Luke 9:21-24 - Suffering servant and suffering servants

9:21,22

The disciples had little idea of the full implications of Jesus being the Messiah, so the people would have even less idea. This is probably why Jesus instructs them to keep quiet about the matter at this stage, for there is no way they could properly communicate something they did not even understand themselves. Jesus then reveals what His mission entailed, and that was suffering, most serious suffering. He would be rejected by all the religious leaders and killed. Not only would this happen, but it must happen. His death was not a mistake, not an unfortunate consequence, but central to the plan of salvation. Then on the third day He would be raised to life.

9:23

The consequences for Jesus of His mission were clearly very serious, to say the least! However, the same also applied to His disciples, and that includes us. The gospel is not about self-fulfilment, but about Christ-fulfilment. Jesus came to do the will of the Father, we come to Christ to do His will. That is what we are signing up for when we give our lives to Christ. We should remember what “taking up the cross” meant. The disciples may well have witnessed a man who was convicted to crucifixion by the Romans, and such a man would have to carry his own cross to the place of execution, the place where he was going to die a torturous death. Jesus is not mincing His words to the disciples about the cost of following Him, and most of the them would indeed die for the gospel. There is no cheap prosperity in the gospel.

9:24

The gospel is no glitzy offer, but a most serious matter. One might wonder if it was going to involve such a cost why would anyone ever want to choose to follow Jesus? Part of the reason is that the alternative is even worse, and the other reason is that the cross is not the end, but the mean to the end. The logical response might seem to be that if the cost is so high, then no sensible man would choose to follow Christ, but Jesus tells us if we try to save our own life then far from saving it we will lose it. Conversely, if we do lose our life for Christ’s sake, which is what happens, then we will find that we actually find it. We truly find life when we choose to follow Christ.

Death Defeated

A Sermon on the resurrection of Christ, its:

• Centrality
• Reality
• Futurality

Luke 9:18-20 - You are the Messiah

9:18-20

In 9:7-9 we read of there being various speculations as to who Jesus was, none of them accurate. Now Jesus asks His disciples what they think. We need to remember that when we look at Jesus and the gospels we look with hindsight, the disciples were in the midst of it, in the midst of the revelation being made. He did this on an occasion when He finally had managed to get time alone with them. First Jesus asked them what the crowds were saying about Him.  The disciples essentially repeat what was said in 9:7-9. The world will always have various opinions as to who Jesus is, these opinions will rarely be accurate. Yet it is important to know what the world thinks, then we are better able to communicate with them.

“But what about you?” The you is emphatic. It is our personal response to Jesus that counts. Jesus asked the disciples, but Peter spoke up on behalf of all of them. Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah. The words were correct, but their understanding of what they meant was woefully inadequate.

The Old Testament Law is Barbaric - except it isn’t!

One of the criticisms often levelled at the Bible, in particular the Old Testament, is that it condones slavery and is generally rather barbaric. Such criticisms are, in fact, unfounded. There are two main errors. The first is to fail to take account of the context within which the Law was given, and the context of the surrounding cultures. Paul Copan is his book, Is God a Moral Monster, demonstrates that the Law is actually incredibly liberal when measured against the culture of the times.

Christopher Wright in his book Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament highlights several examples of this. In Deut 23:15,16 it says:

If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them.

Under all surrounding cultures a runaway slave would be returned to their master and treated most harshly.

Deut 21:10-14 has rules for dealing with women and girls taken captive in war. The norm at the time (and in many places it isn’t that much different today) they would be treated as sex slaves, objects to be used. The Law says that if a victorious soldier fancies the woman then he must take her as a wife. Even then, she must first be given time to mourn her loss (her parents presumably having been killed in the war). If he later decides he doesn’t want her any longer then he must not sell her as a slave, she must be free to go, and he has dishonoured her.

Now our first reaction might be that all this is terrible, we need to give full rights to women etc. But first of all compare it with the norm. Then see what is happening. She is given time to mourn, she is valued as a person. The man had to take her as a wife, ie he cannot just use her for pleasure, but he has responsibilities towards her. If he does get rid of her, he cannot sell her. And see that it says “he has dishonoured her”. The victorious soldier is seen as the moral transgressor.

The second error is to misunderstand the purpose of the Law (and in this article we are just looking at some aspects of the civic side of the Law, there is much more to it than that). This is something that apostle Paul in Galatians and Romans argues that the Law could not make anyone righteous. It could do nothing to change the sinful heart of man, but only expose our sinfulness and act as a restraint (there are many other aspects to the Law as well). To understand what I mean by this consider the question of divorce. Jesus was confronted with a question on divorce. Moses had given a law that said if a man divorces his wife he is to send her away with a certificate of divorce. Let’s consider two questions. What was God doing here? What did man do? Some people took this law as giving a man the right to divorce their wife if she displeased him, and they would use this as an excuse to divorce their wives if they fancied someone else. What was God doing? He was giving a law to limit the effects of man’s sinfulness, as Jesus said, “because your hearts are hard”. God was protecting the woman. Now someone might argue that God should have introduced a better law, but this would actually have changed nothing. God did not tell men to divorce their wives, but men took this law as a sanctioning their immoral behaviour. They do this because the root of sin is in our hearts, and no amount of laws will change our hearts. Likewise, the laws on slaves, treatment of foreigners, wars etc are limiting the damage that man’s sin can do.

Now when we look at the Law we should (i) realise just how liberal the Law was (in some ways far more liberal than some laws we have today!); and (ii) recognise the purpose of these parts of the Law, which were to limit the effects of sinfulness.

The Law itself could not change anyone, and God never intended it to do so. That is why He sent His Son to die on a cross for us, to be raised from the dead, and then to send the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. That way we can be given a heart of flesh, rather than a heart of stone.

Luke 9:14-17 - the big meal

9:14

The disciples assessment was based on their own resources, Jesus’ assessment was based on the resources of heaven. We, too, often make the same mistake. God calls us to work with Him, based on His power and authority, not our own power and authority. But note also the ordered way Jesus told them to go about things, splitting the people up into groups of fifty. Just because something is being done in Holy Spirit power does not mean it is a disorganised rammy.

9:15-17

The disciples did as they were told. We get no indication that they thought this was a wonderful idea, but nevertheless they did what Jesus told them to do and the crowd were duly fed. Note that the five loaves and two fish is consistent with John’s account (John 6:8). Everyone had enough and there were twelve baskets of leftovers gathered up. Luke gives no comment on the miracle, apart from its having taken place.

Luke 9:10-13 - You feed them!

9:10,11

This is one of the most famous miracles in Jesus’ life, and one which is recorded in all four gospels. Jesus wanted to withdraw with His disciples, presumably to instruct them. Possibly He wanted to “debrief” them after their mission trip, and to teach them something of who He was and what His mission was. This is something He did right after the feeding of the five thousand. However, the crowds discovered His whereabouts and followed Him. Instead of getting angry with them (as I would have done!) Jesus welcomed them, taught them, and healed people. Yet again we see teaching and healing going together.

9:12,13

It was getting late and the disciples had supposed to been going for a private time with Jesus, instead the crowds had found them and had been receiving all the attention of Jesus. The disciples “concern” for the people was probably at least in part a concern for themselves. Our selfish concerns can often be wrapped up in supposed concern for others.

Jesus, however, had a different solution. The disciples were to feed the people. This suggestion seemed ridiculous, they simply did not have the resources to do it. In fact the resources were way short of what was needed.

Luke 9:5-9 - Proclaiming the good news

Some would welcome them, some would not. If people did not welcome them they were simply to leave. “Shaking the dust off your feet” is a proverbial way of illustrating God’s judgement against them. If they do not want anything to do with God then He will have nothing to do with them. This is actually the terrifying judgement that many people will receive on the last day, only they do not realise what the full consequences of this are. Jesus put this into practice in His own ministry. Where people welcomed Him He spent time with them, if they did not want Him, as in the case of the region where the demoniac lived, He simply left. The church today is not very good at evangelism (and I include myself in that!) and while we should seek to do a good job we do have a tendency to think that if someone doesn’t accept the gospel then it is our fault. This can lead to us putting too much effort into being “seeker friendly” rather than accurately presenting the gospel. The Bible makes it clear that the church has a responsibility to be a witness to the world, but some will accept the gospel and some will not.

9:7-9

“Tetrarch” was the correct term to use of Herod Antipas. Herod had been responsible for killing John the Baptist. He knew that John was a man of God, and that when he criticised Herod for his marriage to his brother’s wife (Luke 3:19) Herod first had him imprisoned, and finally beheaded. Herod knew he had acted against God. There was general confusion about who Jesus was, some thinking He was John the Baptist raised from the dead. Others thought He was Elijah, Malachi says Elijah will come back in the last days, and still others that Jesus was some other prophet  come back to life. Herod was puzzled about Jesus and wanted to meet Him.