One of our tour group to Israel in February had explained to his children that Daddy would be away from them for a week in Israel. Half-way to the airport in Sydney, a young child asked, "Is this Israel?"
Perhaps our instant world that expects everything to be ready "at the double" hasn't grown up! Certainly most of us can identify times when our children (even in their teens!) have had no concept of how long it takes to get ready. And younger children cannot understand that the next town isn't our final destination.
In his temptations (Lk. 4.1-13), Jesus showed that he knew there could be no short-cuts in following the Father's will and in fulfilling his task. He had laid aside his heavenly glory.
His miraculous deeds were done only in dependence on his heavenly Father and never to protect himself. The principle is important for us too - "Man does not live on bread alone".
To bring in the Kingdom of God, Jesus had to live in complete submission to the Father. He was a living example for us that we should "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only!"
He had to trust that God was with him and that the Father's plan and timing were perfect. "Do not put the Lord your God to the test" is an important word for us as it was for the Israelites in Moses' time. We are to live in confident dependence on the Lord's promised presence and help.
Today's reading follows immediately after the situation where someone asked Jesus whether it would only be a few people who could be saved. Jesus replied, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from!' Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.' But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Get away from me, all you evildoers!' There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west, and from north and south, and will tale their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last will be first, and first who will be last." (13.24-30).
John A. Martin comments on this passage, "These remarks were revolutionary to Jesus' hearers. Most of them assumed that because they were physically related to Abraham they would naturally enter into the promised kingdom. However, his next words were even more revolutionary - in fact devastating - to those who assumed that only the Jewish nation would be involved in the kingdom. Jesus explained that Gentiles would be added to the kingdom in place of Jewish people (Luke 13.29-30). People coming from the four corners of the world represent various population groups. Those listening to Jesus' words should not have been surprised by this teaching because the prophets had often said the same thing. However, Jews in Jesus' day believed that Gentiles were inferior to them. When Jesus had begun his ministry in Nazareth, his teaching of Gentile inclusion had so maddened the crowd that they tried to kill him (4.13-30). The Jewish people considered themselves to be first in every way, but they would be last, that is, they would be left out of the kingdom. In contrast, some Gentiles, considered last, would be in the kingdom and would really be first in importance (13.30)."
The real question isn't our genealogy, but whether we are people of faith, whether we are living in confident dependence on the Lord's promised presence and help.
Jesus lived by the Father's timing. He only had three-and-a-half years of ministry before the cross. In that time he was never deflected from the Father's purposes.
Some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, "Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you" (v. 31). In other parts of Luke, the Pharisees are always against Jesus. Why would they say this to Jesus at this point? Were some of them sympathetically trying to protect Jesus (perhaps Herod planned to treat Jesus as he had John the Baptist, 3.19-20)? Were they in fact acting as Herod's messengers (so Jesus made sure they would report back to Herod)? Or was this part of a plot to lure Jesus into Judea where the Sanhedrin exerted more power than in Galilee which was Herod's territory?
We can't be sure what their motives were. But Jesus was living by God's timing. He wouldn't be deflected from all he had come to do. He replied to them, "Go tell that fox: 'I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.' In any case I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day - for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!" (vv. 32-33).
Jesus wasn't indicating that he would arrive in Jerusalem in three days' time. He had a mission to fulfil and he would continue to live by the Father's timing and plan. He was heading to Jerusalem where he knew he would die.
Our first glimpse of Jerusalem was on Friday afternoon from Mount
Scopus. As we looked across the valley, we heard from several
minarets the loudly amplified call of the muezzin to prayer. To
our ears it seemed a mournful call that went on and on - no doubt
irritating the Jews as they prepared for the Sabbath. There has
been contention over Jerusalem, but the question is still, How
will they respond to Jesus?
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord'." (vv. 34-35)
Matthew 23.37-39 records this lament over Jerusalem in similar words but in a different setting - in the week between Palm Sunday and the crucifixion. In the last sentence Matthew records, "For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord'." This makes it a reference to his final return in glory. W.F. Arndt asks, "Is there any reason to hold that such a lament could not uttered only once?"
Jerusalem was the "holy city" - not simply the long-time capital of the Jewish state (when they weren't subject to the Romans or some other foreign power!), but the focal point of their worship of the Lord, the place where their Temple was located. It is still the holy city - in contrast to the more secular Tel Aviv. This holy city was also the place where many of the messengers of God had been brutally treated by their political or religious leaders. Earlier Jesus had referred to the murder of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the Holy Place (11.51). Not only did Jeremiah suffer greatly in Jerusalem, but he tells of the murder of another prophet, Uriah son of Shemaiah (Jer. 26.20-23). According to an old Jewish tradition Isaiah was sawn in two (cf. Heb. 11.37). We read in 2 Kings 21.16) that "Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end…"
We recall the words of Stephen to the Jewish Council, "You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him…" (Acts 7.51b-52).
They had already fulfilled Jesus' prediction. Stephen was very blunt and direct about it - and was himself stoned to death. With Jesus we feel his seeking, pleading love. He had come to "seek and to save what was lost" (Luke 19.10). Even as he died on the cross, we hear his prayer, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (23.34) - words echoed in Stephen's dying prayer, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them" (Acts 7.60).
Jesus lived in confident dependence on the Father. He lived by the Father's timing. Paul wrote that Jesus "humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!" (Phil. 2.8) "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him" (Jn 3.16-17).
The cross of Jesus was unique. We come there to repent of our sins and to receive as a gift the forgiveness and new life for which he died and rose again. He calls us to live in confident dependence on God day by day - forgetting self, taking up our cross every day, and following him (Lk. 9.23).
His searching, pleading love still reaches out to our own needy world which has done more to marginalise, debunk and murder Christians than any previous generation. By life and by word, we are called to demonstrate to this confused and needy world that Jesus lives and that Jesus saves. Let us heed his call!
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