I saw an article asking if Jesus ministry failed. I didn’t read it all but it got me thinking. Did it? Would we use the 3-4 year period where He taught above Heaven, relationships, service to others, Hell, money, love, God, as a model for the successful leader? Early on, his events were standing room only. He worked miracles and several times, using mere scraps of food, fed thousands of people. Everywhere he went crowds mobbed him and watched in awe as he performed miracles.
They brought their sick, suffering friends and family to him and he healed them. He found a dozen men who were willing to give up everything to follow him and it wasn’t until after he died that they understood the things he taught them.
And yet, in the end, he probably died alone. Except for his mother and a couple others, nobody else is mentioned in the text. Everyone had deserted him. One of his twelve closest followers betrayed him and turned Jesus over to be executed for about five hundred bucks. Even those who knew him from his youth abandoned him. When he was arrested, his followers denied they knew him. At his trial, they were nowhere to be seen.
Much of what happened after he died is supernatural. He rose from the dead. After appearing to the disciples and helping them see that he really was alive and the Son of God, he disappeared into heaven. He left. Gone… They were on their own. It was up to them and a guy called Saul, to spread the good news that Jesus proclaimed. When they did, people started to understand that this rabbi taught the truth. His death, burial, and resurrection was the answer to life eternal. Heaven was within their grasp if they would only accept Jesus as the answer. He was (is) the cure.
A number of years ago I had an argument with my manager. He wanted to take one of my best people and move him to another team.
“I need him. He’s the best I have,” I complained.
He told me that a leader’s job is to grow their people and make them more valuable doing something else. Grow them, nurture them, challenge them and move them somewhere they can add more value. I never forgot that. And I think Jesus thought that way too. Without a doubt, he trained his disciples in a way that made them extremely valuable after he left. They spread his word to all the ends of the earth.
So even though he died alone, his ministry was a huge success. And the belief that Jesus lived, died and rose again so that we could have eternal life, thrives today.
The Chronicles of Egydyus Flombosi 