod Antipas (Mark 6:14-29) at Machaerus, east of the Dead Sea. He died for his outspoken criticism of Antipas’s marriage to Herodias, the wife of his half-brother, Herod Philip (not to be confused with Philip the Tetrach). The marriage of Antipas to his sister-in-law was a violation in Mosaic Law (Lev. 20:21).


Malachi prophesied that Elijah, who was  taken to heaven in “a chariot of fire” (2 Kings 2:11), would return to announce the coming of  the Lord (Mal. 3:1; 4:5). Orthodox Jews still believe this. In the Gospels, John the Baptist is understood as the Elijah figure who announces Jesus as the Anointed One of God. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says, referring to John, “He is Elijah who is to come” (Matt. 11:14). In Luke’s gospel, Jesus refers to John as the one prophesied by Malachi (Luke 7:27). John the Baptist was not “Elijah-returned,” that is, he was not the reincarnation of Elijah, as some who believe in reincarnation, claim the Bible teaches (see John 1:21-23). Rather, he was the one sent to fulfill Elijah’s mission to announce the coming of the Messiah.


John baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. When Jesus came out of the water, “He saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’ “ (Mark 1:10-11). The baptism accounts in the Gospels are very terse (only two verses in Luke 3:21-22). The emphasis in the New testament is not in the beginning of Jesus’ public life, his baptism, but on the end and climax of his life - his death and resurrection.


Some have wondered why Jesus was baptized, because John’s baptism was “a baptism of repentance for  the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4) and Jesus was sinless. There are several possible answers. One is that Jesus’ baptism for the forgiveness of sins was his first step in identifying with and bearing the sins of those for whom he came to give life. Still another is that Jesus’ baptism was a signal of the coming of the kingdom of God, which he came to proclaim (Mark 1:15).



JESUS’ TESTING IN THE WILDERNESS


After his baptism in the Jordan, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he is tempted (or tested) by Satan. The Gospels tell us that Jesus was tested for forty days, which is biblical shorthand for a long period of time. (Other examples of forty in the Bible are the forty days of rain during the flood, Moses’ forty days on Mount Sinai, the spies’ forty days reconnaissance mission in Canaan, Israel’s forty years in the wilderness, Elijah’s forty days trek to Horeb, and the forty days between Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem and his ascension.) Jesus demonstrates in his testing his perfect obedience to the will of God and his superiority to Satan.


Inasmuch as Jesus was alone in the wilderness, the account of his testing must have been told to the disciples at a later date, along with other personal material in the Gospel (see Mark 4:34). Some have asked, Why did God allow Satan to tempt or test Jesus? The answer may be to let us identify with Jesus’ humanness as when the author of the letter to the Hebrews writes, “Because he himself [Jesus] was tested . . . he is able to help those who are being tested” (Heb. 2:18).



JESUS’ PUBLIC MINISTRY


Jesus’ public ministry is sometimes divided into three periods. First, the period of obscurity - Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, his testing in the wilderness and calling the Twelve to be his disciples. Second, the period of popularity - Jesus’ healing the sick, performing great miracles and preaching and teaching “with authority.” Third, the period of opposition - Jesus’ challenges to the religious authorities, especially in Jerusalem (chasing the money changers out of the temple), resulting in his arrest and crucifixion.



JESUS’ MISSION


What was the mission or “work” of Jesus? That is, what did Jesus come to do?


  • First, he came to reveal God, who is beyond human comprehension. In John’s gospel, Jesus says, “The father and I are one” (10:30) and “Whoever has seen me has seen the father “ (14:9). The writer of the letter of the Hebrews says that Jesus is “the exact imprint of God’s very being” (Heb. 1:3). So Jesus came to reveal God; he came as “the image of the invisible 
  • God” (Col. 1:15); he came as the “human face” of God; he came to speak for God (Heb. 1:2).
  • Second, he came to redeem humankind through his faithful life and saving death, which was prophesied by Isaiah, who said “the righteous one, my servant” would bear “the sin of many [and be made an] intercession for the transgressors” (Isa. 53:11-12). Jesus said that the words of Isaiah would be fulfilled in him (Luke 22:37), the “suffering servant” who came to die for - to atone for - our transgressions against God’s commandments to love him and to love one another. Judas’s betrayal of Jesus to the ruling authorities, which led to his crucifixion, set in motion God’s plan of salvation. Jesus’s death was not a meaningless tragedy; it was the capstone in God’s plan to redeem humankind.


JESUS ‘ DEATH


Why was Jesus killed? This is a two-part question. First, why did Jesus go to Jerusalem, knowing that he would be killed there (see Mark 10:32-34)? Jesus went to Jerusalem to die a one-time-forever sacrificial death for the sins of the world (Heb. 10:1-18). If Jesus had not died sacrificially - for instance, if he had died of old age - he would not have “died for our sins.” Jesus went to Jerusalem to fulfill his mission.


Second, why, shortly after he arrived in Jerusalem, did the authorities put him to death? That is, why did the Sadducees want him killed? And why did Pontius Pilate, knowing that he was innocent (Luke 23:13-15), have him crucified?


The Sadducees. The Sadducees were the keepers of the status quo. They were afraid that Jesus’ preaching and actions might incite a riot that would bring swift, brutal response from Rome, so Jesus had to be dealt with. (The Christian writer Frederick Buechner, paraphrasing JOHN 11:49-50, said that Caiphas, the chief priest, decided “it would be better for one man to get it in the neck for the sake of many than for many to get it in the neck for the sake of one man.”) The Sadducees concern was based on the Jews’ opposition to Roman rule; on the upcoming Passover festival, which celebrated Israel’s deliverance from foreign rule, and the belief and hope that the Messiah would appear during Passover; on Jesus’ popularity and his coming from Galilee, an area seething with anti-Roman feeling; and Jerusalem being swollen to overflowing with a multitude of pilgrims and others (estimates range as high as two hundred thousand) who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate Pass-over. Did the Sadducees have reason to be concerned? Yes, because the Roman army’s mission was to quash all disturbances. (In the Jewish uprising in A.D. 66, Rome destroyed the temple and killed thousands of priests and others.)

Pontius Pilate. Why did Pilate allow the innocent Jesus to be crucified? Pilate had already offended the Jews by erecting Roman emblems (“graven images”) of Emperor Tiberius in Jerusalem and by diverting funds from the temple treasury to built an aqueduct. And when the Jews were seriously offended, they went to Rome and complained, and they threatened to do the same again if Pilate did not hand Jesus over to be crucified. “If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor” (John 19:12).


Did Pilate have reason to be concerned? Yes, because a Jewish delegation had been successful in having Archelaus removed in A.D. 6. (In the year 36, after ordering his soldiers to attack the crowd of defenseless Samaritans at Mount Gerizim, Pilate himself was removed from office.) We have a very negative image of Pilate - “crucified under Pontius Pilate” - but there is a legend that Pilate and his wife later became Christians, and the Egyptian Orthodox Church reveres them as martyrs.


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