Luke 13:31-35
Our Gospel lesson for this morning, Luke 13:31-35, begins strangely. A group of Pharisees approach Jesus and tell Him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.” (Luke 13:31)
Scholars have argued for centuries over what’s going on here.
First of all, they wonder, what are the Pharisees doing here? This scene takes place far to the north of Judea, in the region of Galilee and Peraea, a province over which the Herod referred to here, the son of Herod the Great, sat as the Roman-installed tetrach. But the Pharisees, a sect of Judaism, mostly lived and hung out in Jerusalem, many miles to the south.
Secondly, if Herod really was threatening to kill Jesus at this time, why would Pharisees, who largely opposed Jesus, warn Jesus to leave Herod’s dominions?
Thirdly, how did the Pharisees, who had no respect for Herod, a “king” imposed on the Jews by the Romans, become privy to Herod’s thoughts on Jesus?
We don’t know the answers to those questions. But we don’t need to know the answers. The big take-away from this incident is that the Pharisees, along with the Sadducees, the other major sect of Judaism in those days, not to mention the Romans and the Jewish people at large, may have been intrigued by Jesus, but He also made them feel vulnerable, threatened.
In Jesus, they saw a sinless rabbi who healed people of diseases, cast out demons, raised the dead, conferred forgiveness on the repentant, proclaimed good news to the poor, fed the hungry, said that God stood against the haughty and the arrogant, and stood down stormy seas.
Everything about Jesus suggested that He was the Messiah God promised in Old Testament times, as well as God in the flesh.
Jesus made everyone feel vulnerable because, despite His humility and servant’s heart, He was telling His fellow Jews that neither their genealogy or their religious good works commended them to eternal life with God. They needed to repent–just as the Gentiles they regarded as heathens needed to repent–and they needed to believe in Him. They needed to take up their crosses, that is, acknowledge their sin and their need of a Savior, and then follow Jesus. (Luke 9:23)
Imagine how the Pharisees felt about Jesus’ message, “...unless you repent, you…will all perish…” (Luke 13:3)
The Pharisees felt no need to repent. They were certain that they perfectly obeyed God’s Law and would be with God always.
Many of their countrymen thought it was enough to be related to Abraham, just like some people today figure they’re good with God because they sometimes go to church, make an offering, or happen to be citizens of a particular country.
If people started believing in Jesus, the Pharisees saw, it would undermine their authority over them. Herod may have felt the same way.
When bullies feel threatened, they threaten others.
The words of the Pharisees tell us that either they, or Herod, or both Herod and the Pharisees were threatened by Jesus. They were frightened that, as His miracles and exorcisms and authoritative teaching all seemed to indicate, Jesus really was God, the Lord of heaven and earth, that they might have to acknowledge this, and set out on a life of repentance and faith in Him.
But, like all of us, born wanting to be in charge of their own lives, Herod, the Pharisees, or both decided to push back. “If you hang around here, Jesus,” the Pharisees say, “you’re going to get killed.”
By this threat, they showed they didn’t understand Jesus at all. Jesus was born into this world to die. He came to offer up His sinless life, to receive the punishment we deserve for our sinful nature and the sins we commit that violate God’s holiness. Jesus came to bear the cross and so gain new life for us. “The Son of Man [Jesus says of Himself in Luke 9:22] must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Jesus knows that neither Herod or Pilate, neither the Pharisees or Sadducees or the Jewish nation or the Gentile nations of the world would kill Him. “No one takes [My life] from me,” Jesus says in John 10:18, “but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.”
And so, Jesus replies to the threat of death the Pharisees attribute to Herod: “Go tell that fox [Herod], ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!” (John 13:32-33)
Jerusalem, the name of which means city of peace, had often been a place of death for those who spoke God’s Word. Uriah, Zechariah, and many prophets during the reign of King Manasseh had all been killed there. Jesus is telling the Pharisees, “Herod can want to kill me up here in Galilee and Perea. But I will die when God decides, in the place that God decides, in Jerusalem. Until then, I will keep showing myself to be God the Son, the Savior of the world.”
From a place of human vulnerability, Herod or the Pharisees try to frighten Jesus away from the mission given to Jesus by God the Father: to be our crucified Savior. But Jesus could not be thrown off His pins.
He would endure every temptation, every instance of intimidation and distraction, every nail, every thorn, every crack of the whip, every insult, every bit of suffering, and death itself, for you.
For your salvation.
For your forgiveness.
For the restoration of your dignity as a redeemed child of God.
The preacher in the book of Hebrews exhorted his fellow Jewish Christians and us, living in a world that reminds us daily of our imperfections, our sin, and our vulnerability, to fix our eyes on Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him [the joy of an eternity with you and with all who daily turn from sin and turn in faith and trust in Him]...endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)
I can assure you, based on Jesus’ words to us today, that when He went to the cross, His eyes were fixed on you.
He was thinking of you.
He was dying out of His love for you.
Fix your eyes on Jesus. It’s through Him and only Him that the peace, presence, forgiveness, joy, and eternal life from God is yours.
Jesus’ words at the end of today’s lesson are no less about you and me and the whole vulnerable, fallen human race than they are about Jerusalem. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [World, World, we could say] 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, and you were not willing.” (Luke 13:34)
We are all vulnerable, friends. When we’re honest, we all know that’s true.
But we can take refuge in Jesus.
When we do that, we have a life with God that can never be taken from us.
Because Jesus never flinched in the face of this world’s threats, we can say with David, who anticipated Jesus’ lordship hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth “... my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior….” (2 Samuel 22:2-3)
Turn to Jesus and He will be the One Who overcomes all your vulnerability with His invincible love and grace. Amen
Scholars have argued for centuries over what’s going on here.
First of all, they wonder, what are the Pharisees doing here? This scene takes place far to the north of Judea, in the region of Galilee and Peraea, a province over which the Herod referred to here, the son of Herod the Great, sat as the Roman-installed tetrach. But the Pharisees, a sect of Judaism, mostly lived and hung out in Jerusalem, many miles to the south.
Secondly, if Herod really was threatening to kill Jesus at this time, why would Pharisees, who largely opposed Jesus, warn Jesus to leave Herod’s dominions?
Thirdly, how did the Pharisees, who had no respect for Herod, a “king” imposed on the Jews by the Romans, become privy to Herod’s thoughts on Jesus?
We don’t know the answers to those questions. But we don’t need to know the answers. The big take-away from this incident is that the Pharisees, along with the Sadducees, the other major sect of Judaism in those days, not to mention the Romans and the Jewish people at large, may have been intrigued by Jesus, but He also made them feel vulnerable, threatened.
In Jesus, they saw a sinless rabbi who healed people of diseases, cast out demons, raised the dead, conferred forgiveness on the repentant, proclaimed good news to the poor, fed the hungry, said that God stood against the haughty and the arrogant, and stood down stormy seas.
Everything about Jesus suggested that He was the Messiah God promised in Old Testament times, as well as God in the flesh.
Jesus made everyone feel vulnerable because, despite His humility and servant’s heart, He was telling His fellow Jews that neither their genealogy or their religious good works commended them to eternal life with God. They needed to repent–just as the Gentiles they regarded as heathens needed to repent–and they needed to believe in Him. They needed to take up their crosses, that is, acknowledge their sin and their need of a Savior, and then follow Jesus. (Luke 9:23)
Imagine how the Pharisees felt about Jesus’ message, “...unless you repent, you…will all perish…” (Luke 13:3)
The Pharisees felt no need to repent. They were certain that they perfectly obeyed God’s Law and would be with God always.
Many of their countrymen thought it was enough to be related to Abraham, just like some people today figure they’re good with God because they sometimes go to church, make an offering, or happen to be citizens of a particular country.
If people started believing in Jesus, the Pharisees saw, it would undermine their authority over them. Herod may have felt the same way.
When bullies feel threatened, they threaten others.
The words of the Pharisees tell us that either they, or Herod, or both Herod and the Pharisees were threatened by Jesus. They were frightened that, as His miracles and exorcisms and authoritative teaching all seemed to indicate, Jesus really was God, the Lord of heaven and earth, that they might have to acknowledge this, and set out on a life of repentance and faith in Him.
But, like all of us, born wanting to be in charge of their own lives, Herod, the Pharisees, or both decided to push back. “If you hang around here, Jesus,” the Pharisees say, “you’re going to get killed.”
By this threat, they showed they didn’t understand Jesus at all. Jesus was born into this world to die. He came to offer up His sinless life, to receive the punishment we deserve for our sinful nature and the sins we commit that violate God’s holiness. Jesus came to bear the cross and so gain new life for us. “The Son of Man [Jesus says of Himself in Luke 9:22] must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Jesus knows that neither Herod or Pilate, neither the Pharisees or Sadducees or the Jewish nation or the Gentile nations of the world would kill Him. “No one takes [My life] from me,” Jesus says in John 10:18, “but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.”
And so, Jesus replies to the threat of death the Pharisees attribute to Herod: “Go tell that fox [Herod], ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!” (John 13:32-33)
Jerusalem, the name of which means city of peace, had often been a place of death for those who spoke God’s Word. Uriah, Zechariah, and many prophets during the reign of King Manasseh had all been killed there. Jesus is telling the Pharisees, “Herod can want to kill me up here in Galilee and Perea. But I will die when God decides, in the place that God decides, in Jerusalem. Until then, I will keep showing myself to be God the Son, the Savior of the world.”
From a place of human vulnerability, Herod or the Pharisees try to frighten Jesus away from the mission given to Jesus by God the Father: to be our crucified Savior. But Jesus could not be thrown off His pins.
He would endure every temptation, every instance of intimidation and distraction, every nail, every thorn, every crack of the whip, every insult, every bit of suffering, and death itself, for you.
For your salvation.
For your forgiveness.
For the restoration of your dignity as a redeemed child of God.
The preacher in the book of Hebrews exhorted his fellow Jewish Christians and us, living in a world that reminds us daily of our imperfections, our sin, and our vulnerability, to fix our eyes on Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him [the joy of an eternity with you and with all who daily turn from sin and turn in faith and trust in Him]...endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)
I can assure you, based on Jesus’ words to us today, that when He went to the cross, His eyes were fixed on you.
He was thinking of you.
He was dying out of His love for you.
Fix your eyes on Jesus. It’s through Him and only Him that the peace, presence, forgiveness, joy, and eternal life from God is yours.
Jesus’ words at the end of today’s lesson are no less about you and me and the whole vulnerable, fallen human race than they are about Jerusalem. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [World, World, we could say] 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, and you were not willing.” (Luke 13:34)
We are all vulnerable, friends. When we’re honest, we all know that’s true.
But we can take refuge in Jesus.
When we do that, we have a life with God that can never be taken from us.
Because Jesus never flinched in the face of this world’s threats, we can say with David, who anticipated Jesus’ lordship hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth “... my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior….” (2 Samuel 22:2-3)
Turn to Jesus and He will be the One Who overcomes all your vulnerability with His invincible love and grace. Amen
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