Today we’re just about at the end of the Christmas season and we’re going to move on from our Christmas themes. We’re starting a new series in the gospel of Luke and we’ll mostly continue in Luke until Easter.
But before we start to look at our passage I want to explain why it’s so important that we read the Bible in general and why the gospels are especially important. There are probably all sorts of reasons people would give, but I would pick out three.
REASON 1: BY READING THE BIBLE WE MAKE ‘JESUS IS LORD’ A REALITY. Imagine you’re the director of a company. One day a customer calls you. He really needs to have an order delivered by the end of the week. You promise him that he’ll have it. You send a memo marked ‘urgent’ to the despatch manager to tell him to prioritize the order. The despatch manager reads it and fulfils the order. By reading your instruction and following it, he's treating you as boss. But If he ignores it, he isn’t. It’s the same with God and the Bible. In the Bible, God gives us instructions. It’s his main way of communicating with us. If we read the Bible and follow it then God is boss. If we ignore it, God isn’t boss.
REASON 2: BY READING THE BIBLE WE ENTER INTO GOD’S THOUGHTS. Imagine you want to become a doctor. You got three very good ‘A’ levels and now have a place to study medicine. At the start of your course, you don’t know much about medicine. But you go to lectures. You discuss cases with experienced doctors. You read textbooks. You’re exposed to medical thinking. You engage with it. You take it on. You start to think like a doctor. You do this for about five years. Finally, you become a doctor! Most of what has happened has been inside your head.
It’s similar for a Christian. A Christian is a follower of Jesus. He or she wants to be like Jesus. The Christian engages with godly thinking and takes it on. Like the medical student, the transformation for the Christian is mainly inside his or her head. Paul tells us that we are transformed by the renewal of our minds. Where does the Christian find this godly thinking to engage with? The main place is the Bible, of course!
REASON 3: IN THE GOSPELS ESPECIALLY WE SEE JESUS. I said a moment ago that a Christian is a follower of Jesus and that he or she wants to be like Jesus. But is that true? Do we want to become like Jesus? Is that one of our goals? There are at least two reasons it should be. First, God created humankind in his image. That was God’s original intention and there’s no reason to think it isn’t still God’s intention. Second, Paul wrote that GOD PREDESTINED US TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON. If we had any doubt that God intends us to be like Jesus, this verse makes it totally clear that he does.
God created us in his image and he wants us to be like Jesus. If this is God’s goal it must surely be our goal too. We should want to be like Jesus. How will that happen?
I once watched a documentary about Chinese artists who are brilliant at making copies of European artists. They weren’t trying to make fakes; they wanted to copy their art as a training exercise. In the documentary they travelled to Europe, sat next to the originals and painted.
If our goal is to be like Jesus then we need to be like those Chinese artists. They looked closely at the orginal; we need to look closely at Jesus. The gospels give us that opportunity. In the gospels, we can look directly at Jesus, the perfect person whose image God wishes to shine through in us.
That is why I think it’s so important that we spend some solid time each year in the gospels. Last year, we went through the whole of Mark. This year I thought we’d turn to Luke. Mark is the shortest gospel; Luke is the longest. I thought it would be too much to cover all of it so we’re going to look at about two-thirds of it, with a short break in the middle.
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I’m going to start at Luke 9 verse 51. That may seem like a strange place to start! Most people start a book at page 1. If you do start in the middle of a book you’d probably start at the beginning of a chapter. But it’s actually a logical place to start. Although chapter 9 verse 51 isn’t the start of a chapter, this verse marks a turning point in his gospel. It’s the point at which Jesus set off for Jerusalem. Over the following ten chapters Luke frequently refers to Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. For example, he writes that Jesus ‘went on his way … teaching and journeying towards Jerusalem’; that Jesus was ‘on the way to Jerusalem’; that Jesus says, ‘we are going up to Jerusalem,’ and so on. Bible scholars recognize that this is a distinct and significant part of Luke’s gospel. They call it ‘the travel narrative.’
None of the other gospels have a long section covering Jesus’ journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. I don’t think anyone really knows why Luke has this long section and none of the others gospel writers do. Luke also wrote Acts and in Acts he frequently refers to the Christian faith as ‘the way.’ Perhaps Luke is using this account of Jesus and his disciples on their journey down to Jerusalem as a metaphor for the Christian life. The Christian life is much more than isolated saving events such as a decision to follow Christ or baptism. The Christian life is a journey. So, today, we start with the disciples on their journey with Jesus to Jerusalem. I think we’ll find parallels between their journey and our own journeys of faith.
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Let’s now take a look at our passage. It’s a fairly short one.
In Luke 9:51 we read: “When the days drew near for him [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
Jesus decides to go to Jerusalem. In a sense, Jerusalem is his destination. But Luke first tells us that ‘the days drew near for him [that is, Jesus] to be taken up.’ For Jesus to be taken up where? Clearly, to be taken up to heaven. That’s the only place Jesus was taken up to. Although Jesus’ INITIAL destination is Jerusalem his ULTIMATE destination is heaven, having conquered death. Jerusalem is a step on the way.
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Jesus and his disciples then set off. The natural route from Galilee to Jerusalem passes through Samaria. As the group go on their way they head for a Samaritan village. Jesus sends some of his disciples on ahead to make preparations for him. Probably Jesus assumes that he and his disciples will be able stay the night there. Perhaps he also hopes to have some ministry there. However, when the village learns that Jesus is heading for Jerusalem, they don’t welcome them.
What happens next is revealing. But let’s first have a couple of cross-references. Can you look back to verses 18 and 19 in this chapter? Jesus asks his disciples, ‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’ They answer, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say, Elijah…’ Some people think Jesus is Elijah! It isn’t what Jesus’ disciples think, but the crowds’ suggestions no doubt make the disciples think about Elijah.
Let’s go on to verses 28-30. Jesus goes up a mountain with Peter, John and James and is transfigured. Two people appear with him: Moses and Elijah. The sight of Elijah no doubt causes the disciples to think about Elijah again.
That's the end of my cross-references. Let's return to Jesus and his disciples approaching the Samaritan village.
I suppose they've all walked some distance and they’re tired and hungry. They’re looking forward to checking in at a few Air BnBs, having a shower and a meal. But this Samaritan village doesn’t want them! What an insult! James and John are indignant. Jesus gave James and John the nickname ‘Sons of Thunder.’ Perhaps they had a rather short temper. They have the prophet Elijah in the backs of their minds. He didn’t take kindly to a group of youths insulting him. And wasn’t there a time when he called fire down from heaven on some soldiers? They ask Jesus if he’d like them to call fire down from heaven on the village.
Luke tells us that Jesus ‘turned and rebuked them.’ Jesus had no intention of doing anything to the Samaritan village. But James and John were another matter. Jesus ignored the Samaritan village but he didn’t ignore what James and John suggested.
I said earlier that God wants us to be conformed to the image of his son. I didn’t mention it, but Jesus told his disciples to ‘be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ This is not simply wishful thinking by Jesus. He's going to help it to happen. Jesus is heading down to Jerusalem but the journey takes up ten chapters of Luke.
The Christian life is much more than isolated saving events such as the cross and the resurrection. The Christian life is a journey. The journey provides the context for Jesus to teach his disciples what it means to be like him. In effect, the journey is Jesus’ school room. Jesus is the teacher and the disciples are his students. Jesus’ goal is to save people – and James and John want to destroy the village?!
James and John are definitely not displaying the heart of Christ. What happens? We read, “But he [that is, Jesus] turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village.”
James and John learned their lesson. They move on. This is the pattern of Christian life. God wants us to be in the image of his son. Jesus calls us to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect. We decide to follow Jesus and Jesus gets to work. Like those early disciples, we are on what Luke describes as ‘the way.’ On the way, Jesus will stretch us, challenge us and no doubt sometimes rebuke us as he works to transform us.
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We left the disciples going on to the next village. As they continue on their way, three people approach Jesus. Many commentators suggest that in this ‘travel narrative’ Luke doesn’t arrange his material chronologically; he puts material together in themes. So, perhaps these three people approached Jesus on separate occasions but Luke grouped them together. I don’t suppose it makes much difference.
The first would-be disciple tells Jesus, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus answers, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ A second would-be disciple approaches Jesus. He wants permission first to bury his father. Jesus tells him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ A third would-be disciple wants to follow Jesus but he first wants to say farewell to his family. Jesus tells him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’ We don’t know whether any of these three people ended up following Jesus or if Jesus’ demands put them off.
One commentator wrote: “Those encountered on his way to the cross … must be told the ultimate cost of enlisting in his entourage. To be a true disciple of Jesus means to share his destiny which, at this point, means martyrdom…”
In this passage we see Jesus’ commitment to the great plan of salvation. We see how he taught James and John some healthier thinking.
In these verses we see that Jesus wants his commitment to us to be reciprocated. He told one person who wanted to follow him that he or she wouldn’t have a home to go to at the end of the day. He told another person that he or she needed to put commitment to God’s mission before family commitments. That was his situation and it was the situation for his 12 disciples.
He couldn’t take the road he was taking with people who were not fully committed. His terms were all or nothing. One commentator wrote, ‘partial commitment equals no commitment.’
But that was 2000 years ago. Does Jesus ask us for this level of commitment today? We can’t answer that question from today’s passage. But five chapters further on in Luke, Jesus declares, ‘Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.’ So, the answer is that Jesus asks for this level of commitment from all of his disciples. He asks that we be willing to lay our lives down for him just as he laid his life down for us.
This talk of laying our lives down may sound a bit dismal. But let’s go back to the verse we started on. Luke tells us, ‘When THE DAYS DREW NEAR FOR HIM TO BE TAKEN UP, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem wasn’t Jesus’ final destination. Jesus’ destiny was to be taken up to heaven to sit at the right hand of God.
In this passage we’ve seen Jesus setting off on a journey with his disciples. He has the great long-term goal in mind, to offer his life as a ransom in Jerusalem. But that’s not the full salvation story. There’s another part of the salvation story, that God wants to conform us to the image of Christ. And so, the journey to Jerusalem takes ten chapters in Luke’s gospel. Along the way, Jesus is with his disciples every step, guiding them, teaching them, protecting them. He will show them absolute commitment and he asks absolute commitment of them. There will be suffering on this journey and Jesus’ followers have to be prepared to suffer with him. But the journey is mostly an extraordinary adventure and at the end, we, like Jesus, will be received by God into heaven. This is what Jesus called his disciples to and what he calls us to. It’s a great journey. But, as we’ve seen today, Jesus demands complete commitment.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 3rd January 2021
