A man of power and action. The people flocked to Jesus because they recognized in Him a man who could do things. There were plenty who could talk and expound and lecture and preach; but here was one who dealt not in words but in actions. It has been said that “if a man can make a better mousetrap than his neighbors, the public will beat a path to his house even if he lives in the middle of a wood.” The person people want is the effective person. Jesus could, and can, produce results. But there is the beginning of tragedy here. The crowds came, but the crowds came because they wanted something out of Jesus. They did not come because they loved Him; they did not come because they had caught a glimpse of some new vision; in the last analysis they wanted to use Him. That is what nearly everyone wants to do with God and the Son of God. –William Barclay

     Someone to be loved.  For one prayer that goes up to God in the days of prosperity ten thousand go up in the time of adversity. Many a man who has never prayed when the sun was shining on life begins to pray when the cold winds come. Someone has said that so many people regard religion as belonging “to the ambulance corps and not to the firing-line of life.” Religion to them is a crisis affair. It is only when they have got life into a mess, or when life deals them some knock-out blow that they begin to remember God. It must always remain true that we must all go to Jesus for He alone can give us the things we need for life; but if that going and these gifts do not produce an answering love and gratitude there is something tragically wrong. God is not someone to be used in the day of misfortune; He is someone to be loved and remembered every day of our lives. –William Barclay

     Jesus completed every necessary task.   Once Rose Macaulay, the novelist, said that all she demanded from this life was “a room of her own.” That is precisely what Jesus never had. A great doctor has said that the duty of medicine is “sometimes to heal, often to afford relief, and always to bring consolation.” That duty was always upon Jesus. It has been said that a doctor’s duty is “to help men to live and to die”–and men are always living and dying. It is human nature to try to put up the barriers and to have time and peace fo oneself; that is what Jesus never did. Conscious as He was of His own weariness and exhaustion, He was still more conscious of the insistent cry of human need. So when they came for Him He rose from His knees to meet the challenge of His task. He never separated words and actions. He never thought that a work was done when that work was stated; He never believed that His duty was completed when He had exhorted men to God and to goodness. Always the statement and the exhortation were put into action. Fosdick somewhere tells of a student who bought the best possible books and the best possible equipment, who got a special study chair with a special book-rest to make study easy, and who then sat down in the chair–and went to sleep. The man who deals in words with no actions to follow is very like that. –William Barclay