The man from the Crowd...

A man in the crowd called out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child." Luke 9:38

The people had been waiting for days for Jesus to return. He was up on the mountain with his closest disciples, and when they returned a large crowd greeted Him. As they made their way through one voice overshadowed the rest. They all would have wanted something, they all would have been calling out to Him but for some reason this man got his attention. Maybe it was the desperation in his voice, or maybe Jesus already knew the gravity of the situation but his request was heard by the One who came to save. The Lexham English Bible elaborates stating that the father requested Jesus 'look with concern' on his son. How else would Jesus look at him? How else does Jesus look at us, except with concern? I thank God that Jesus is no longer restricted to just picking which voice He listens to out of a crowd, but that the Spirit of the Lord is present in all situations and is already looking with concern on us.
What I find interesting is how the father pitches the situation to Jesus. Some versions suggest that it was his only child, and some that it was his only son. It doesn't really seem to matter, culturally, even if the man had daughters this boy would still have been considered the only child of great worth. So, in his plea to Jesus he makes it known that this was his only son/child and everyone who would have heard this statement would have agreed that this was indeed a serious situation. Perhaps some would have laid aside their needs so that this man could get the full attention of Jesus but surely the people who gathered to see Him would have been needy, that those jostling to see Him had similar or even a greater need that only Jesus could help them with. Who knows what kind of hurt some of them were going through? Why did Jesus stop for this man? Sometimes I think that we can look at the situations in our lives and think that we are going through the worst experiences there are, that no one else knows how hard it is to be me and that everyone should look upon me and be thankful that their suffering is not as bad as mine.
Comparison is a tricky thing. If you honestly look at the people around you there will be some which are better off than you but it doesn’t take too long to see that most people are worse off than we are, even if it is just from a financial perspective (www.globalrichlist.com). Maybe this man thought like that, maybe he didn’t, but it is comforting to know that Jesus doesn’t rank us in order of how tough we have it in our life because we would always rank below Him and what He suffered through.

How the situation plays out with this man and his son will continue to unfold...