Matthew 4:11: “Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.”
1Samuel 3:1: “And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; [there was] no open vision.”
I remember as a child hearing the story of the temptation of Jesus and always being mystified by that last part where the angels came to minister to Him. I remember thinking: “That’s cool, even Jesus needed to be ministered to.” You see I had made up my mind very early in my childhood that I was going to be a minster. My biggest problem was trying to figure out what a minister is, how does he to minister and what is a ministry?
Today I hold no official position in a church nor do I hold a leadership role. Many would say I have no church ministry. I write books and send out a daily blog. Some say that is a ministry, many say it is not. I suppose if I am asked what my ministry is I would say it is ministry of prayer. That might elicit some frowns. Let me speak in my defense.
Moses spent forty years tending sheep. Did he have a ministry during that time? I can imagine people today saying: “Why Moses, you have so much education what are you doing with that education?” Moses would reply: “Tending sheep.” Why Moses you were trained in the court of Pharaoh, what are you doing with that training?” “Tending sheep.” “Moses you have such leadership training and ability what are you doing with that training and ability?” “Tending sheep.”
Yesterday I said goodbye to 65. I have now advanced one more digit. You get to that age you no longer celebrate birthdays, but you tend to use that day for reflection. I reflected back to my determination at the age of 6 to become a minister and how I set my mind and heart on nothing else. The only question was how I would minister, Pastor? Teacher? Missionary? Parachurch organization. Now sixty years later I reflected that I’ve worked them all and yesterday during my time of reflection I had to ask myself: “Have I ever really ministered? Most of all have I ever really ministered to the Lord?” You see in all these years I never really came to an understanding of what ministry is and what those angels did to minster to Jesus. I wanted to do that.
I think I am in good company as I am continually running into people who long for a ministry but do not have any notion as to what a ministry is. They see it as leading a Bible study group or maybe preaching somewhere or teaching a Sunday school class. But did the angels appear to Jesus and have a Bible study? Did they preach to Him? What did Samuel do when he ministered to the Lord as a child? Did he preach to Jesus, hold a Bible Study in the temple?
The word minster in the Greek as used in Matthew 4:11 where the angels ministered to Jesus is diekonoun which is caring for the needs of others. What were Jesus’s needs at this time? Practically all commentators say the angels brought him food. After all forty days without food this was an obvious need. What bothers me about that, however, is that He just get done resisting the temptation to produce food supernaturally by telling the devil what He needed was the bread of life and then when the old goat departs Jesus sighs and says: “Ok angels bring on the grub, he’s gone now.” I never fasted for forty days but I did fast for thirty once and I remember food was no longer an issue. I was not hungry, but boy did I crave the Word of God. Put a Big Mac and the Bible in front of me and ask me to choose one, I would not have hesitated to choose the Bible. My body may have needed food but after thirty days of putting that body into submission, it was my soul that was crying out in hunger. I can never remember a time when I so intensely craved for the Word of God. Food meant nothing. Perhaps the angels had to convince Jesus it was time to eat and brought food. But why need the angels to bring food? Could not Jesus turn the stones into bread. I mean he feed the five thousand, how much harder would it be to feed Himself. I don’t believe he needed angels for that he needed another ministry.
The word used in the Aramaic for minister here is shamesh which is a military term used to strengthen or fortify a battlement . Well, the angels feeding Jesus would fit that except Jesus was in a spiritual battle and he needed spiritual strength not physical strength. Spiritual strength often comes through fasting. When Samuel ministered to the Lord the word in the Hebrew is sharath. This is a service performed by a high ranking servant. Some servants served as cooks, bottle washers, maids but the sharath served the master directly. I have a friend who is a nurse, she works in a clinic and practically does all the physical things a doctors used to do, give shots, take blood pressure, take blood samples, set up EKG’s etc. This frees the doctor to do the most important work he is trained to do and that is to evaluate these tests and make a final diagnosis. That is a shamesh. She does the grunt work so to speak, although I would hope this shamesh had some experience and training before sticking that needle in me. So Samuel ministered or shamesh the Lord. He did the grunt work for the Lord, so to speak.
That is kind of what a religious minister does, the grunt work, teaching about the Master, baptizing them, performing the marriages in the name of the Master and even caring and comforting the Master’s children leaving the Master free to do his miraculous work.
Jesus did not need a shamash, anymore than a doctor needs a nurse for his personal need. A doctor knows how to take his own blood pressure, give himself injections, and perform EKG’s ect. He might want the nurse to assist him to make it easier, but he does not need the nurse because he is capable of performing these things. You and I (if you are not in the medical profession), however need a shamash. I mean I could give myself an injection but I would prefer a medical professional do it just to be sure it is done right.
What a doctor would need, however, is a sharath, which is also a minster or ministry but different than the shamash. This is someone who speaks His language so if he says “I think I am having an acute inferior myocardial infraction you are not going to reach for the Bengay or Tiger Balm you are going to reach for the AED and know how to use it.
But more specifically, a sharath is a matter of the heart. You can only sharath if you know the person’s heart. In a sense a psychologist or counselor ministers or sharath. They seek to understand one’s heart and bring comfort and happiness to that heart.
So I’ve come to the end of my birthday reflection. Have I really ministered in the past 60 years. I probably have. I shamashed and I did a little sharath as well. But ultimately my goal is to minister to God as the angels ministered to Jesus. Maybe they fed Him, but they did more than that, they sharath, they brought joy and comfort to His heart. I have spent seven years searching for the heart of God, I realize now the reason for my search was to fulfill my childhood dream to minister sharath to God, to bring joy and comfort to the heart of God. My ministry today is indeed a ministry of prayer. For that is a ministry of the heart, a sharath.
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