"The Road Few Want To Travel”

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.”