A New Conquest
When Jesus came up out of the Jordan, He did not come up quietly. He came up announcing a campaign. "The Kingdom of heaven is at hand," He said, "repent and believe." From that moment everything He did was conquest. He was taking back territory that had been held by sin and Satan, and He meant to take all of it — not one city, not one nation, but the whole world. We are used to thinking of conquest as something done with swords and armies, with cities burned and peoples driven out. But the King who came up out of the Jordan conquered differently. His weapons were teaching, healing, and setting people free from the demons that bound them. He overcame people not by slaying them but by loving them back to life. That is the Kingdom He came to plant, and that is the campaign our Gospel reading drops us into.
By the time we reach this passage, Jesus has been walking through the towns and villages, teaching and preaching and healing every sickness, and when He lifts His eyes to the crowds, He is moved with compassion. He sees them harassed and helpless, scattered like sheep without a shepherd — left that way by the very men who were supposed to tend them. And what He sees is not a hopeless mess but a harvest. "The harvest is plentiful," He says, "but the workers are few." There are more people ready to be gathered into the Kingdom than there are hands to gather them. So He turns to His twelve, and what He does next tells us who He really is. He is the new and better Joshua. The first Joshua led the twelve tribes into the land; this Joshua takes His twelve and sends them out to take the whole world. He shares His own authority with them, the very power He has been using, and He commissions them to harvest in exactly the way He has harvested — to teach, to heal, to cast out demons. They are not to invent their own message or their own methods. They go in His power, in His truth, offering His life. They are an extension of His conquest, and He is the Commander sending them out.
Before they go, He gives them their orders, and the orders are striking. Take nothing, He says. No gold, no bag, no extra clothes. The world is not going to be taken over with worldly things; it will be taken over by what God provides. The disciples were to learn that lesson on the road, that the King who sends them will provide for them.
The old conquest drove people out of the land; this one calls people in. People remain free to refuse the King, but a refusal is not nothing — when God is established as King, that rejection will have to be answered for. And He warns them that not everyone will welcome them. They are being sent among people who do not want to be taken over. They will be hated. They will be persecuted. They may be betrayed by their own families, and some of them will be put to death. Jesus does not hide the cost.
So what do we do with a King like this and a commission like this? We start where He starts: we pray. Seeing the size of the harvest, Jesus tells His disciples to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers. But notice what He does in the very next breath — He sends them out as the workers. He answers the prayer He just commanded. That is one of the quiet lessons hidden in this passage: prayer is not only something we say, it is something we do. It is not enough to ask God to send laborers if we are unwilling to pick up a tool ourselves. We accompany our words with action, and we cooperate in the very thing we have asked for. And we do not do it alone — Jesus asks His disciples to pray with Him, which means it is a good and right thing to call others to join us in prayer. From there, the mission has an order to it. Jesus sends His disciples to Israel first, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, before the Gentiles — not out of prejudice but out of order, the firstborn first. And there is a lesson in that order for us. The conquest begins close to home. It begins with our own hearts, then with those entrusted to us, our families, and only then moves out into the wider world. We are to continue what He began, harvesting lives with the sword of His Word, in His way. And we are to expect that this work, like His, will be accomplished through suffering. The cross is not a detour from the conquest; it is the shape of the victory.
Which brings us to the part that is hardest and most hopeful at the same time. The opposition we meet is actually telling us something. Those who hear and receive are ripe; those who are hostile are simply not ready yet. We are not asked to judge them — there is one Judge, and He will sort it out when He comes. We are asked to keep working. And here is the wonder of it: sometimes the ground that is not ready needs to be fertilized, and the thing that fertilizes it is our own suffering. Your witness, even your own blood, may be what finally ripens a heart that was hard. Think of the centurion at the foot of the cross. He was there among the mockers, one of the men carrying out the execution, an enemy of our Lord. But when Jesus gave up His life, it was that same centurion who looked up and said, "Truly this was the Son of God." The very suffering that looked like defeat was the thing that won him. That is how this Kingdom advances. As Christ suffered, and His enemies became His friends, so when we suffer for Christ, our enemies may yet become His friends too.
This is the lesson the Gospel sets before us, and it is not a lesson for the apostles only. It is our mission until Christ returns. There is a harvest right now, fruit the Spirit has already produced, and we are sent to go and gather it. The end will come, the Kingdom will be advanced, and the King will appear — but until that day He has handed us the tools and shared with us His authority, and our part in the work is what moves it forward. So pray for workers, and then go and be one. Take nothing but His power. Expect His provision. Do not be afraid of rejection or persecution, because even those serve the campaign. Pick up the sword of the Word and keep harvesting, right where you are, until the Commander returns and the Kingdom has fully come.
Peace be with you,
Pastor Bruce
