Walking the Talk (CaD Lk 13) – Wayfarer
“In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!”
Luke 13:33 (NIV)
I’m excited this Christmas to see the movie Freud’s Last Session with Anthony Hopkins. It’s an adaptation of an amazing little one-act play that imagines a conversation between a dying Sigmund Freud and a young Oxford professor named C.S. Lewis in 1939 London. Sadly, my friend Kevin and I were preparing to produce the show in conjunction with a college theatre department a few years ago until an individual got us cancelled. It remains a huge disappointment we never got to do the show.
There are several scripts and books that have been written over the years imagining conversations between different historical figures or imagined events around historical characters. I’ve always found the genre fascinating. When I was just a kid, the youth of our local church performed a play in which Pontius Pilate is placed on trial for Jesus’ murder. Members of the audience acted as the jury. If I remember correctly, my father was the Jury foreman. They acquitted Pilate.
Sadly, the death of Jesus was historically used as a reason for antisemitism. In our current wave of public and institutional antisemitism, I feel it important to acknowledge this sad historical fact. It is rooted in the Roman Emporer Constantine’s decision to make Christianity the official religion of Rome in the early fourth century. It was one of many bad things that happened after the organic Jesus Movement became the Holy Roman Empire. Constantine planted the seeds of antisemitism that would lead to centuries of Jewish persecution by the institutional church.
As I have studied the final days of Jesus for many years, I’ve concluded that the death of Jesus was the result of a perfect storm of antagonist power brokers representing the earthly kingdoms of politics, commerce, and religion. (A few years ago I presented my review of Jesus’ arrest and trials in a Good Friday message, FWIW)
A few chapters ago, Luke records that Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” Jesus has been traveling toward Jerusalem and is getting close to His destination. In today’s chapter, Luke foreshadows the three key players who will have Jesus crucified.
It begins in the first verse of today’s chapter as Jesus hears news of the Roman governor’s cruelty. Pontius Pilate represents the Empire, and in the political powder keg of Jerusalem, Pilate is not afraid to use force and violence to quell issues. There was a group of people from Galilee who ended up creating trouble. Their offense is not known, but Pilate had them slaughtered and their blood was mixed with their sacrifices. It was a highly blasphemous act of imperial power, intended to send a message to the many zealots who sought to defy Rome.
The next episode Luke records is the religious leaders who continue to antagonize and oppose Jesus. He heals a crippled woman on the Sabbath day of rest, and the religious leaders call Him out for it. Jesus turns the tables on them and Luke records that Jesus’ “opponents were humiliated.” As Jesus continues to humiliate and threaten the power and wealth of the religious establishment, those religious leaders with the most to lose are motivated to have Jesus eliminated.
But Luke also records that “the people were delighted with all the wonderful things He was doing.” Even some of the religious establishment became fans and followers, and Jesus was drawing crowds that numbered in the thousands. The crowds alone were a threat.
At the end of Today’s chapter, Luke mentions the third piece of the unholy trinity of power brokers who will have Jesus’ killed. Some Pharisees who were fans and followers of Jesus told Him to change course and avoid Jerusalem because Herod had already put a price on Jesus’ head. Herod was the regional ruler who had John the Baptist murdered because John had antagonized Herod and turned the crowds against him. Herod had heard the rumors that Jesus might just be John the Baptist risen from the dead. Herod had learned from his father, Herod the Great, that remaining in power means the swift and violent elimination of potential threats, like having all the baby boys two years or younger slaughtered because of rumors the messiah had been born in Bethlehem.
Jesus, however, remains “resolute” in His trek to Jerusalem. He has no illusions about what is going to happen. In fact, everything that He does and says in public only pushes the hands of these political, religious, and commercial power brokers. Jesus states that He must press on to Jerusalem “for surely no prophet can die outside of Jerusalem.”
Jesus knows He is going to Jerusalem to be killed.
In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about my post yesterday in which Jesus implores me and all of His followers to approach our earthly realities in context to the larger eternal realities of God’s Kingdom. Jesus is walking the talk.
How can I follow in His footsteps today?
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
Wayfarer 