Text: Luke 9:37-62
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Jesus “set His face to go to Jerusalem.”
This is a turning point in Luke’s narrative of the Gospel. Luke describes our Lord’s turn toward Jerusalem – and toward the cross – using the language of Isaiah (50:7): “I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.” And yet, in the previous verse, Isaiah speaks of the Messiah: “I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.” Jesus endures shame on the cross, but by the cross, He will be glorified.
Jesus knows what He must do. He knows what He will do. He knows what He has been prophesied to do. He knows what the Father’s will is for Him to do. And it is in this knowing and this willing – and in this loving – that our Lord will victoriously absolve the world from His cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
The disciples still don’t know what Jesus is doing, nor what they will do in Jerusalem. They are still bickering like children as to who is the greatest among them. Jesus places an actual child among them, saying, “He who is least among you all is the one who is great.” The work of casting out demons intensifies, and our Lord’s work of exorcism has even gone beyond the twelve. But Jesus warns them not to interfere with those who are “for you” – since they are “not against you.” Those who confess Him are also part of the church. They also bear His Word that the demons fear.
Unlike the disciples at that time, we disciples of today have not been blinded to the reality of the cross. To us it has been revealed by the Holy Spirit that Jesus is the Messiah foretold by Isaiah. He is the greatest who was born a child. He is the one who endures being struck and spat upon, being nailed to the cross. He is the one who proclaims the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins from His cross. And He also bids us to take up our own cross to follow Him as a matter of urgency. For even as Jesus has set His face like a flint toward the cross, so too do we who follow Him, dear friends. We face His cross that redeems us, receiving His absolution from the cross that forgives us, and believing in His sacrifice for our redemption. And in love for God and our neighbors, we take up crosses of our own. It is a matter of urgency. There is no time for other priorities to encroach upon our discipleship.
“Leave the dead to bury their own dead” and “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God,” says our Lord. So let us turn our faces to the crucified one, and let us resolve to follow Him with the faith of a child. Let us continue to make war against the demons, and let us, as the church, as the Bride of Christ, “proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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