Nowhere to lay His head!

Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Luke 9:58

What I know of New Testament life and times does not make me an expert!

This is merely offered as food for thought and an encouragement to contemplate Christ’s earthly circumstances compared to the exalted circumstances He laid aside for us and our salvation.

I often wonder how Jesus and his disciples subsisted over the three and a half years of His earthly ministry.

Had Christ solely engaged in a solitary ministry He would have had only himself to provide and care for.

We know that Jesus came from humble stock, carpenters were not in a particularly high wage bracket. Even when Jesus was presented in the Temple as an infant His parents could only afford the least sacrifice allowed by law.

Christ’s leaving of the carpenter’s shop cut him off from the income of his trade

His earthly work for His heavenly Father absorbed all his energies so I think it unlikely he did the odd carpentry job to help make ends meet, though we don’t know for sure.

We know from Scripture that several women ministered to our Lord ‘during his ministry from their own ‘substance’ ie. funds (Luke 8:3). As a itinerant preacher and source of wonder it is possible the generosity of the populace was expressed in gifts , food and offers of accommodation.

I don’t think Jesus lived the sort of mendicant life we see in some religion. Yet, it is likely he received support from many sources known and unknown.

To have Jesus come to stay for a few days would not have brought difficulties to the well meaning friend of humble circumstances but to have the wider circle of the twelve land on your doorstep might have.

It is possible that the disciples of Christ fended and shifted for themselves but I think they were included in the wider circle of friends and supporters that attended Christ’s ministry in Galilee especially and increasingly in Judea at the height of its popularity.

To this was added the generosity of the public that came with the following Christ had as teacher and worker of miracles.

This would have likely decreased as Jesus grew less and less in favour with the ‘Jews’!

During the sacred festivals of the Jews they were famous for their open door policy to visitors. So Jesus and His disciples would have found hospitality like that in the home of Mary and Martha (and Lazarus).

To have provided food and shelter for Christ ,Peter James and John would not have held difficulties for semi-well to do people, perhaps it would have been more so when the rest of the twelve had to be housed and fed as well.

More likely they were farmed out to a community of friends in different places. However, I cannot escape the conclusion that many nights were spent out in the open with food purchased with whatever funds were available or just plain hungry.

When you add the ‘seventy two’ commissioned by Christ for special missionary work, there shows a wider group of disciples who may not have followed Jesus all the time but only when free from other duties and responsibilities. This may have added to the ‘logistics’problem of providing food and shelter etc,

As for the disciples themselves, I think James and John may have been a more well to do than some of the other disciples because we know that John was known to the high priest thus may have moved in slightly higher circles than might have been expected.

Also if Zebedee was merely a poor fisherman the loss of his two sons would have left an old man in reduced circumstances.

Matthew or Levi as he was known may have still had some resources left from his time as a tax collector but what the others could call on I do not know.

To follow Christ brought with it reduced circumstances and hardship. It would have most likely brought hunger as well as exposure to the elements.

For fisherman like Simon Peter, Andrew and the sons of Zebedee this would not have been as great a hardship as the disciples use to less laborious occupations.

No doubt, money went further in those days and being closer to agriculture and a good source of fresh or salted fish (Galilee) made things easier.

To counter balance this Roman taxes were on everything but then I do not know for sure what tax they would have been able to levy on a poor wandering teacher.

The moderate climate of Israel helped ameliorate things. Though in winter Jesus took advantage of the shelter of ‘Solomon’s portico’ to engage in His preaching ministry.

In conclusion, while the problems of Christ’s earthly life were mostly the same as the surrounding population they still form a part of the ‘humiliation rather humbling of Christ in taking upon himself the ‘form of a man’ and uniting humanity with himself.