Today’s Gospel begins with a warning from some Pharisees for Jesus about Herod’s plan to kill him, but it becomes a reflection on the nature of Jesus’ life and mission (which reach their ultimate goal in his death) and then on the tragic role played by Jerusalem in the life of Jesus and other prophets. The passage invites us today to reflect on the meaning of Jesus’ life and death and on the role we play in the continuing mission of Jesus. This Gospel highlights the nature of the Kingdom of God which is direct contrast to the Kingdom that Jesus is living in, and as it happens, the kingdoms that we are currently witnessing, experiencing, and being impacted by. 

It is difficult to evaluate the motives of the Pharisees in the story. As in all the Gospels, the Pharisees in Luke are largely antagonistic to Jesus and Jesus to them. There are hints, however, that some pharisees are more sympathetic towards Jesus, and this is warning to us that not all groups of people can be described as thinking exactly alike. People are complex. So, we can’t assume that the Pharisees motives were negative, or that all republicans support the current administration. 

But whatever the purposes of the Pharisees and Herod, Jesus uses the threat to make it clear that his upcoming death is part of his mission. Jesus is going to die, but it will have nothing to do with the threat of Herod. Rather, his death is the completion of his present ministry. He characterizes this ministry as “casting out demons and performing cures”.  Both activities are important: 

  • Casting out demons is part of Jesus’ battle against the devil and therefore a part of his establishment of the kingdom of God.
  • Performing cures is also a part of the fundamental character of Jesus’ mission to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, also a statement about the establishment of God’s kingdom.

To emphasise that Herod has no control over him, Jesus adds that he will be doing these things “today and tomorrow” and that on the third day he will finish his work, meaning that Jesus’ death is in continuity with the rest of his ministry: Today, tomorrow, and the third day, go together. Jesus’ death is not separate from his ministry while he was alive: They are all about establishing the kingdom of God. Holding together Jesus’ life and death helps us to make better sense of both and helps us to make sense too of our own life journey, to be able to see that our lives and deaths go together and are necessary. 

Jesus has been journeying to Jerusalem since Luke 9 which tells us that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, a journey that lasts all the way through 19:28 which is often referred to as Luke’s Journey Narrative. Jesus’ mention of his death there leads him to reflect on the tragedy that Jerusalem had been in Israel’s past and will be in Jesus’ future, even though its role is a necessary one. 

  • He first indicts Jerusalem as the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.
  • Jesus characterizes himself as a mother hen, gathering her chicks together under her wings. He longs to care for Jerusalem, even as they reject him. He longs to gather them into God’s sheltering love
  • He sadly states “your house is left to you desolate” which is probably a reference to the eventual destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70
  • Jesus ends with a recognition that Jerusalem will, at least for a moment, recognize him (He is referring here to his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.).

Throughout Lent we are preparing ourselves to embrace the cross of Jesus. It is a hard truth that we can’t skip the cross to get to Easter. Our journey is modelled for us by Jesus himself whose life and death were integral to his ministry. We see this is our own lives where we can’t escape the cross: changing circumstances, personal losses, health issues, concern about our children, anxiety about world issues, and ultimately the losses of aging and eventually our own death.  

Jesus has set his face resolutely towards Jerusalem which he sees as his destiny. As his followers, we are called to do the same: to embrace the hard things in our lives: the losses, the fears, the deaths and allow ourselves to be held through these experiences by the sheltering love of God.  

Can we make sense of our lives as part of the establishment of God’s kingdom in our world? or are we frightened from our mission by the threats of earthly rulers? If Jesus were to speak prophetically to us, what would his message be?  

Jesus was not about an earthly kingdom and, with all that is going on in the world, it is important for us to remember that. We must do what we can to build a better world, a world that is just and equitable. The Kingdom of God begins here and now through our actions, our attitudes and our behaviors. Amen.

 

 

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