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Luke 13:31-35

Transcript

Well, peace be with you. Let's pray, Father. May your will be done, Jesus. May your word be proclaimed in spirit. May your work be accomplished in us.
We pray. Amen. Well, today is the second Sunday of Lent, and we have been engaged in this Lenten journey. Maybe not all of you, but hopefully the majority of you. And it's never too late to start that journey.
So if you are not in the habit of getting rid of something of your flesh in your life right now, for the next less than 40 days, as we journey to the cross with Christ, begin doing that. Maybe it's as simple as increasing your prayer life. Maybe it's increasing reading Scripture. Maybe it's just coming to church on a consistent basis through this season of Lent. Lent is this season where we carry our cross alongside of Jesus, pacing ourselves with him and as he journeys to the cross and as we engage in resurrection.
Sunday, Easter Sunday. And today, last, or actually last week, we began this journey looking at where Jesus began it, which was in the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan and how he overcame temptation. He didn't have this honeymoon period on his Lenten journey. As he was heading towards the cross, as he was beginning his ministry, he out of the gate was tempted and met opposition. So today we kind of pull off into this Lenten journey.
For it's Sunday, so all those who have been fasting or whatever you've been keeping yourself from, you get to indulge in today because it is Sunday. It's a day of celebration. So you don't need to fast today. You need to celebrate and feast today. So as we pull off to this rest area to once again align ourselves with Jesus and where his ministry is, where he is, journey has, is going to be taking us.
We now look at this brief interaction here in Luke chapter 13. But there's a few things that we're going to have to fuel up with so that you can fully understand and grasp the depth of these five verses, simple verses, but there's a lot here to unpack. The first thing that we need to unpack comes from Luke 9. 51. Now we're in chapter 13, so I got to pace ourselves and give you some information.
And Luke 9. 51, Jesus does this when the days were approaching for his ascension, right? That's the end goal. That's where we're all going. He was determined to go to Jerusalem.
That word determined there means his face was turned towards Jerusalem. This is the pivotal moment in Luke's Gospel. Everything leading up and everything that follows what Jesus is about. To do is everything. He is going to Jerusalem, and he will go to Jerusalem one last time.
Jesus has been going back and forth to Jerusalem with all the festivals, the day of Atonement, and all the feasts that are going on. He's used and familiar to going to Jerusalem. But now, according to Luke chapter nine, he turns his face there and he goes intentionally. And this is even made known to us in Luke 13:22, the very chapter we find ourselves in. It says, and he was passing through one city and village to another, teaching and proceeding on his way to Jerusalem.
So that's where we need to understand this is where Jesus is going. And so we are going to align our pace with Jesus. We are still in this Lenten journey, heading towards the cross. The cross is going to be for Jesus in Jerusalem, where he is going to provide salvation for all those who believe and that he is going to be resurrected. Right?
That's the end goal. That's the third day. That is he is going to be speaking about. And that's what we need to align ourself with. We need to keep the end game in the forefronts of our minds.
But we also need to know that there's two characters in the story and that there has been. Since we're in chapter 13, there has been this interaction between these two characters, Herod and the Pharisees, that I need to fill you in on so that you fully grasp what is taking place here in Luke 11:53. This is what it says about the Pharisees and Jesus and their interaction after Jesus has been healing people, after Jesus has been continuing on with his ministry as Jesus has been helping people and teaching people. Here is what the how the Pharisees respond to him in Luke 11:53. When he left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile and to question him closely on many subjects, plotting against him to catch him in something he might say.
When we talk about being very hostile, you can say, trying to put him to death. They despise him at this point. And you need to understand this tension, this opposition, this rejection of them. Matter of fact, at this point, let me stop and pause and go off into a rabbit trail and connect our liturgical readings this morning. Did you guys pay attention to the Philippians reading where Paul is addressing the church?
Let me just read that again briefly, now that I've demonstrated to you this tension between the Pharisees and Jesus. And because Paul describes this tension a little bit deeper, he says, brother, join in following my example and observe Those who walk according to the pattern you have in us for many walk, of whom I have often told you and now tell you, even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. That is exactly who the Pharisees are. They are in opposition to Jesus Christ, and they're in opposition to the cross of Christ. And so we need to understand this tension.
The other thing you need to understand is that Jesus is in Galilee right now and he's journeying towards Jerusalem. The Pharisees want to get Jesus as close to Jerusalem as possible, because that is their base of operations. That is where their greatest influence lies. And so as they are on the outlying regions of Jerusalem, the Pharisees want to get Jesus to Jerusalem, where the temple is, where the chief priests and the scribes and the Pharisees can all come out against him and try to wane the large crowd that's following after Jesus. They want to get them to Jerusalem so they can get these people back in line with them.
So you need to understand that there is a plot with the Pharisees to push Jesus towards Jerusalem. Now, they don't know he's intentionally going to Jerusalem. And as we'll see, he's going to arrive in Jerusalem precisely at the time he means to. The other person you need to know is Herod. Now, if you can recall, I've already preached on Herod several months ago.
I. I don't expect you to remember this, but Herod was the guy who was led by his wife's daughter to behead John the Baptist over the issue of divorce. Right? Jesus, as he's been going from town to village, has been preaching on divorce. So there might be a link to what the Pharisees are saying about Herod being true, but I'm going to lead you to believe that it's not true.
And I want to point out why. Luke 9:9 is where Herod first hears about Jesus. And people were saying that maybe this is John the Baptist resurrected, or maybe this is Elijah. And here's what Herod has to say to hearing about Jesus teaching. I myself had John beheaded, but who is this man about whom I hear such things?
Pay attention to these words. And he kept trying to see him. Now it seems like he's very intrigued and interested in Jesus. And to move this forward, at the end of Luke, when Jesus actually comes face to face with Herod, this is how that interaction goes in Luke 23:8. Now, Herod was very glad when he saw Jesus, for he had wanted to see him for a long time because he had been hearing about him and was hoping to see some sign performed by him.
So this is all the, the stuff I need you to put in your little carry on satchel as we pulled off into this rest area so that we can now look into the Gospel reading now that we can fully understand these characters and what is going on. So let us look into the Gospel reading in verse 31. This is how it begins. Just at that time, some Pharisees approached saying to him, go away, leave here for Herod wants to kill you. So along this Lenten journey, as we look at Jesus life as he's heading towards the cross, he has been going from town to village, making his way, performing his ministry, and it has been kind of smooth sailing from here to here, except for along the way, all of a sudden he gets this check engine light that starts flashing on the dashboard.
There's these warnings, there's this harassment. The Pharisees enter into this room where Jesus has been teaching and he says, hey, some of the Pharisees say, get out of here, go, go away. Herod wants to kill you. Right? And Jesus is going to respond to this.
But there's something I wanted to point out that I've already kind of demonstrated to you that I find it very interesting that the Pharisees are saying this about Herod, because when Jesus again comes face to face with Herod, Herod seems to not want to kill him. But, but Herod is very interested in seeing him and wanting to see him perform his miracles. So I am just skeptical of this little claim, this little warning that pops up that arises. But look at what Jesus says. Look at what Jesus says in response to this very dangerous warning that he's receiving in the middle of his teaching in verse 32, 33.
And he said to him, go and tell that fox. Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow. And the third day I reach my goal. Nevertheless, I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day. For it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem.
Couple things I wanted to point out to you. One is the go. The Pharisees come and say, hey, go, Herod wants to kill you. Jesus says, you go and you tell that fox. Now you can read this and think that the fox is Herod that he's referring to.
But I believe it is the hoax that the Pharisees are trying to get Jesus to move on to push him further down the road than he wants to go. See, Jesus is intentional in everything that he does. Jesus is maintaining a certain pace. Jesus is very resolved to accomplish all that he was set to accomplish, which means he's there to free people from the oppression of Satan and demons. He's there to heal the blind and the sick and those who are in need of him.
And he's there to set the captives free. That's what he's doing along the way as he's also making his way to the cross where he will do his greatest work providing salvation for all those who will believe and trust in him. So Jesus is resolved. He's resolved. And he demonstrates this to the people that are trying to push him.
What I believe is trying to push him down the road. He goes, no, today and tomorrow I will continue my ministry. And on the third day, I will arrive at my destination. The goal to which I have set my face to. Now, it's not going to come a moment before, it's not going to come later.
If you're a Lord of the Rings fan like I am, everybody should be, because it's a great series there. It begins with the Fellowship of the Rings. And the opening scene is Gandalf the Gray coming into Hobbiton. And Frodo is waiting for him. And Frodo sees Gandalf off.
He runs to the road and he leans over and he says, you're late. And Gandalf takes a puff of his pipe and he says, late? A wizard is never late. A wizard arrives precisely when he means to. And I think that is a fitting scene because when we talk about the timely manner of how Jesus accomplishes what he's doing, that he is accomplishing everything perfectly at the perfect time, as we will see in a timely manner at the end of this passage, Jesus says, jerusalem, I'm not going to come to you too soon.
I'm not going to come to you too late. I'm going to come to you precisely when I mean to. The pieces are now in motion. Jesus face has turned to Jerusalem, and he will not enter it into the last time until they are ready to lay down their palms and sing Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
That's what he's going to say, and that's what we'll celebrate in just a few weeks at the end of this journey and Palm Sunday. But Jesus demonstrates right here that he's resolved. I'm going to do what I need to do. Regardless of what warnings come my way, Jesus has been threatened with death, and yet he's going to his death. But he won't die by the hands right now.
He will die precisely when the Lord wills it for the sins of the people to receive their salvation. What does this mean for us along our Lenten journey? That you too, must be resolved if you're going to stride step by step with Jesus along this journey. As we continue these next few weeks, as we continue down this Lenten journey, you need to be resolved. There might be warnings that pop up.
There might be hazards along the way. There might be things that try to distract you and deter you off the road. And Jesus is showing you that, that, hey, commit to the journey. Commit to my pace. Take up your cross and follow me.
Following me in the exact same way that I lead you. Staying steady. Stay in pace with me. When I was growing up, I played football when I was in Alaska, and then I left Alaska. Then in Indiana, basketball was king, so I had to transition.
But when I played football, I was a big boy, as I've always talked about. And so in fourth grade, I played on the fifth and sixth grade football team. And when I was in sixth grade, I played on the seventh and eighth grade football team because I was just. I weighed enough. And one of the things that I hated was practice every day because we ran so much.
And being a big boy, I had this asthma growing up that I wheezed every time I ran. And running was just so painful for me. But here's the thing that I don't know where it came from, but I would never stop the moment I started trotting while the rest of the team was running, I was always the last one in. I always just trotted from start to finish. And one day, my coach said this to me.
He got everybody to stop. They were all having our hands on top of our heads, and we were just sucking wind. And I come last. And what happens when you come last is the next lap is about to start. So you just keep going, right?
You don't get that break that all the skinny guys used to get when they ran sprints. I despised him for that. But I got one of the greatest compliments and something that just fueled me in that moment when my coach told everybody in the whole team, he goes, look at Bruce. And I'm like, oh, man, I'm jiggling, I'm running, I'm crossing the line. I'm like, I'm breathing, I'm wheezing.
And he's like, look at Bruce. The moment Bruce starts trotting, he never stops trotting until he crosses that line and then he's ready to go again. And you guys, you're so quick and you're fast. And yeah, you might be way faster, but you're all ready to give up. Bruce is slow and steady and he never stops.
And that's something as maybe one day I'll continue how that plays out in my life. But that's something that Jesus is also teaching us here, is that you got to be resolved. No matter the pace, you gotta keep going. You put one foot in front of the other, you keep going. If you're a trotter, keep trotting.
Don't stop. If you're a walker, continue to walk. Don't stop, don't sit down. Move forward for this season because Jesus says, the goal is right up front. We're going to get there.
And it can be slow and steady and a long road, but pace yourselves, right. When I ran cross country in high school, for whatever dumb reason I decided to do that, I learned how to pace myself. I wasn't the fastest guy. I didn't worry about being fast, but I was a very consistent pace. I never was too fast, too slow.
I just was Bruce fast, and I stayed that course, and it helped me get through these very, very long courses. 3.1 miles. That's a lot of time, a lot of distance. But again, be resolved. As we walk with Jesus to the cross, we must be resolved and maintain his pace and maintain.
And don't let warnings distract us or cause us to slow our pace or quicken our step, but go precisely at the pace he means for you too. But also notice this. Not only is he resolved, but he's also urgent. So it's not that he's just strolling down in the journey. He's intentional with every pace that he keeps, because he's urgent.
He says in that other verse, right below it, there at the very end in verse 33, says, Nevertheless, I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day, for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem. So the first phase, he says, you tell that fox that I will go. I will do this the first and second day, and on the third day, I'll reach my goal. And then he says, and I must go the next day, today, tomorrow, and the next day so that I can arrive in Jerusalem. There's an urgency to him.
Not only is he resolved to get to the goal, he he's also urgent Knowing that he can't be distracted by some other ministry, some other opportunity or appointment, that he is focused on the goal, that he can't veer off and take another path. There's only one path for him, and it's an urgent path that as today and tomorrow happens, I'm going to continue my ministry to go into Jerusalem. I can't come short of Jerusalem. I can't. I need to arrive in Jerusalem.
I can't go past Jerusalem. I need to be in Jerusalem. With your Lenten journey, as you pace alongside, heading to the cross of Christ, alongside of Christ, you maintain his pace, but you also stop where he stops. Because that is the perfect time. We're all going to Jerusalem.
We're all dying to ourselves to live, to the Spirit, to be resurrected. You don't want to fall short and you don't want to go too long. You want to precisely end with resurrection. And that's what Jesus says. I'm not going to die outside of Jerusalem, but I'll die inside Jerusalem.
It will happen as the Father wills it. Not by the will of Herod, not by the Pharisees, but by the Father's will. Are you entrusting yourself during these next few weeks as we journey alongside Christ? Are you entrusting yourself to the Lord? Are you entrusting yourself that Lord?
I want you to continue to work in me. I want you to help me die to self and to live towards you. I want you to bring me to Resurrection Sunday.
Or are you looking at other things? Well, I don't have time to do this right now. I got this going on in my life, so I'm gonna have to lead this journey and take on a different journey because this popped up in my life. Whatever might pop up as a hazard or a warning in your life, I guarantee if you would just commit to Jesus for these next few weeks, he will take care of those things as well. See, oftentimes we react when something in our world comes crashing down and we take our minds off Christ and we try to, in our flesh, handle it.
The whole point of the Lenten journey is to say, I want to get rid of my flesh so I don't have the ability to handle it, so that I can live to the Spirit. And empowered by the Holy Spirit, I can now begin, live life and handle life as it comes at me.
That's what happens in this Lenten journey, the one that we all hopefully as a family are walking together alongside with Jesus. Then we come to Luke 13:34. Jesus gives us a Glimpse into his captain's log. You know, the captain log. You know what I'm talking about?
Star Trek captain's log, five. Whatever you know. And it's the captain's diary. Listen to the captain's diary here. Jesus himself, he says, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her.
How often I want you to gather your children together just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. And you would not have it. Here we get a glimpse into the motivation for why Jesus is so resolved. Why Jesus has this great urgency to his stride as he goes to die. What would ever motivate anybody to die for others but this?
To save some, to save a few, to save most, to save all. He goes to die because it's the only way. And he gives us a glimpse of the compassion that God has towards sinful man. That God loved the world, that he gave his one and only son, that whoever would believe should not perish but have eternal life. Or Jesus can say it this way.
How I often long to gather the chicks under my wings like a hen. Now it's interesting that Jesus refers to himself as a hen and he's already referred to the Pharisees and Herod or Herod as a fox. He's comparing the fox and the hen here and how he longs to gather them under his protection, under his wings, out from the oppression of the leaders that seek to lead them astray. But the sad reality is they would not have it. There are some that are enemies of the cross.
There are some that will not run to Christ, and that is not of our interest. Our interest is Christ and him alone. But we too need to walk motivated in our journey, not for others, but for Christ to find ourselves under his wing. That's the motivation for you to continue to be resolved and urgent in your Lenten journey, is you're motivated by the compassion of Jesus that you want for yourself. You want to find yourself under the security of his wing because he longs to do that.
He wants to do that, and we need to find ourselves there. And then we come to verse 35, the final approach. He says, behold, your house is left to you desolate. And I say to you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. It's all in a matter of time.
That's exactly what he's saying. I'm not going to step foot in Jerusalem anytime soon. The Pharisees aren't going to push me towards that end faster than I want to go, I want to go. And I'll arrive precisely when the people are ready. And I will ascend into Jerusalem riding on a donkey.
And the people will wave their palm branches, of which we are going to do on Palm Sunday to remember this moment. And we're going to sing Hosanna and we are going to do what these people did. And he says, and that's exactly what happens, isn't it? When he goes in his final journey to enter in Jerusalem as a king riding on a donkey to go to that cross. This is when he arrives.
Not a moment too soon, not a moment too late, but precisely when he means to. That's when he will go to Jerusalem.
And so, just as Jesus managed the warnings along his journey by the power of the Holy Spirit, so too are we empowered by that same spirit. We will face our check engine lights, warnings of danger and temptation and fear. These may come from external voices calling us away from the journey or internal doubts about our own own path. But Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him, not in fear, but in faith. Not retreating, but pressing on.
For it is only in following him that we find true, abundant and eternal life. Resurrection. In the end, don't give in to the challenges that you may be facing. Push through them. Following Christ.
There is more to be experienced, more faith to be required, and more living to the Holy Spirit. Let us journey on together with Jesus as our guide as we go to die, only to find that we truly live. Let's pray.
Jesus, we thank you that you lead us and you lead us perfectly. We thank you for your examples of being resolved and urgent, of being timely and of being compassionate. We pray that we would make these our strides and our pace along this Lenten journey as we take up our cross and follow after you as you head to your cross, may it be in the forefront of our minds and on the edge of our tongue. Whatever we have committed our lives to do during these next few weeks, may we persevere in them. May you fill us with the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that you were empowered with along your journey.
May we too find its power to not satisfy the desires of the flesh, but to live according to the Spirit. May we all die to ourselves so that we might gain you. We ask all this in your precious name, Jesus. We pray. Amen.