Ruth and Jonah (Midweek Lenten Worship, Part 3)

[Here, you'll find the video of the live stream of tonight's Midweek Lenten devotional worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, and the text of the message shared.]



Jonah 1:1-17

The first thing to be said about the Old Testament book of Jonah is that it’s not a fish story. Only three of its 42 verses deal with the great fish we immediately think of when we think of Jonah. The fish is only one of His creatures that God sends to rescue Jonah throughout the four short chapters of this book. 

It should be said though, that we may be tempted to wonder why God even bothers with rescuing Jonah. He’s rebellious, selfish, even hateful. 

But then, when others observe us, people who are, by baptism and belief in Jesus, simultaneously saints and sinners, the same question may arise: Why is it that God bothers with people who can, at times, be so fervent in confessing their faith and also be so rebellious, selfish, and hateful?

As we began this series two Wednesdays ago, we said that the Old Testament books of Ruth and Jonah compel us to ask some big questions. And we’ve begun to answer them. 

In Ruth, we saw that God’s care for His own people–represented by Naomi, Elimelech, and their two sons–didn’t stop at the border between Israel and Moab, where they went as hungry refugees; God, Yahweh, was still their God and with them outside the promised land. 

We've learned that God was equally concerned about people outside His Old Testament covenant. Through His Word, shared by Naomi and her family, Ruth, a Moabite foreigner, came to believe in God, even becoming the great-grandmother of David, Israel’s second king and the ancestor of the family into which Jesus, the Savior of the world was to be born. 

In turning tonight to Jonah, we see our questions more fully answered by God’s Word. The God we know in Jesus isn’t confined to particular places. He’s got the whole world, actually the whole universe, in His hands.

Jonah lived more than two hundred years after the time of Ruth. By his time, Israel had torn into two: a kingdom to the south, often called Judah, with worship centered in Jerusalem, and a kingdom to the north, called Israel, whose worship life would eventually settle in Samaria. 

Both kingdoms rebelled against God. But Israel, the northern kingdom, was the most notorious in its idolatries and mixing of other religions with the worship of Yahweh. Nonetheless, the north produced great people of God, including the prophet, Elijah. The ancient rabbis believed that Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath who God raised from the dead through Elijah. That may or may not be true, but we do know that Jonah was one of the prophets at the king’s court in 2 Kings.

Jonah is the fifth of the twelve minor prophets whose books are bundled together in the Old Testament. Unlike the books of the other prophets, which are mainly composed of the oracles God gave them to speak, the book of Jonah is a historic narrative that tells us about what happened when God commissioned Jonah to speak God’s Word to the Ninevites, when Jonah refused to do so, when God again called Jonah to go to Nineveh, and when Jonah finally delivered God’s Word to the Ninevites. 

But what is a prophet? Above all, God called prophets to deliver God’s call to people to turn to God in repentance and faith. That's important to keep it in mind.

Now, to our text for tonight, Jonah 1:1-17. It begins, as we see in other prophets’ stories, with the Word of God coming to Jonah. He’s to go to Nineveh to preach against the Ninevites and their wickedness which, God says, “has come up before Me.” (Jonah 1:2) 

Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, a nation that had treated God’s people harshly. The archeological remains of Nineveh exist today not far from the Iraqi city of Mosul, about 250 miles from Baghdad. 

There would have been great dangers for Jonah in going into enemy territory. But that, as we’ll see, isn’t why Jonah didn’t want to preach to the Ninevites. He was concerned that the Ninevites might repent, trust in God, and be welcomed into relationship with God. But Jonah hated the Ninevites and didn’t want them to walk with God.

So, instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah books passage on a ship in the Mediterranean to someplace called Tarshish. Jonah thinks that he can “flee from the Lord.” (Jonah 1:3) In his anger with God, Jonah seems to have momentarily forgotten that the presence of the Creator of the universe can’t confined to his homeland. King David, who lived several centuries earlier knew better than that. “If I go up to the heavens, you are there;  if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me…” David writes in Psalm 139:8-10. God is with us even when we don’t want Him to be!

As you know, a huge storm erupts. Each of the sailors and passengers prays to their own gods and toss cargo overboard to lighten the weight of the ship. But nothing stops the storm or settles the ship. The other passengers cast lots to determine who’s at fault for this life-threatening storm. The lot falls to Jonah. Although running from God, Jonah, a saint by God’s grace and a sinner by birth, confesses his faith to Gentiles. Now, this is ironic. In confessing his faith in God to Gentiles on that ship, Jonah is doing the very thing God wanted to send him to Nineveh to do. (Another case of, “Either God gets His way or God gets His way.) Jonah tells his shipmates: “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” (Jonah 1:9) He explains that he has displeased God by running from the mission God has given to him and that to save themselves, the passengers and crew must throw him into the sea. 

Not wanting to be responsible for Jonah’s death, the Gentile crew try to row toward land, but to no avail. Then they do what Jonah won’t get around to doing until chapter 2: They pray to Yahweh, the God we know in Jesus, the great I AM! Jonah is evangelizing Gentiles despite himself! 

Finally, Jonah is thrown overboard and a dead calm descends on the sea. Then we’re told, “At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord [that is, in the original Hebrew, Yahweh] and made vows to him.” (Jonah 1:16) 

This is not the last time that Jonah, perhaps the original Lutheran–a reluctant evangelist–is used to convince others to trust in God even as he, listening to his sinful nature, refuses to trust in God himself. Jonah is like you and me, maybe, and definitely like the apostle Paul who confessed that his sinful nature often got in the way of his faith in God: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (Romans 7:15)

Thoughts like these may have been going through Jonah’s mind as he floundered in the sea. But, God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6) 

God was faithful to Jonah even when Jonah was faithless to God. He sent a great fish to swallow Jonah and save him from death. 

The grace of God which He extends to us now in Jesus Christ isn’t a license for us to commit sin, of course. 

But God’s grace, His charitable love for sinners, even sinners who believe in Him, is tough and resilient. God is unwilling to quickly give up on anyone. 

That’s why eight-hundred years after Jonah, God would take on human flesh in Jesus Christ to die on a cross for our sins and rise from the dead to offer life with God to all who repent and believe in Him. 

God doesn’t give up on Ninevites, Jonahs, or us…or that neighbor somewhere in your life or in your world you don’t like, the way Jonah didn’t like the Ninevites. 

In Jesus Christ, we know that God never tires of calling out to us as Jesus did at the beginning of his earthly ministry: “The time has come…The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) 

More about the reluctant Jonah and the good news God has for us all next week.

Repentance, Not Judgment

[Here, you'll find the live stream video of today's 11:00 AM worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, and the text of today's message.]



Luke 13:1-9

On a social media site, a Christian recently publicly refused to pray for the Ukrainian people. He said that the Russian invasion of their country proved they were under God’s judgment.

This man seems to have a faulty theology of glory, rather than the Bible’s theology of the cross. The theology of glory declares that if you’re a believer in the God revealed in Jesus Christ, nothing bad will happen to you. That, of course, is untrue. Throughout history, believers in the God first revealed to ancient Israel and now revealed to all the world in Jesus, have suffered calamities, tragedy, and death, both natural and manmade. Jesus Himself, God the Son, suffered brutality and death on a cross and told all of us who follow Him that we will, at the least, suffer the indignity of death ourselves, will suffer like the rest of humanity, must daily die to our old selves so that our new selves can rise, and may even be persecuted for our faith before we are finally raised to live eternally with God.

Scripture says that there are times when God chastens and condemns His people and brings calamity, even death, to them for their sin. Ancient Israel became so rebellious toward God in the wilderness that He sent poisonous serpents to bite them. Many died. It was only when God ordered Moses to melt down bronze, fashion it into the form of a serpent, put it on a pole and raise it, and make the people look at it in repentance to acknowledge their sin and place their faith in God alone, that the suffering survivors recovered.

In the New Testament book of Acts, a husband and wife, Ananias and Sapphira, under no obligation to give the proceeds from the sale of their home to the Church, told everyone that’s what they had done. They wanted bragging rights. But when it became known that they’d actually held back some of the money they claimed they had given, God took their lives. It’s a chilling incident.

Judgment can come from God in this life. But we need to be careful in saying that when people get into trouble, they must be under God’s judgment. In fact, if we even think it, I suspect it’s best to repent for playing God. Only God will judge people’s worthiness for eternal salvation. We can and we must, as God’s people, share both His Law and His Gospel with others. But judging people’s eternal destiny is God’s job, not ours.

As our Gospel lesson for today, Luke 13:1-9, begins, some men tell Jesus about a recent event in Jerusalem: A group of Galileans had just been slaughtered in the temple by soldiers sent by Pilate, the Roman governor. This likely took place during the Passover, because that was the only time that laypeople, rather than priests, were allowed to participate in the sacrifices offered in the temple courts.

Jesus asks the men, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:2-3)

And then, citing another recent event, Jesus asks the crowd what they think of “those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:4-5)

Just before the people in the crowd remind Jesus of Pilate’s murder of the Galileans, Jesus has been talking about how important it is for us to accurately interpret the times in which we live. You see, at the moment Jesus was born at Bethlehem, the fallen creation in which you and I live entered the “end times.” When we rightly understand that this, we know that the life of this universe, not to mention our own individual lives, could have ended and still could end at any second. That means that the standard operating procedures of our inborn sinful human natures will not do. Judging others as worthy of God’s condemnation and ourselves as being innocents with a right to God’s blessings, good fortune, and ease will not do.

Jesus says that when we see others die violently or suddenly, we dare not conclude that God punished them or that they were worse sinners than we are.

God’s Word tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) The whole human race is composed of sinners. That includes you and me. There is no escaping that word all. Since you and I are all sinners and since no sin is worse or better than any other sin, Jesus says we dare not conclude that the person who dies from cancer or COVID, or the mother and child killed by a Russian bomb, or the young Russian conscript forced to be involved in “special military operations,” or the depraved despot who is unleashing war on Ukraine even as we speak, is worse than we are. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Instead, Jesus says, when we see the tragedies, travesties, and deaths of our fallen world, our first thought should be not to judge others’ salvation, but to repent. Unless we repent, Jesus says, we will perish. To perish, in the Greek language in which Luke wrote his gospel, means not just to die, but to be utterly atomized, but still to exist, crushed by the eternal suffering and torment that comes to those who put their faith in their own goodness and righteousness rather than in the goodness and righteousness of God.

To repent for our sin is not just being sorry for our sin, it’s also to  “trust in the one who brings [us] forgiveness and release [from the death sentence we deserve for our sin.]”

It’s right for us to fear God and not just respect Him or hold Him in awe, because God has every right to hold us accountable and judge us for our sin.

But in Jesus Christ, we know that, as we turn to Him and turn away from our sin, we can trust in God not to judge us according to our sin, but solely and completely according to the righteousness He gives to all who believe in Jesus.

Jesus, the Son of God, is the Lord and King sent by God the Father, “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free…” (Luke 4:18) Jesus covers the repentant in grace, forgiveness, and life with God! It’s the same grace, forgiveness, and life with God He commissions us to share with all the other sinners of the world.

At the end of today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells a parable.

A man, clearly representing God the Father, owned a vineyard. As was common in the first century in that part of the world, the vineyard owner planted a fig tree among the grape arbors. But, after three years, the fig tree hadn’t produced any fruit. The owner of the vineyard is angry with the unproductive tree. So, he tells the vinedresser to cut it down. But the vinedresser, representing God the Son, Jesus, begs the owner of the vineyard, “Sir, leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.” (Luke 13:8-9)

In the parable, Jesus, the One Who offered His life on the cross to save us all from sin and death, asks the Father for more time for “fertilizer,” His life-giving Gospel Word, to be poured onto the human race. Christ begs that the Father will give His Church time to spread His good news, sharing His call to repentant faith.

To the first-century churches of Asia Minor, anxious for Jesus to return and usher in His eternal kingdom in its fullness, the apostle Peter said, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

Repentance and saving faith in Jesus are gifts God gives through His crucified and risen Son. May God help us spend our days not in judging others, but living in this repentant faith and in sharing the good news of Jesus, by which He saves the perishing and gives the repentant eternal life with God. Amen

Ruth and Jonah (Midweek Lenten Worship, Part 2)

[Here's video from the live stream of this evening's midweek Lenten worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Also, you'll find the text of tonight's message.]

Ruth 3-4

In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus creates a word picture of the final judgment of humanity. In this parabolic rendering, the goats are those condemned to eternal separation from God. The sheep are those invited to claim their inheritance in God’s Kingdom.

Jesus commends the sheep for all the wonderful things they’ve done. But the sheep spend three verses saying, “We don’t remember doing any of that stuff!” Had the sheep in Jesus’ account of the judgment thought their good works had something to do with their eternal salvation, they wouldn’t say that. They would have been keeping score. In essence though, they ask Jesus,“Good works? What good works?”

Good works are not the ticket to life with God. Jesus says, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:29) But something happens in the lives of those who believe in God. When we receive the gift of faith in the God now revealed to everyone in Jesus, faith being a gift that comes to us not by our works but by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God, we become, in a new way, “God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10) Even our good works are things God has set up and we just walk in them.

All of which brings us to our Bible lesson for tonight, Ruth 3-4. We ended the message last week with two widows: Ruth and Naomi. Ruth is a Moabite who insists on going with her mother-in-law, Naomi, to Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem, in Israel. Ruth does this both out of devotion to the God of Israel in Whom she has come to believe and to care for her mother-in-law.

In chapter two of Ruth, which we’re skipping tonight, Ruth finds work helping with the barley harvest on the farm of a man named Boaz. Boaz is  a distant relative of Naomi’s late husband, Elimelech. Boaz notices Ruth is a hard-worker and knowing that she’s devoted to God and devoted to Naomi, her mother-in-law, takes care to ensure that Ruth has food she can share with Naomi and that she isn’t harmed while working for him. (More on that in a moment.)

The harvesting of barley involved taking the grain to a threshing floor. A threshing floor sat on top of a hill, composed of an area about thirty-feet wide, the floor made up of soil ground down flat. West winds, the prevailing winds, were strong during the day. But at sunset, the winds, still going, would die down enough to allow for the threshing to begin. The first step was to lead animal-drawn wagons over the grain set on the threshing floor. This would burst the grain open and allow for the second step. In this step, men used shovels to scoop up grain and toss it in the air. The unwanted chaff was blown away, while the usable grain remained. This work went on late into the night. It involved only men, the women being sent away for their safety. And there was a reason for that. Threshing floors were notorious settings of men who took advantage of women. When the crop has been picked, Ruth tells Naomi how well she’s been treated. Naomi is delighted because she knows and respects the older Boaz, an honorable man.

That brings us to chapter three. “My daughter,” Naomi tells her daughter-in-law, Ruth, “I must find a home for you, where you will be well provided for.” (Ruth 3:1)

Under God’s Law, Ruth was under no obligation to play the matchmaker for Ruth or to concern herself with Ruth’s future. No more than Ruth was obligated under God’s Law to commit herself to following the God of Israel, Yahweh, or caring for Naomi. But when God has gifted you with faith and, by grace, made you one of his saints, the question is no longer, “What do I have to do to please God?” but “What do I get to do as I interact each day with my neighbors, including the neighbors under my own roof?” According to Saint Paul, we can have the same mind in us that Christ Jesus had. Although He was God, Jesus didn’t exploit His deity, but became a servant for our good. When, through faith, we know we belong to God forever, we can make the business of others–their needs and interests–our business. I love what Martin Luther says: “God doesn’t need your good works. But your neighbor does.”

So, Naomi concocts a plan, drawing on two interrelated civil laws of the Jews.

One is that of the guardian-redeemer. When a man died without heirs, the nearest male relative could act as guardian-redeemer, ensuring that the deceased man’s birthright will remain with the extended family and tribe as originally assigned by God.

The other law was levirate marriage. This required that the next available bachelor son marry his brother’s widow and that the first son born to that union would become heir to the dead man’s property.

Naomi has Ruth bathe, perfume, and clothe herself like a woman no longer in mourning, like one, in fact, dressed as a bride. Ruth is to go silently to the threshing floor, waiting for Boaz to complete the harvesting and have his dinner and then, entering after all the men have gone to sleep, uncover his feet so that the by-now gentle breeze of the night would soon wake him. In the meantime, Ruth is to lie down at his feet, dressed as a bride.

If this all sounds a little racy, you should know that, in the original Hebrew, this chapter of Ruth is filled with innuendo and double-entendres. That’s because threshing floors, where men spent the night working, many got drunk, and all fell asleep to guard the crops from theft, were notorious for seduction and rape. But here, we’re to compare and contrast because Ruth and Boaz, despite all of the opportunities, behave honorably.

So Ruth follows Naomi’s instructions and when the startled Boaz awakens, she says, “I am your servant Ruth. Spread the corner of your garment over me [a phrase that means, ‘Be my husband.’], since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.” (Ruth 3:9) Ruth is asking Boaz both to be her husband (which is pretty forward in that culture) and to act as guardian-deemer to care for Naomi. Like Ruth and Naomi, Boaz didn’t have to do what he does next; but he too, is a person of faith, for whom the love of others isn’t odious.

Boaz goes to the village gate, where judicial and civil proceedings are hammered out by the men of the community, establishing that the next-in-line male who had first-dibs on redeeming Elimelech’s property isn’t interested in buying the property if it means he also has to marry Ruth. He’s, afraid that his property would go to Elimelech’s heir if he marries Ruth. You know how the story ends. Boaz marries Ruth and takes care of Naomi. Later, Ruth and Boaz have their first child, Obed, the father of Jesse, and the grandfather of David, Israel’s greatest king. It’s into David’s family line that eleven centuries later, according to the plan and the promise of God, the Savior of the world, Jesus is born in Bethlehem.

From the beginning, God has had a plan and He uses grief-stricken people, imperfect people, people just looking ahead to the next step, to do His work in the world.

There are three main things to mention about what we see in this remarkable book.

First, of course, is that Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz do way more than God or anyone would require of them. They act with what the Hebrew of the Old Testament calls hesed, a word is often translated as mercy or covenantal steadfastness. But it might better be rendered as merciful fidelity. God is the initiator of His merciful covenants with Israel and the Church and believers and that same attitude of merciful fidelity is played out in the lives of those who trust in Him. Faithful to God, living in His grace, Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz are set free to love God as they know God has loved them. They knew that by God’s grace through faith, they were part of God’s people and were free to live lives of unstinting love. “​​This is love,” the New Testament teaches, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

The second thing to mention is that God welcomes outsiders into His kingdom. He even uses outsiders to accomplish His purposes. Boaz was the son of Salmon and Rahab. Rahab, you’ll remember, was the Canaanite prostitute from Jericho, who, like Ruth, came to believe in the God of the ancient Israelites and helped them take that city when God gave them the land. Ruth was a descendant of Lot and his daughters who got their father drunk and tricked him into getting them pregnant. It was into the family descending from these two imperfect “foreigners” that the King of the Jews and the Savior of the world was born. If Jesus could be entrusted to such an unpromising lineage, He can also give us the gift of saving faith in God the Son, Jesus. No matter how far we have wandered from God. No matter how imperfect we are. No matter how much we may feel like an outsider.

The third thing to notice is that Boaz, the guardian-redeemer, foreshadows the guardian-redeemer God provides to all of us born with no claim on life with God. Like Boaz, who took Ruth as His bride, Jesus has come into this world to take His Church, the fellowship of repentant believers in Him, as His bride. Jesus died and rose to make us heirs of His grace. Infinitely and eternally more than Boaz, Jesus redeems us, not with money, but with His own sinless life offered on a cross. The faith and lives of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz, empowered to love by the God of love, help us see what kind of God we worship. But, if we want to know where their love came from, we look to Jesus, God the Son, the God Who empowers us to live, confident in His grace and forgiveness, and to love others as God loved us when He went to the cross. Amen

Shelter for the Vulnerable

[Below is the live stream video of today's modern worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, and the text of today's message.]



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