Did Trials prepare Jesus for Ministry?

Next time I will morsel some crumbs about how...trials prepared Jesus for ministry. 


Jesus needed preparation? How can that be?

I said the above in a post below and decided I might make good on the pledge.

Why did Jesus need trials to prepare him? Because he was human, that is all. He needed household-training from his mother and trade-apprenticeship from his father. Though he was the son of God he did not know these things without effort. That would not be human.

It was emphatically not some kind of artificial thing so that he could identify with us. He could have done that by fiat -- through pure knowledge and sheer power. As another esteemed mentor, Dr. Bill Ury, said in response to such reasoning: "Why, then, did not God just save from heaven?"

He could have, just as you and I can attempt redemptive work without getting our hands dirty. But it cannot be done. We have to be with, to become like. That's the world God made. That's the one he entered. Though he can suspend the ways of his world, he usually does not. And Jesus did not. Much the rather, he submitted to those ways just as we do in our common humanity.

Only his was a willing submission. He never had to become human. But once he did, game on. No looking back and no undoing. He entered our world and knew it in all its pain and trial and death. It was first-hand knowledge: not to posture himself or pretend some kind of empathy, but to actually be with in every way.

So how did his trials prepare him? Same as ours. The tempting in the desert toughened him, wisened him, gave him understanding to overcome many future assaults.

This is all I know and I know it barely. If Jesus were not human, we have no hope, for only a dying God can save a dying race. And to die he had to be human.

But if truly human he must suffer trials necessary to his training. Otherwise his humanity is not as ours.

This may seem arcane, but it is the heart of the gospel. And it is as real and earthy as we can get, if we will. We far prefer a sanitized Jesus in a religious box. That is easier, we imagine, but is actually worthless because unreal.

I go to prayer, to one I dare to believe is real: to one who really understands my trials and can give me understanding help -- one might even say camaraderie.

I pray for the grace to believe it and to enter in.