Why Did Jesus Wait Thirty Years?
And how might we apply this to our lives today?
Most people today, at least in first world countries, seem to be in a hurry.
And technology people develop is to help everyone do more faster, while at the same time we tell ourselves it will make our lives easier. This might be true for cars and washing machines, but I’m not completely sure. Conveniences open us to more possibilities, and more possibilities invite more irrelevant distractions.
It isn’t uncommon to race through whatever we might be doing in order to get to something else. The illusion is that something else is surely better than what we are doing in the present moment. If we are sick, in pain, or under duress, this is likely true.
I remember plotting my path through higher education with much of it not about becoming more knowledgeable in the subjects being taught but in figuring out which teachers are easy graders and were there any ways to cut costs. It wasn’t always about wanting to learn the subject matter before me. Sadly this behavior breeds habits of distraction, losing the ability to sit quietly and focus.
Work life
Personally many of our calculations going through school were set to see if we could get through it faster, at lower cost, and the fewest classes and assignments possible. This then carried over into our work lives where we often competed against competition on the same objectives. Whoever could get the task done fastest and at lowest cost usually had the best chance of winning the contracts necessary to sustain and hopefully grow the enterprise.
It’s also a good reason why many find prayer so frustrating. God could answer us instantly, but often, perhaps even usually, does not. For many this is the reason they fall back to attempting to fix things themselves.
With this understanding of our modern love for instant results, let’s consider a question I have often wondered about Jesus’s life and ministry. Why did he wait to get started until he was around thirty years old?
First of all, does anyone believe that Jesus lacked the talents and skills necessary to begin a ministry say, after his Bar Mitzvah at age twelve or thirteen?
We really do not know for sure but my guess is he was completely capable on his end - if this had been his Father’s will.
For this reason, I think the problem was we in our human development were the reason he waited until he was thirty. We have a hard enough time accepting the word of anyone younger than ourselves whatever the age, let alone a twelve year old.
As humans, we know much of wisdom comes from the accumulation of years of experience. We can look back and recall in general terms the troubles we faced at different times in our lives. For this reason, Jesus needed, for our sakes, to wait until he reached an age we would accept as not only as reaching adulthood, but experienced enough in the ways of the world to be accepted as a rabbi, teacher, or elder.
But there is another possible reason for the delay, and this does have to do with Jesus’s development as a human being. What if it took eighteen years from the time of his Bar Mitzvah to the start of his ministry to be equipped by his Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit? It is possible he could have been instantly educated by some mysterious method, but I think more likely, in order to represent mankind, he did his studies and prayers in the same way we would have to do them.
Recall that at the beginning of his ministry, just after his baptism by John in the Jordan River he was led into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. From this encounter we see that Jesus used passages of Scripture to resist each temptation. In this cosmic testing he cited Deuteronomy 8:3 for the first temptation, Deuteronomy 6:16 or Isaiah 7:12 for the second test and Deuteronomy 6:13 for the final test. In other words, by the time Jesus begins his earthly ministry he is completely knowledgeable of the entire Old Testament along with other important Jewish writings available at that time.
Also by the time he begins his public ministry he is prepared to speak for his Heavenly Father. Sure everything could have been fed to him instantaneously, but what if it wasn’t? What if, instead, he communed with his Father in heaven for decades by that point so he could speak with complete authority himself? Do you understand the distinction I am making?
Again, we do not know, but dedicating his entire life communing with his Father is no different from what he calls his followers to be about on a daily basis. This is how he wants us to grow is it not? To grow slowly and deeply like fruit trees.
Life in the Spirit is a slow daily process because God wants our participation in what he is doing to love, encourage, and support the people around us.
He doesn’t treat us simply as lightening rods where others are zapped by his power through us.
Instead, in the same way he wants our relationship with him to grow day by day into ever deeper levels of love and trust, he wants our relationships with others to be of the same nature. He does not seem to be interested in turning us into mindless dispensers of his power to others, to include performing instantaneous healings or conversions of others. Rather he seems to want us to grow more open and vulnerable to one another over time so he might instead work through our weaknesses.
In the way I believe he wants us to become more human, not less.