In Jesus Holy Name March 11, 2022
Luke 13:34 Lent II Redeemer
“The Road Few Want to Travel”
The season of Lent has arrived along with day light savings time. The Church Calendar encourages Christians to focus on the reality that Jesus “gave up” His life so that we might have peace and harmony restored with our Creator. Lent is all about embracing the message and mission of the cross. Your choosing to give up something you value may or may not be part of your personal Lenten journey.
“Giving up” something for Lent has long meant, giving up rich goodies. Besides chocolate, red meat has always been near the top of that list. If you are old enough to remember those who only ate “fish on Friday,” you can understand the sudden “food from the Seas” bent of McDonald’s and Wendy’s and other fast-food chains. If people of faith are “giving up” something for Lent, it certainly should not include “giving up” dining out at a fast-food restaurant! Give them fast-food fish and shrimp instead!
Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, Episcopal priest and professor at Piedmont College, author of 11 books including “When God Is Silent” writes: "Jesus won’t be king of the jungle in this or any other story. What He will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. The mother hen has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her own body. If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first." Jesus came to be a suffering servant and live a life of self-sacrifice. This was Gods’ plan, Jesus died so that we might experience God’s forgiveness and eternal life.
Luke chapter 13 tells us that while Jesus was on the road to Jerusalem, several friendly Pharisees came to warn Him that Herod was planning to kill Him. Maybe the friendly Pharisees were men like Nicodemus & Joseph of Arimathea. They knew that Herod had executed another annoying prophet, John the Baptist. Now, Herod had another bothersome preacher on his hands.
As with John the Baptist, Jesus attracted excited crowds. Excited crowds signal trouble tyrannical rulers. Trouble could appear in the form of revolution. The friendly Pharisees urge Jesus to disappear. Run! Don’t go to Jerusalem.
When Jesus hears this warning, He surprises those Pharisees by both disregarding and embracing their message. Jesus dismisses the threat of Herod with a telling comment about Herod’s personality. Herod is nothing but a “sly fox,” Jesus quips, forever plotting but powerless against God’s mission in the world. Jesus has His own schedule, His own agenda, His own mission to fulfill, and the time-frame has already been divinely determined.
Tell Herod, in the language of our day, that Herod is insignificant and powerless. In the face of all the power of the world. Do your worst. Beat me up. Take my life. Jesus challenges death with the promise of life. "Tell that fox that I am going to do my job!" No prophet can die outside of Jerusalem. Jesus knew.(read Luke 9:30)
Jesus WILL give Himself up. He WILL travel to Jerusalem and meet head on the traumatic tradition of that city — “Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it” (v.34). Jesus will give up everything, His very life, in order to fulfill His eternal mission of salvation, restoring peace and harmony with our Creator.
I wish I could tell you that Jesus’ own death and resurrection changed everything-that once word got out about God bringing Him back to life, everyone saw the light and repented on the spot. They revised their priorities. They reformed their values. They resolved to live the way Jesus had taught them to live. I wish everyone believes He opened the door between heaven and earth. I wish I could tell you that God’s values are still cherished in our culture. But it is not reality.
A few years ago the Wall Street Journal in an editorial asked this question. “When was the last time you had a good conversation about sin?” The article then recounted the moral crises appearing daily on our televisions—bribes and payoffs in government, scandals in corporate life, divorce and the breakdown of the family, a culture addicted to just about anything you can name. And then the editorial said this:
“Sin isn’t something that many people including most churches have spent much time talking or worrying about through the years of the [cultural and sexual] revolutions. But we will say this for sin; it at least offered a frame of reference for personal behavior. When the frame was dismantled, guilt wasn’t the only thing that fell away; we also lost the guide wire of personal responsibility.”
…Without God’s values on our school walls, and in our homes, and honored by those who govern our land everyone will experience chaos. This happens when people substitute their values for God’s values. This is what the “Cancel culture” is all about. Without God’s values guiding human behavior a humanistic culture (without God’s values) tries to use “the threat of cancel” as a way of moderating and controlling human behavior. Cancel culture does not create a world of peace and harmony, nor does it protect your neighbor.
God’s values do. God’s values are expressed in the Ten Commandments. A value is a deeply help belief. When you value something you defend it. You guard it. If circumstances change your values do not. God’s values keep human beings grounded and in positive relationship with Him and our neighbor.
For this the second week in Lent, I want to encourage you to take time each day and review the Ten Commandments. There are 5 days this week so 2 commandments a day for personal reflection is your assignment. When we break God’s values, the Wall Street Journal was correct in calling broken commandments “sin”.
The Ten Commandments are not merely 10 rules but 10 words that summarize all of God’s truths that govern human life and behavior. Our reflections this week are meant to encourage our behavior to make God’s values our “core” values. These 10 words from God first chiseled in stone, then written down are about how peaceful relationships with God and our neighbor become reality.
Years ago, a country doctor, heading to a distant town came to a fork in the road. He asked a farmer who was working a nearby field, "Does it make any difference which way I go?" The farmer shot back: "Does it make any difference? Not to me it don't." But it will make a difference in the destination you want to reach.
Well, my friends, today there is a fork in the road. Your eternal destiny will be determined by which road you take at the “fork”. Follow God’s values or choose a different path. God’s values are precious to Him. God chiseled his values into stone and gave them the world. They have never changed and they never will. No revised editions. No add ons! No adapting to culture. They have stood the test of time. God also knows that we human beings have failed to keep them. He knows that we have failed to keep them perfectly in thought, word and deed.
Therefore it was necessary for our Creator to forgive us. In order for God to forgive and erase our broken commandments He provided a substitute. In the Old
Testament the substitute was a spotless lamb or goat whose blood was placed on the door frames of Jewish homes in Egypt. The angel of death passed over and they were saved. Jesus came as the “spotless lamb of God” on whom God then placed all our broken commandments. In God’s mercy He transferred the perfection and holiness of Jesus to all who have placed their faith in Jesus. (read Romans 3:21-25b,26c)
This is why Jesus went to Jerusalem. He knew arrest, torture and death awaited Him. Did Jesus die? The answer is Yes. I can tell you this: people didn't walk away from the crucifixion. The Romans crucified hundreds of thousands of individuals. There is nowhere found, anywhere, in the ancient records of any account of any person who escaped that horrible punishment.
Every soldier in a Roman death squad knew that his life was forfeited if he allowed such a thing to happen. That's why it was customary for them to run their spears into the hearts of those who were executed. (Quintillian Declamationes maiores 6,9.)
When they did that to Jesus, John, the disciple who was there that day, saw blood and water come out (see John 19:34). What's the big deal about blood and water? Heavier red blood cells separate from the watery plasma of the blood only after a person's heart has stopped beating and stopped mixing them together. Writing 2,000 years ago, John would not have known that bit of science, but modern forensics does.
Jesus, the only sinless man this world has ever seen, was condemned to die. On Calvary's cross, as He suffered and shed His blood, the very people whose sins He carried, laughed and taunted and jeered. The two men on the crosses, one his right and one on his left both had a choice. That day there was a fork in the road. One chose correctly and Jesus said: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Jesus suffered and died on the cross so that when we face eternity, we who know Him as our Savior, might live forever. Choices must be made.
Jesus died to take away our sins. Jesus' enemies knew His body couldn't be found so they paid the soldiers to tell a lie. The human body of Jesus couldn't be found because He was alive. He was alive enough to eat, and walk, and breathe, and to be seen by more than 500 people including the disciples.
He was alive in Judea, and He was alive in Galilee. He was alive on the day of resurrection; He was alive more than a month later; and He is alive today. The road you choose to take makes a difference which path you take.
