Luke 9:51-62 – “Faces Set to Jerusalem”
Pentecost 5; Proper 8-C – 27 June 2010
Pr. Kurt A. Van Fossan
Keep in mind the context of our Gospel reading. The last few Sundays we heard how Jesus was not only healing the sick but also bringing the dead back to life, forgiving sins, casting out demons, and most importantly proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God (Luke 8:1). Things were looking good! This would have been an exciting time for Jesus’ disciples, and understandably so. The Saviour had come, showing clearly that He has power over all sin and all the forces of evil. The Lord is unbeatable, He loves us and He is with us! What could possibly go wrong?!
Then our text begins by telling us that Jesus “set His face to go to Jerusalem.” Why was Jesus going to Jerusalem? To suffer and die! Wo! Wait a minute! Were Jesus’ disciples ready to see their unbeatable Saviour suffer and die? I’m sure not, even though Jesus told them that that’s what was going to happen.
But before we’re too hard on Jesus’ first disciples, let’s think about ourselves. We know that Jesus suffered and died on the cross to pay for our sins, and that that’s a good thing because it means that by doing so He has opened to us the way of eternal life with God in paradise. Yet how ready are we when it comes to dealing with suffering and death in this world?
What’s one of the first things that comes to your mind during times of suffering? I’m being punished for something I’ve done; God is mad at me; Where’s God?; God has abandoned me!; or, all of the above. Such thinking usually comes from the mistaken idea that the Christian life is all about my obedience to God’s Laws: The more I follow God’s law the easier of a life I’ll have in this world. The less I follow God’s laws the more suffering I’ll experience in this world. The more we think this way the less prepared we will be to handle suffering when it comes, and the less of a witness of the Christian faith we will be to those around us.
How does God correct such thinking? Through His Word. Take for example the attitude of the Samaritans and Jesus disciples in our text. We’re told that the people of Samaria did not receive Jesus because “his face was set toward Jerusalem.”
To understand what’s going on here it helps to know that many years earlier, when the Jews returned to Jerusalem from their Babylonian captivity and set out to rebuild the temple, some of the Jews from Samaria wanted to help. But many of the people in Samaria had intermarried with people from pagan nations. As a result, their pagan worship practices gradually became intermingled with the worship prescribed by God. So the Jews in Jerusalem said: "You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the LORD, the God of Israel..." (Ezra 4:3).
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Eventually the Samaritans went off and built their own temple for the lord on Mt. Gerizim in Samaria. Since that time many of the Jews and Samaritans did not associate with each other, and it’s most likely the reason many of the people in Samaria rejected Jesus.
So now, since the Samaritans rejected Jesus, His Jewish disciples felt this was a good enough reason to destroy them once and for all! It appears that they had the same mistaken idea in their minds that I mentioned earlier: We’ve been more faithful to God’s Laws so we deserve less suffering, and these Samaritans have been less faithful to God so they deserve more suffering.
Who was right? Neither. The attitudes of both were sinful. Both deserved to be consumed by the fires of hell.
What about those in the rest of our text? The first said to Jesus: “I will follow you wherever you go.” Would he, even if it meant giving up all that Jesus was willing to give up, including His very life?! The next man said, “Lord, let me first bury my father.” That sounds like a reasonable request. So also does the request to “first let me say farewell to those at my home.” So, don’t you think Jesus response was too harsh? “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” If that were true then none of us are fit for the kingdom of God by what we do!
And that’s exactly what Jesus is saying. All this is the law which exposes the truth that every one of us are sinners and deserving not only of the worst of suffering in this life, but eternal suffering in hell (Romans 3:28).
So where’s the Gospel? In these words: “[Jesus] set His face to go to Jerusalem,” for it’s in Jerusalem that Jesus underwent the fires of hell that we deserve. Unlike us, He did not look back. He remained faithful in every way, putting us and our salvation before Himself. It’s in Jerusalem that Jesus did what we are unable to do, to overcome our sins and death and rise to eternal life.
How does this help us to understand our times of suffering? Set your face to Jerusalem and Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection. Jesus, who of all people did not deserve to suffer, suffered most of all. Why? For our good. To set us free from our sins and death. And all this He did simply because He loves us.
Through suffering in this world God is also working for the good of His Church (Romans 8:28). Do we need to know all the details of how He does this? No. Through what Jesus did in Jerusalem God enables us to trust Him and His love. Such trust is not only for our eternal good, but also for the eternal good of those around us as they witness God’s love in us. This is the main reason we’re still here amidst the suffering of this fallen world with faces set to Jerusalem, that others may know of God’s love. For Jesus’ name sake. Amen.
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