Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Luke 18,31-43. Quinquagesima

Monday, February 24, 2020

Luke 18,31-43. Quinquagesima

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

Luke 18,31-43 1420

Quinquagesima 022

Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, and disciple of the Apostle John. Martyr 155

Serenus the Gardener, Martyr at Sirmium, Serbia 307

23. Februar 2020

1. O Jesus Christ, who loves the world and Your creation, open our eyes to see Your creation as You do, so that we, by Your help, may show love, mercy and justice to our neighbors. Amen. (VELKD Weekly Prayer for Quinquagesima Sunday 2020, § 1)

2. »Then having taken with Him the 12 Jesus said to them: „Behold we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything will be accomplished having been written by the Prophets concerning the Son of Man; for He will be delivered to the Gentiles and He will be mocked, insulted, spit upon, having Him flogged they will kill Him and He will rise for Himself on the 3. day.“ And they understood none of these things and this word was being hidden from them and they were not understanding what was said.«

3. Last week we heard that those who believe are those of the good soil to hear the gospel and receive it with joy. In today’s Gospel reading we hear 2 distinct pericopes: 1. Jesus foretells for the 3. time His death and resurrection, and 2. Jesus heals a blind man near Jericho.

4. It’s getting more serious now at Luke 18. On Wednesday we begin the season of Lent and begin to walk the path behind Jesus up to Jerusalem. He is near Jericho, 25.6 km/15.91 mi east north east of Jerusalem. His eyes are set on the holy city where He will fulfill His Messianic destiny. What awaits Jesus in Jerusalem in roughly 50 days? He will be delivered to the Gentiles to be mocked, insulted, spit upon, flogged, killed and raised up. This teaching was as popular as a lead balloon to the apostles. Luke tells us earlier in his gospel: »But His disciples did not understand the saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask Him about this saying« (Luke 9,45).

5. The suffering and death of their Messiah was very difficult to comprehend and accept, for the Jews had believed for generations that the Messiah would be an eschatological king/dynasty descended from David (Isaiah 9,7; Jeremiah 23,5). There were some different opinions how this would exactly play out. The Qumran community expected 2 anointed Messiahs: One a king and another a high priest. Others looked for a preexistent Messiah who would destroy the wicked (4. Ezra 13; Similitudes). These variations on the Messiah influence the apostles and disciples to different degrees, but no one looked for a Messiah who would be a suffering servant (Isaiah 42,1-4; 49,1-6; 50,4-7; 52,13-53,12). With all these various ideas and opinions about the Messiah, Jesus chose not to take that title up and instead refers to Himself as the Son of Man (Daniel 7,13-14), which, was a neutral messianic title without messianic baggage, Jesus could form and teach His disciples the true understanding of the Messiah.

6. Much like Jesus’s day, people in the 21. century often have conflicting expectations and understandings of what it means to be the Messiah. People still chaff at a focus on Jesus as the Suffering Servant Messiah found in the Gospel according to Luke. The temptation is to deflect from this understanding and focus on something else. Jesus is a nice person. He is a good man. He’s a teacher of morals and virtues. Such sentiments are safe compliments, but to only see Jesus this way is to miss the real Jesus, and to miss the real Jesus is to jeopardize one’s faith and salvation. Jesus is not always nice: at times in the Gospels He spoke harshly to His opponents and describes them in derogatory terms. Jesus is always good, but He never allowed others to remain complacent in their opinions or their sins. Many times His teachings challenged others, made them angry and expected more from them than they were willing to give. Jesus continues to exhort us to examine our hearts and repent of our sins. He challenges us with His teachings and wants us to leave our comfort zone so we walk the challenging path of discipleship – all the way with Him to the cross of Good Friday.

7. C. S. Lewis famously wrote about Jesus: „Is Jesus quite safe? Safe? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you“ (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). Mockery, suffering and death are not safe; they are serious, deadly business. As the Messiah, Jesus entered this earth to deal with sin and the curse of sin, that is, death. His opponents play to win. The Romans will execute a man to preserve their empire. The Sanhedrin will bear false witness against the man to save their temple. The Devil will lay waste to the man who defies him like an enraged dragon guarding its hoard of gold. To challenge such in order to save fallen humanity is bloody, deadly business, and Jesus entered the fray intent on victory over sin, death and hades. Will you follow Jesus into fire, into storm, into darkness, into death? (Parliament of Dreams 22:01) That is where Jesus is going in Luke 18, and He bids us to follow Him. Is it safe? Is it easy? A: no, it is not a safe, easy path but it is the way that ends at salvation.

8. We do not walk this path alone. Jesus walks before us, showing us the way, and He walks beside us, carrying us if need be, to the very end. We walk together as the Church with our eyes focused on Jesus, the Suffering Servant. We look to Jesus and embrace Him for grace and strength; faith sustains us in the hour our reason tells us that we cannot continue – that the whole of our lives is without meaning (The Deconstruction of Falling Stars 37:21). Jesus told the blind man outside of Jericho: »Regain your sight; your faith has saved you.« The man’s faith was in Jesus, and immediately he was following Jesus glorifying God. Jesus’ Passion began in the darkness of Good Friday and ends in the sunrise of Easter. Recall the Apostle Paul’s words: »Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the 3. day in accordance with the Scriptures. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive« (1. Corinthians 15,1-4.20-22).

9. Last week we heard that those who believe are those of the good soil who hear the gospel and receive it with joy. Today we hear about Jesus’ impending death and resurrection and that it saves us and redeems us back to God our Father. Next week we will hear how Jesus squared off against the Devil and was victorious against that tempter; Jesus’ victory here is a foretaste of the greater victory He will earn with His death and resurrection. Amen.

10. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, who went up to Jerusalem is; as we follow You upon this path the next 50 days, we see that You have accomplished all that the Prophets have written about the Son of Man, so that in seeing we believe and in believing we follow You all the way through the heavenly gates into eternal life. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Monday, February 24, 2020

Luke 18,31-43. Quinquagesima

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