Every one of the Gospels portrays a major turning point in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Before that point, Jesus was the rabbi who went about doing good. He healed. He raised from the dead. He stilled storms. He taught that the Kingdom of God was at hand. After that major turning point, Jesus began to emphasize His upcoming passion. [Mark 8:31] He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. There is a point in every Gospel that Jesus began to focus His teaching on His upcoming ordeal in Jerusalem - His suffering, His death on the cross, and then His resurrection.
That turning point in the Gospel of Luke is the first verse of today's Gospel. When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. He set his face means that He was very determined. To be taken up refers to three things. Jerusalem is built on a hill so a person always goes up to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, Jesus would be raised up on a cross, and finally after His resurrection, He would ascend up to rule at the Father's right hand. The phrase: "When the days drew near for him to be taken up," means that it was almost time for Jesus to fulfill the prophecies about the Christ. It was time for Him to travel to Jerusalem so that mere mortal men could mock Him, beat Him, whip Him, and nail Him to a cross. Although He knew that He would rise from the dead after three days, He also knew that this gauntlet of torture lay in the path leading to that resurrection.
This trip to keep His appointment with the cross was a lot like a farewell tour. While Jesus was definitely en route to Jerusalem, He was taking time at each town to teach and heal. In fact, if we check the location of this verse in the Gospel of Luke, we see that we are not even half way through that Gospel. Jesus did a lot of teaching while He was on His way to Jerusalem. It was His last opportunity to share His teachings before He entered Jerusalem on His way to the cross.
All the Gospels tell us that Jesus was very popular before He came to this turning point in His ministry … and why not? The sick were healed, the lame walked, the deaf could hear, the blind could see, lepers were cleansed, and the Gospel was preached. There were at least two times that Jesus even gave a free lunch to thousands of men plus women and children. What's not to like?
Then the turning point came and Jesus began talking about the cross that waited for Him in Jerusalem. This was not a popular topic. The crowds dissipated. Jesus even asked [John 6:67] the Twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?" Ultimately, He would be all alone as He hung on the cross to pay for the sins of the world. Even God the Father would forsake Him.
While Jesus traveled, He still invited people to follow Him. Today's Gospel gives some examples of the response Jesus received to His invitation. In these responses, we see some of the struggles we also have as Jesus invites us to follow Him.
The first person in today's Gospel was over confident. He was over confident because He didn't really understand what it means to follow Jesus. This person said to [Jesus], "I will follow you wherever you go." Oh really? Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem to die on a cross. The physical pain of the cross would be cruel and horrible, but the spiritual pain would be even worse. Jesus would carry all our sin onto the cross and God the Father would turn away in disgust. This is the punishment of hell that our sins deserved and it caused Jesus to cry out, [Matthew 27:46] [Mark 15:34] "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Do you suppose this person really understood what it meant when he said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go?"
There are those who teach that once a person becomes a Christian, their debt will go down, their wealth will go up, the quality of their marriage will improve, they will get more respect in the work place, and their rebellious children will suddenly rise up and call them blessed. I have even seen presentations that seem to say that Christian football coaches are more likely to win than their non-Christian counterparts. There are many who teach that the way we can know that the Kingdom of God is near is that everything in this world will go our way.
Jesus taught something entirely different. He said, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." He taught that from a spiritual standpoint, we are but resident aliens in this world and we should not expect this world to treat us kindly. If we follow Jesus expecting riches, and fame, and glory, we will be disappointed. The benefits that we receive from following Jesus have nothing to do with the riches that this world loves.
The next two people have a different problem. They want Jesus to change His priorities to match their priorities. Notice that Jesus called them, but they both had things that they had to do first. The first person said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father," and the second person said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." It is that little five letter word first. There was nothing wrong with what they wanted to do. It was that they wanted these things to have priority over following Jesus. Jesus told the first of these two people, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead." He told the second, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." In another place and time Jesus said, [Matthew 10:37] "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."
This seems like a pretty harsh teaching. Jesus seems to come down pretty hard on these three people. The reason Jesus is getting in their faces is that He wants them to have their priorities straight. God must be number one. Martin Luther had this to say about getting priorities straight: [Large Cat.: Commandments, art. i, par. 2-Large Cat.: Commandments, art. i, par. 3] "I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust is right, then your god is also true. On the other hand, if your trust is false and wrong, then you do not have the true God. For these two belong together, faith and God [Hebrews 11:6]. Now, I say that whatever you set your heart on and put your trust in is truly your god. There are many good and wonderful things to do in this world, but if we set our heart on these things, they can become just as much an idol as any pagan statue. In today's Gospel, Jesus even shows us how family can become an idol and push God off His throne.
If we are honest, we have to admit that there have been many times that we have set our hearts on things below instead of things above. We have loved ourselves more than we have loved God. We have turned our family members into idols by setting our hearts on them. We have followed our own thoughts and feelings instead of God's commands. We have let the peer pressure of this world set our agenda. The comforts and pleasures of this world have overridden the standards found in God's word. We often make decisions based on what is fun and boring instead of on what is right and wrong. We have obeyed God only when it is convenient. We have earned God's eternal wrath in many, many ways.
Fortunately, the one who set his face to go to Jerusalem invites us to follow Him. Jesus loved us so much that He offered up His perfect life as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the entire world. He even atoned for the idolatry of our upside down priorities. He took the punishment we deserved when we substituted our agenda for God's agenda.
Jesus, the one whom we follow, took our punishment for us. Not only did He take away our sins, but He also gave us His righteousness. Even though we are sinners, God the Father looks on us and declares us righteous. Jesus certified all this by rising from the dead. With His resurrection, we receive the promise of a new eternal life with Him forever.
The one who set his face to go to Jerusalem still invites us to follow Him. He sends the Holy Spirit to establish and sustain our faith through the power of the Gospel. He is preparing a place for us in the presence of His Father and the day will come when He will call all His followers home to be with Him forever.
In the mean time we follow the instructions Jesus has given His church -"…Go and proclaim the kingdom of God." There are many who are still dead in their trespasses and sin. They need to hear about the eternal salvation that Jesus has earned for them. There are still many who need to hear about the one who set his face to go to Jerusalem. Amen
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