Facing the Great Known

Facing the Great Known

Early Spring at CREC

Quinquagesima

Collect: O Lord, who hast taught us that all our doings without love are nothing worth; Send thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee. Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

Gospel: St. Luke 18:31-43 (BCP, p. 150)

Homily Text: St. Luke 18:31-34 Then Jesus took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: and they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again. And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.  

How would you like to know your future? Think back over all the things that have happened in your life. Would you have wanted to know in advance that those things were going to happen? Perhaps, if by knowing them, you might have avoided the bad things. But what if those things were unavoidable? What if you knew that on a certain day three years from now, you will be diagnosed with a terminal disease? Rather than a blessing, it would be a curse to live with that certainty.

Jesus is the only person who has ever lived who infallibly knew his bleak future. He could have avoided it, but rather embraced it and determinedly marched toward it.

1. Jesus’s Prediction of His Death

1.1 Jesus left Galilee on his way to Jerusalem. The direct route was through Samaria, but because of Samaritan hostility he took a longer route. Likely Jesus and disciples crossed the Jordan River, to the eastern bank, and traveled through an area called Perea, till got to a place on the eastern bank opposite Judea. Then they crossed to the west bank and headed toward  nearby Jericho where Jesus healed the blind man we read about in today’s Gospel.

But before they reached Jericho Jesus he took his disciples aside from the crowd and said something very serious:

Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: and they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.  

1.2  This is actually the third time in St. Luke’s Gospel that Jesus spoke plainly to his disciples about his future. In the 9th chapter, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say I am?” St. Peter answered for them all, “You are the Christ of God.” Then Jesus told them for the first time:

The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be slain and be raised the third day (Luke 9:22).

A little later, Jesus took three of his disciples up on a mountain where he was transformed. His face change and his clothes became dazzling white. This was a brief outbreaking of Jesus’s glory as the Son of God. The day after that experience a man came to Jesus and told him that his son was continually convulsed by a demon. Jesus again revealed his glory by delivering the boy from this oppression. While everyone was marvelling at Jesus’s mighty works, he said to the disciples a second time:

Let these sayings sink down into your ears, for the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men (Luke 9:44).

1.3 The first time Jesus predicted his death, he said that he must suffer many things. He would be rejected the religious leaders -  elders, the chief priests, and the scribes. He would be slain, but then would be raised from the dead on the third day. The second time Jesus predicted his death, he said he “shall be delivered into the hands of man.” The passive “shall be delivered makes us ask, “Delivered by whom?” This is an example of something in the Bible called “the divine passive” man is passive and God is active. Jesus would be delivered into the hands of man by God. St. Peter clearly understood this, and on the Day of Pentecost preached:

Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men (Acts 2:22,23).

It’s a mistake to think that the death of Jesus caught God by surprise, or that somehow wicked men got the upper hand on God. No, lawless men killed Jesus, but Jesus was delivered into their hands “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” Jesus was put in the hands of man according to God’s plan.

1.4 In today’s Gospel, Jesus told his disciples three things about his coming sufferings:

1.4.1 He told them that his sufferings will accomplish what the Old Testament prophets wrote: “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.” From Genesis 3:15, where God promised that a Seed of Eve would crush Satan, the whole Old Testament is about God working out his plan of salvation till he send Christ to accomplish salvation. There are also places in the Old Testament that point predictively to the sufferings of the Messiah. In Psalm 22 (16-18), describes his suffering:

For dogs encompass me;

   a company of evildoers encircles me;

they have pierced my hands and feet—

  I can count all my bones—

they stare and gloat over me;

  they divide my garments among them,

   and for my clothing they cast lots.

                               (Ps. 22:16-18)

Isaiah wrote about him:

He was despised and rejected by men,

   a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

   he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs

    and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

    smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;

   he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us

   peace,

    and with his wounds we are healed.

                                                    (Is. 53:3-5)

Jesus understood the suffering he would undergo in Jerusalem as accomplishing what was written about him in the Old Testament.

1.4.2 He revealed greater details about his sufferings:

• Before he told them he would be delivered to the Jewish leaders. Now he says he will be delivered to the Gentiles. That’s what happened. After his arrest Jesus was tried by the Jewish Sanhedrin and found him guilty of blasphemy. The next morning they took him to the Roman Governor Pilate and charged him with insurrection.
• Jesus predicted that he would be “mocked, and spitefully treated, and spitted on.” St.Mark describes his treatment by the soldiers:

And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him (15:17-19).

• Jesus predicted he would be scourged and killed. When Pilate ordered his soldiers to crucify Jesus, he had him whipped and then taken to the place of execution where he was nailed to a cross on which he died.

1.4.3 Finally, Jesus told them that after his death he would rise again, a clear prediction of his resurrection. He would put to death in shame, but he would be vindicated and glorified by rising to immortal bodily life.

2. The Disciples’ Perplexity

2.1 What was the effect of Jesus’s prediction on his disciples? They were perplexed:

And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.

If this was the third explicit prediction Jesus made of his sufferings, why was it so hard for them? Because they believed Jesus was the Messiah, and this did not fit their expectations about the Messiah. The Jewish expectation was that when the Messiah came he would deliver Israel from the Romans and give Israel peace, power, and prosperity. A suffering and dying Messiah made no sense to them.

2.2 People still don’t know what to make of Jesus, especially his death. Some people think he was an idealist who got caught up with the idea he would usher in God’s kingdom, but was crushed by the wheel of history. Others think he was a good man who showed courage in the face of rejection, suffering, and death. He is an example of heroic courage to us. Others think that his death was a demonstration of love. Certainly it is true that Jesus showed all the characteristics of love we read about his morning from 1 Corinthians 13. But that’s all some see - that his death somehow showed how much God loves us and that’s about it.

Why did Jesus die? What do you think? Isaiah told us:

All we like sheep have gone astray;

   we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

   the iniquity of us all.

St. Paul wrote, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” God laid on Christ the iniquity of us all, and he died bearing our guilt and suffering our punishment. Do you know why Christ died? Are you trusting his death for your eternal salvation?

In other words, God the Father out of his tender mercy have his “only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.”