Apparently, Jesus was interrupted a lot during His ministry. He’d try to take His disciples off to rest, and a crowd would come running after. They talked while He prayed and woke Him up when He slept. The Pharisees threw an adulteress in front of Him while He was preaching. Imagine if that happened today! A man coming down through the ceiling cut in on a sermon. A woman with an incurable disease cut in on a healing mission. A blind man with a really loud voice sitting by the side of the road cut in on a walk. They yelled His name, they mobbed Him, they burst into tears, they dumped perfume on His feet. In the synagogue, on the mountainside, in boats, in houses, on the street. Nowhere was safe. And what does Jesus do? Does He get annoyed, short-tempered, curt, upset? Does He say, “Sorry, I’m busy,” and go back to His real work?
No.
In fact, reading the stories, you get the idea that the interruptions were His real work. You see a Jesus who faces head-on every new face that pops up in front of Him, never pushing them aside to follow a plan. Why? How did Jesus manage not to lose His temper? Why did He treat interruptions not like burdens but like opportunities?
Because they were people. Jesus had a job to do, and that job was people. Not carpentry, not fishing, not money, not even synagogues. It wasn’t a vocation, it wasn’t a schedule, it wasn’t a sermon. His purpose was people. Plain and simple. And when they came His way, He saw them for what they were. Not interruptions, not irritations, but empty vessels with the potential of being filled with the love of God. He was never too busy to be interrupted because those very interruptions were His business. What about me?
