The Thing Behind The Things Series

JUST JESUS: CHAPTER BY CHAPTER THRU LUKE

The Thing Behind the Things

LUKE 13:1-5

#justJesus

STORY 1

Mr. Deer was just like all the other deers in the forest. He liked making lots of bucks at his job in the leaf jerky factory. He liked to go stag to the dances in the forest without a date. He drove the same car as all the others… an impala. He was a little skittish around gnu people, but once you got to know him, you could not keep him from talking about all the various points of his antlers. His nickname was ‘Swamp Donkey,’ but everyone pretty much just called him Mr. Deer. Again, Mr. Deer was a normal deer like everydeer else.

One day Mr. Deer was driving down the road in his gnu impala, which he named ‘the Doe Magnet’ by the way. He passed his neighbor’s house. He passed the store. He passed one of those yellow signs with a human on it crossing the road, but he usually ignored those signs because the chances of seeing a human cross the road were slim to none. And then it happened, he came around a curve near his house and there it was… a human crossing the road. The human just turned and looked at the car and did not move. It was literally a human caught in the headlights! The thing did not move! It just stared as the car barreled towards it. Mr. Deer put on the brakes and of course, the human moved in the exact direction he turned the car. It was unavoidable. He hit the human.

Mr. Deer got out and could not believe his bad luck. He hit a human in his gnu car and now the front end was all busted up. It was fixable, but he still was stressed that his car was damaged. He called the tow truck and it came and took his beloved car to the local repair shop.

Later that evening, his friend called him and asked about his accident and how he was feeling. It really was just an accident. It could have happened to anydeer. His friend asked him several times what he had done wrong while driving. Were you messing with the radio? Were you playing salt lick crush on your phone while driving? Were you daydreaming? His friend seemed to think that Mr. Deer had done something wrong because the crash happened. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It was just an accident.

TRANSITION

The passage that we are going to look at today is complicated and simple at the same time. We are going to read the first five verses of Luke 13. What we find in the beginning of Luke 13 is a complicated situation where the thing behind the thing is actually simple. Let’s read and I will explain what I mean.

READ LUKE 13:1-5 (ESV)

There were some present at that very time who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And He answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

THE THINGS

Jesus is out and about ministering to people and some of them mention a terrible event that was going on in their world and Jesus talks about it. He then mentions a disaster that he knew about and talks about it. What makes it complicated is that in Jesus’ culture and if we are honest in our own culture today, when something bad happens to someone we wonder what sin they committed to bring on the disaster or the accident. When a disaster strikes a group or a city, we wonder if it was full of a bunch of reprobates which caused the issue.

This belief is described in Scripture. It is definitely present in the Book of Job in the Old Testament when Eliphaz accuses Job of suffering because of secret sin. Not once, but several times.

READ JOB 4:7-8 (ESV)

Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? 8 As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.

READ JOB 22:4-5 (ESV)

Is it for your fear of Him that He reproves you and enters into judgment with you? 5 Is not your evil abundant? There is no end to your iniquities.

This belief is described in Scripture. It is definitely present in the New Testament among the disciples. In John 9, the disciples see a man blind from birth and they assumed either the parents sinned or the baby sinned in the womb.