Lesson 12
40 Day Ministry
John 21:1-24
Matthew 28:16-20, Mark
16: 15-18
What
a week! Can you believe all that has
taken place during this last week of Jesus' life? We have walked with Him to Jerusalem, and watched
Him perform miracles, listened to His doctrine in the temple, watched the
Sanhedrin conspire against Him and eventually crucify Him. We have been with Him in the Garden of
Gethsemane, at the trials, on the cross at Calvary, in the Garden Tomb, and now
He is Risen!
Jesus now
spends 40 days on the earth teaching His disciples more of His doctrine. There was so much more He needed to share with
them before going to other parts of the world to show Himself to others.
We have been
told as disciples that Jesus will meet us in Galilee. How long will it take Him to come? There are things we need to do, and it must
be time to just get on with our own lives.
Jesus has lived His life and is now gone. We do however, know He is resurrected and lives
again. How long should we wait for Him.
Is He really going to come to Galilee?
Peter
announces that he is going fishing. Let's go fishing too; we aren't doing
anything else. Fishing is a good
business for those who live in Galilee and feeds many in the area. “Fishing on the Sea of Galilee was a
well-organized enterprise among the families represented by the apostles who
were with Peter. Peter and Andrew, brothers, worked in a partnership with James
and John, the sons of Zebedee, and they supervised hired hands (Luke 5:7-10;
Mark 1:20). They owned their own boats
(Luke 5:11), and thus it wasn't hard for them to find a vessel to go fishing in.” (Skinner, The Garden Tomb, p. 173)
Peter does
just this; he goes fishing. With him go
six other disciples. They fish all
night, as was the custom on the Sea of Galilee, and caught nothing. As morning came, they were discouraged about
their catch. They saw a man standing on
the shore who asked them about the catch of the night. They did not recognize that it was
Jesus. He said to them, “Children have
ye any meat?” They answered him, “No.” (John 21:5) Then the man on the shore told them to cast
their net on the right side of the boat, and “Ye shall find.” They did just that, cast their net on the
right side, and the catch was so great they could not pull in the net. Could this be? Have these apostles experienced this
before? Three of them had, and they
looked up, and John told the others, because he first recognized him, “It is
the Lord.” Peter then so excited he could not contain himself, or wait for the
boat to come to shore, jumped in the water and was the first to make it to
shore where the Savior stood. The others
came, dragging the net of fish behind the boat to the shore. (John 21:1-8)
“As soon as then they were come to
land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread.
Jesus
saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.
Simon
Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, and an hundred
and fifty three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.
Jesus saith unto them, Come and
dine. And none of the disciples durst
ask him, who art thou? Knowing that it
was the Lord.
Jesus
then cometh, and taketh the bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise.
This is now
the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was
risen from the dead.” (John 21: 9-14)
Jesus is on
the shores of the Galilee and serving his disciples by taking care of their
temporal needs. He has a fire burning to
fulfill the need of warmth, fish on the fire to fulfill the need of hunger, and
a warm place to sit and rest to fulfill the need of rest from working all night
and the tired aching bodies they were now feeling. Jesus, the Lord of Lords, Master of all, who
had just descended below all, who had given all for the world, was now serving
the disciples. The example of all
examples to us today. “He had already
performed the most significant and profound act of service in the history of Creation: the
Atonement. He had already opened the
door to an eternity's worth of possibilities for the whole human family, and yet
he wanted to make dinner, to make his disciples happy, because they were cold
and tired and hungry! It was not beneath
his dignity to care for their personal needs, to warm them and make them feel
comfortable and valued. He truly modeled what he taught; he who was the
greatest made himself to be the least and the servant of all (Matthew
23:11).” (Skinner, The Garden Tomb, p.
175-176)
“When they
had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou
me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou
knowest that I love thee. He saith unto
him, Feed my lambs.” (John 21:15) And a
second time and a third time Jesus asked Peter the same question, and Peter
answered the same three times. “Having
shown by his actions the way of perfect servant-leadership, Jesus was ready to
teach with words. In this atmosphere of
total service, and against the backdrop of his personal example of selfless
concern for others, Jesus instructed the chief apostle, Peter, as to what he
must to do for the rest of his life.
Using the draft of fish as the object lesson, fish he had helped Peter
catch, Jesus taught Peter that he was to leave fishing, leave economic
pursuits, and feed the Savior's sheep just as the Savior had fed him that
morning (John 21:9-17). Jesus would take
care of Peter as he had that morning, but Peter was to take care of the Church.
(Skinner, The Garden Tomb, p.176)
Jesus
prophesies of Peter's martyrdom, and of John's ministry till the Savior comes
again. Jesus then tells Peter “Follow me,”
which we know today that Peter did, and lead the church.
After Jesus
had appeared to the eleven disciples at the Sea of Galilee, He also appeared to
many disciples on “a mountain where Jesus had appointed them” in Galilee.
(Matthew 28:16) “There the Savior met
with these brethren and gave them important instructions regarding their divine
commission to lead the kingdom after he was gone.... Elder McConkie also writes
that this “is likely the occasion of which, as Paul wrote later, 'he was seen
of above five hundred brethren at once.' (1 Cor. 15:6) If so, the seventies and
leading brethren of the Church would have been present, as also perhaps the
faithful women who are inheritors of like rewards with obedient priesthood
holders” (McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 1:866)
“To his
special witness, Jesus explained the all-encompassing authority and power he
possessed but was now delegating to them and expecting them to uphold” “All
power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” he said. “Go ye therefore, and
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
Amen.” (Matthew 28: 18-20)
With the
convening of this mountain conference in Galilee, the Savior had now given the
great missionary charge to his earthly leaders.
By this point he had appeared several times to his apostles and
disciples to confirm his living reality.
This was the essence of his forty-day mission. The foundation was firmly in place. Many had come to know the resurrection was
real, and this gave them the strength to live the gospel of Jesus Christ and
preach it to others. Because the ancient
disciples knew with certainty that Jesus was the Christ, that he had in reality
come back to life, that the promises of resurrection and eternal life were
unequivocally true, they could face anything—and many
did.
This
conviction of the reality of the resurrection is alive and well in our day; it
is the linchpin of our faith. With glad hearts Latter-day Saints proclaim the
good news: Jesus is alive today and resides in yonder heavens with his divine
Father, who is also a glorified man of flesh and bone and who has promised each
of us that we can join them and be like them if we commit our lives to
them. It is up to us.” (Skinner, The Garden Tomb, p. 179-181)
Andrew
Skinner also spends an entire chapter in his book The Garden Tomb on how
the Savior taught about the temple during his 40 day ministry and how this
relates to us today. It is well worth
the read.
The Savior's
40 day ministry has come to a close, “And he led them as far as Bethany, and he
lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he
was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.” (Luke 24:50-51) While they were there, and before he was
taken up, He gave final instructions, “Luke records that Jesus commanded the
apostles to remain in Jerusalem until the promised arrival of and immersion in
the powers of the Holy Ghost were realized (Acts 1:4-5).... As the apostles
contemplated these instructions, as well as their future, Jesus ascended in a
cloud of glory and was gone. But two
angelic witnesses appeared and provided important commentary on this
experience, which is also for all disciples of this dispensation. Jesus' ascension is a model for his glorious
second coming. He will descend from his
heavenly throne to appear on the Mount of Olives and reign on the earth as King
of Israel, King of Kings. Thus, Jesus'
ascension brings us back full circle to the beginning of his atoning experience, forty-three days
earlier, and propels us forward to the start of a new era. 'The Mount of Olives, 'the
olive-orchard'--hallowed spot! On this
Mount is the Garden called Gethsemane where Jesus in agony took upon himself
the sins of the world... here he now ascends in triumphant
glory; and here he shall in that same glory to begin his reign as Israel’s
King. (D.&C. 133:19-20).” (McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 2:28)
(Skinner, The Garden Tomb, p. 196-197)
40 Day Ministry
Prepare
John 21: 1-24
Matthew 28:16-20, Mark
16: 15-18
Summarize
the last week of the Savior's life.
Ask
questions and have your family tell you what happened.
What
have they learned, and how has it affected them?
Now
the Savior is appearing after His resurrection to give instruction
on
how to keep the church going. What does
He tell them, and how does
what
He tells them relate to us today? How
many missionaries do
we
have in the world today teaching His word?
What
can we do today to act on the Savior's last message to
the
disciples during His 40 day ministry?
Remembering
Place
a temple picture or a temple statue out.
Next
to the temple put a missionary tag.
This
is to remind us of our commitment to teach His word.
(This
was His last request of the disciples in time
of
old, but it also applies to us today.)
A
photo of Jesus with a lamb around His shoulders
or in
His arms is a great example of the 40 day
ministry
and that He taught by example.
Act of Service
What
act of service can you do that represents the
40
day ministry? What did Jesus do for His
disciples after they
came
to the shore with the catch of fish?
What did He teach
them
after He fed them? Were they cold, and
tired, and hungry?
And
then what did He ask of Peter?
How
does this apply to us today?
Feed
my sheep.
No comments:
Post a Comment