Personal Note: I want to thank so much all those who take the time to read these and who take the time to drop me little encouraging notes from time to time. With this post, we come to an end in the Gospel of Luke. Due to our upcoming ministry trip to Africa this will be the last devotional until September. In September we will start back up again regularly with the book of Acts.
Jesus Appears to the Disciples
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
44 He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms."
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, "This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."
The Ascension of Jesus
50 When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. 52 Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
Dig Deeper
There was quite a big news splash during this year’s off-season period in the National Basketball Association. Every year, during the off-season, there are always many free agents, men whose contracts have expired and who are free to sign with any team that they choose. Usually a few big-name players switch teams and many other role players switch teams and it usually changes the balance of power between a couple of teams here and there but it usually isn’t a major determining factor in who the best teams in the NBA are. That all changed this off-season as unprecedented events took place. Three of the ten best players in the entire NBA, including two of the three best players in the whole league decided that they wanted to play together and they all worked out their free agency and took a lot less money so that they could join the same team, the Miami Heat. Suddenly, something that had never before happened was a reality. The Miami Heat had become arguably the best team in basketball overnight. They spent the rest of the week signing lesser role players that would fill out their team and make them a complete championship contender, a process that answered a lot of questions concerning who else would be on the team surrounding these three great players.
As it stands right now, all of the questions concerning whether they would be able to get players to surround these three great players have been answered. All of the pieces have been moved into place. They have had the parties introducing the new players and the new team as a whole to the fans. Everything is ready to go for the new season, except for one minor detail. They haven’t played a game yet. The NBA doesn’t just hand out the championship trophy to the team with the most impressive roster. It is now up to this collection of players who have been formed together as a team through rather improbable circumstances to go work things out now. They have to go implement the championship that has been prepared for them.
There is an element like this in this closing passage of Luke’s Gospel. The most incredible things have happened, things that the disciples could never have imagined. Jesus had resurrected from the dead and God’s new creation had come bursting forth into the routine of the present age in a way that no human saw coming. Yes, they were witnesses to incredible things and had been formed together as God’s new family, the fulfillment of all of God’s promises had come through Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). But that wasn’t the end of things. It was now up to them to get busy working out the victory that Jesus had claimed. They were going to partner with God’s Holy Spirit to implement the victory that had already been prepared for them.
Before the first day of the week was even ended, there was one more amazing event that was about to occur. The disciples were still buzzing with all that had happened and were still trying to figure out exactly what was going on. It was, no doubt, one of those times when the mixture of excitement and continued uncertainty as to all of the details and things going on leads to absolute and almost uncontainable exhilaration. In the midst of this fray it would be easy to momentarily miss the fact that Jesus had appeared right in the middle of them. Their normal practice during this time was to lock the door for safety reasons but that was no obstacle for Jesus. As he stood among them, he declared the complete peace of God among them.
Their initial reaction was an understandable one and demonstrates that they were still trying to work everything out in their minds. They still were not quite used to seeing the resurrected Christ, and for some of them this was their first experience, and none of them were still quite sure what they were seeing. The TNIV’s rendering of the word “pneuma” as “ghost” is not only incorrect, it is quite unhelpful in helping us to understand what Luke was saying. They did not think that Jesus was a ghost as we would think of a ghost today, but they probably couldn’t comprehend how he could simply appear among them. To render the word as “spirit” would be much more correct and accurate. Was he like the angels or a spirit whose body was now accustomed to the spiritual realm but not fully at home in the physical realm? His appearance, though, was so unexpected that it frightened them. They just didn’t have categories in their minds to accommodate everything they were seeing, hearing, and experiencing.
Jesus, and Luke as the recorder of these events, wanted to make sure that there was no such misconceptions. He was not a spirit. There is an incredible mystery to the resurrection body, one that Paul spends much time in 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5 working out, and even then most people today easily get confused with what he says. The simple point is that the resurrection body is not a spirit or a ghost-like existence. Jesus had real flesh and bone, meaning that he was just as material and physical as any other person in that room (note that he carefully does not say “flesh and blood” which was a figure of speech referring to the normal, sinful and fallen human state rather than a description of a physical body). If Jesus had only resurrected in spirit it would have not left an empty tomb. But Luke drives the point home to the full extent. They saw him; they could touch him; he even ate some fish. This was no spirit. Yet, how could it be that a normal physical body could just appear in rooms with little concern for doors or walls? The resurrection body is one that apparently is equally at home in both the physical realm and the spiritual realm. It is physical and material, but it is more than that, certainly not less. The resurrection body, then, will be perfectly at home in both realms of God’s creation. This seems difficult to grasp right now in the present age where the spiritual realm and the physical realm are still separated but the ultimate goal of God’s reconciliation and restoration of the universe (Matt. 19:28) is that heaven and earth will one day be brought together as one (Eph. 1:10).
This was all incredible and dizzying for them, but it was not new. Jesus had told them that all of this would happen, they just could not understand it yet. None of this was a surprise to Jesus and so they could rest assured that this was where things were going all along. God’s promises throughout the whole of the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, meaning the entirety of what we call the Old Testament, had pointed to this. It would be difficult to find any specific Old Testament passages that they said word for word what Jesus said in verses 45 to 49 but that’s not the point. Jesus’ point was that it takes insight to see that all in there, but it is there. This is where God’s promises were heading. I once read an online article that referred to verses 45-49 as a contradiction because none of Jesus’ statements can be found in the Old Testament. But if there were such clear and direct statements in the Old Testament then they would have hardly needed their minds opened. The whole point is that these passages need the discernment and the guidance of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in order to understand all of these things and to see that they were they all along.
Yes, this is where things were heading. This was God’s plan all along and all of the pieces have been put into place. The improbable had happened, Jesus had resurrected from the dead and opened the world to entirely new possibilities. But now that everything was in place, it was up to them to work it out and bring it to fruition. As Jesus opened their minds to what the Scriptures had pointed to the whole time, he also laid out what the challenge before them entailed.
The Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. This was God’s plan from the very beginning. The Messiah would not come and be an exalted figure that led the armies of Israel to throw off her enemies and crush the pagans as many in Jesus’ day had hoped. He would suffer and take on the punishment that all human beings in rebellion against God deserved. This is what would open up the opportunity for all people to truly be in God’s family (Eph. 2:19). John the Baptist had preached repentance and forgiveness of sins (Lk. 3:3) but his was a message for people to prepare for such a time not to experience it fully (see Acts 19:1-6 where it makes clear that John’s baptism was a symbolic one that pointed to the real baptism of entry into the life of Christ). In Christ, that time had finally come. Jesus told them that repentance for the forgiveness of sin would be preached and be available in his name. It is important here to remember that first century Jews used the term “name” to stand for the totality of someone or their “life,” so those two terms were virtually interchangeable. His point, then, was that people who would repent (Acts 2:38) or die to themselves (Gal. 2:20) could be baptized into the life of Christ (Rom. 6:1-10), be forgiven of their sins (Matt. 28:19; Acts 22:16; Titus 3:5), and be clothed with Christ (Gal. 3:26-29; Col. 2:12-13; 3:3), meaning that they could enter into the corporate life and body of Christ as their new identity before God (1 Cor. 12:12-13) and receive the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; Titus 3:5).
The time for this was coming very soon but it would not come through their own ability. They should not move a muscle until the Holy Spirit came upon them as he is the one that would change the world through them. This would all begin in Jerusalem but it would not stay there for very long. The message of the gospel and the salvation that was now available in Christ would be preached to all nations (Matt. 28:19) because God’s family would consist of all nations (Rom. 4:17; Rev. 5:9; Acts 10:34-35; Eph. 2:11-3:11). This is an absolutely central aspect of God’s family. Any Christian community that is not made up of all peoples and nations is not a demonstration of the true gospel. As Paul declared in Galatians 3:8 “Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’” This is a particular important reminder as we live in a time when it is quite common for churches to split according to nationalities, languages, or skin colors. That is not the kingdom that God gave us. That is not the one family of many nations that we are called to be.
As Luke brings his Gospel to a conclusion, he skips ahead in verse 50 without any mention of how much time actually passed between verses 49 and 50. He simply prepares his readers for the next act which was, quite appropriately, the book of Acts. What Luke describes here in mere passing, he will return to in more detail in the first chapter of Acts. This then is almost like those scenes at the end of a television show that tease you with next week’s episodes so that you will be motivated to come back and watch next week. Jesus would not stay with them. He would ascend to heaven and the mission would be theirs to carry on through the power of the Holy Spirit.
After rightly worshiping Jesus, the disciples returned to Jerusalem with joy and anticipation, not knowing what would happen next but knowing that Jesus was in control and was not only far greater than they had imagined just a day before, but that he was deserving of something, namely worship, that was reserved for God alone.
And so, as Luke ends his Gospel, he ends where he began, in the Temple. As he opened the story of Jesus Christ, he began with Zechariah in the Temple. He has returned to the Temple time and again throughout the story whether it was descriptions of the young Jesus at the Temple, the warning of Christ of the judgment that was soon coming to the Temple and Jerusalem, or the descriptions of Jesus as the true Temple where people could come to experience the presence of God. God had repeatedly promised that he would come and dwell with his people and that has now happened. The presence of God was no longer at the Temple in Jerusalem but was revealed for all eternity in the person of Jesus Christ.
Devotional Thought
Jesus promised his disciples that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be available through his name and life. Have you truly experienced that life by dying to yourself and repenting and being baptized into his body? If that all sounds new, strange, or unnecessary, then perhaps like the women at the tomb, it’s time to “remember” Jesus’ words and have your mind opened.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Luke 24:28-35 Commentary
28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them.
30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"
33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, "It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon." 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
Dig Deeper
One of my favorite stories in the entire Bible is the moment when Peter and the other disciples were fishing after Jesus’ death and they looked up and saw Jesus walking on the beach. The whole memorable scene is described in John 21. Peter rushes to the beach to see if it is really Jesus and finds that it is. This was the same Peter who had promised to be loyal to Jesus right to his own death if need be and vehemently denied that he would ever deny Jesus the way Jesus predicted that he would. Sadly, we all know that Peter did deny Jesus on three occasions. As John described those scenes of Peter’s denial, he very specifically uses an uncommon word in the New Testament to give us the detail that during his denials, Peter was standing next to a coal fire, warming himself on the chilly night. John, like the other Gospel writers didn’t really include details for no reason, so it stands out to us his readers that he specifically points out that this was a coal fire. If nothing else, coal fires have a very distinctive smell. So, it is an incredible detail, in my mind, when John tells us that when Jesus came to Peter on the beach in chapter 21, that he first had Peter build a coal fire to cook some fish on. Then, with the smell of that same type of coal fire wafting in the air, Jesus resolutely asked Peter three times if Peter really loved him, the same number of times that Peter had denied him. This was all no coincidence. Jesus wanted Peter to have a chance to reverse, in a sense, what he had done. He wanted him to have a memory of redemption that came back to mind every time he smelled a coal fire burning rather than thinking of the night of the betrayal. Jesus wanted to, in a real sense, undo what was done. He gave Peter a do-over and a chance at a new start.
As we have joined Luke on this long journey we should not forget that he promised all the way back in 9:31 that this was going to be a new exodus journey. We have followed along with Jesus as he resolutely made his way to Jerusalem to face down death and evil and have been right there as Jesus was seemingly swallowed up by death. But now something amazing has evidently happened. Luke is in the midst of telling us of the most amazing event in human history. This was how the new exodus was happening. But just as Peter needed to return, in a sense, and receive a do-over, that is exactly what Jesus has done for the whole human race. Humanity rebelled against God, which was the very cause of Jesus’ incarnation and crucifixion, but watch carefully as Luke masterfully describes the chance at a new start for fallen humanity. What humans really needed was a do-over, a new creation, and that is exactly what Luke describes in this passage.
As this scene continue to develop in the hands of the master writer Luke, he gives us the detail that as the three people approached the village of Emmaus, Jesus began to continue on as though his intent was to go further. Luke is continuing to build the tension of this scene. Will this be it for this encounter? Will these disciples ever learn the truth of who was walking with them, teaching them, and rebuking them on their slowness and lack of knowledge? It seems as if they are going to learn the truth and be reconciled with Jesus it will be because they deeply desire to know the truth. And that is exactly what happened. They strongly urged and tried to convince Jesus to stay with them. It was nearing nightfall and it was not a generally safe or good idea to travel once night fell. They invited Jesus to come in with them and stay the night so that they could continue to fellowship with and learn from this man whom they only knew as a stranger. But perhaps something inside of them was telling them that he was much more than a stranger if they would only spend some more time with him.
As they went into the place where these disciples were heading, the roles suddenly switch in what would have been a strange happening. They had invited Jesus in as a guest to spend the night with them but as soon as they sat down to eat, Jesus grabbed the bread and took the role of host. They were now his guests. As he took the bread, Luke tells us that he gave thanks, broke the bread, and gave it to them. Perhaps it was that the scales of un-recognition were finally and miraculously removed from their eyes, or maybe it was that they had seen and heard Jesus give thanks and break bread just like this before (Luke 9:16; 22:19), or maybe even it was the scars on his wrists as he reached the bread out to them. Whatever it was, it was at the moment that he reached out to hand them the bread that they recognized that it was Jesus. But they didn’t just recognize him. Something far more significant happened than just a mere recognition that it was Jesus that was with them after all.
There is a common theme that runs through many of the Gospel writer’s works as the focus on the period after Jesus’ resurrection. Let’s look at a few example and see if the theme becomes clear. In Matthew 28:18-20, as Jesus is giving his final instructions to his disciples, he tells them that they should go and create disciples of all nations to add to God’s one family. He told them, in other words, to be fruitful and multiply as the people restored in the image of God. What does that sound like? If you said Genesis 1:28, you are correct. In that passage, God tells his new creation, humanity, to be fruitful and increase in number so that they may fill the earth and subdue it. In Matthew 28 Jesus gives an echo of the same command to his new humanity. They are to be fruitful and increase in number so that they may fill the earth and subdue it.
Another example (although there are too many to discuss all of them here) comes in John 20:22 where Jesus appeared in a locked room to his anxious disciples. They had been, in a sense, created as God’s people through the death and resurrection of Christ but they were still waiting for the breath of life in them that would enable them to go out as God’s new humanity and transform the world. So as Jesus was talking to them, he “breathed on them” and sent the Holy Spirit into their midst. So what does that bring to mind? If you were thinking of Genesis 2:7 where God breathes the “breath” or “spirit” of life into his new human creation then you are right on track.
Now look at this passage again. As the disciples sit down to eat with Jesus, their eyes are suddenly opened. What other time in Scripture can you think of where two people (quite possibly a husband and wife in this scene) who ate and then their eyes were opened? Did Genesis 3:7 come to mind? That was, of course, the worst day in the history of humanity. Human beings, for the first time, reached out against God’s will to do their own, and sin was released like a virus into the world of human beings. Their eyes were opened to the world of exalting their own will over God’s. And here was a major problem as well. Peter had denied Jesus but he could also, with the help of Jesus, repent and retrace his steps, affirming his loyalty for Jesus. But humanity could not re-trace their steps. We could not fix the problem of sin and truly repent. But something new was breaking into the world at that very moment. They were taking part in a meal that had obvious echoes of the Lord’s Supper but it also retraced the steps of Adam and Eve. The disciples took the bread from Jesus and their eyes were opened suddenly to the new creation that had just broken into the present age. In Jesus’ death and resurrection something entirely new was available that had never been possible before. Jesus had served as humanity’s representative and had reversed the long, dark curse of humanity. Their eyes were opened to the new creation. It is the monumental theme of the resurrection opening up the new creation of God that is the common theme of all of the examples above.
As soon as their eyes were opened to the new world that had broken into the present age, Jesus was gone and they were left to ponder the depth of the mysteries that had been revealed to them. They immediately recognized that something was burning within them all along as Jesus was speaking to them on their walk down the road to Emmaus. They should have known all along. When the head knowledge of Scriptures that Jesus had shared with them mingled with the breaking of bread, they realized that their hearts were burning within them the whole time. So it still is today with God’s people that enter into the new creation and his new family by dying to self in baptism and raising to a new life (Rom. 6:1-10). When we combine a deeper understanding of the Scriptures as an entire unit that point as an entirety to the life of Jesus Christ with the sacrament of fellowship and breaking bread, we will truly be able to open our eyes to the new creation that is available in Christ. Proper theology comes from our heads and our hearts. Without our heads, our theology becomes emotional and often uncontrollable. Without our hearts, our theology becomes rigid and lifeless. We need both.
As the fullness of what had just happened began to dawn on these two disciples, they just couldn’t keep it to themselves. Despite the fact that it was getting late and they had convinced Jesus earlier that it was unwise and unsafe to continue any farther down the road, they couldn’t help themselves. They had to return to Jerusalem to tell the others in the family of believers what had happened. When they arrived in Jerusalem, presumably well after dark, they found the eleven (the twelve minus Judas) with the other disciples still gathering together. It was getting late but it was still Sunday, the first day of the week. Before they could speak and share their incredible story, the other disciples burst forth with their own exciting tales. The women weren’t crazy. The tomb was empty and it wasn’t because someone stole the body or some other logical explanation. The very thing that they were not expecting and had a hard time wrapping their minds around had happened. Jesus had resurrected and he had appeared to Simon Peter, an appearance that Luke doesn’t tell us about. It seems that Jesus was appearing all over the place on that first day. Only then could Cleopas and his companion share their incredible story. Imagine the excitement and awe of the disciples as one story after another burst into that room that day.
When we open our hearts to this story we will find that we can, at times, be very much like Cleopas and his friend that day. We can have times when we are confused, disappointed, and looking for Jesus. It is as those times that we need to return to God’s word and let the Spirit guide us as we look for a fresh word of insight from the Lord, and to breaking of bread with other believers as we connect with the risen Christ and the new creation that he has made available through his resurrection. When we do that, we will find the same thing that they discovered; that Jesus was right there with them all along.
Devotional Thought
Take a look around you as you go about your day today. Do you see any Cleopas’? Do you see any people that had great hopes and dreams for what their lives might look like or what kind of relationship they might have with God only to find disappointment and confusion. Pray that you have the spiritual eyes to see such situations but also that you are prepared to share the Scriptures with them in a way that is appropriate to the situation just like Jesus did. Perhaps as you do and as you spend some time with them, they will find their hearts burning within them as well and it won’t be from the lunch you’re sharing.
30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"
33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, "It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon." 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
Dig Deeper
One of my favorite stories in the entire Bible is the moment when Peter and the other disciples were fishing after Jesus’ death and they looked up and saw Jesus walking on the beach. The whole memorable scene is described in John 21. Peter rushes to the beach to see if it is really Jesus and finds that it is. This was the same Peter who had promised to be loyal to Jesus right to his own death if need be and vehemently denied that he would ever deny Jesus the way Jesus predicted that he would. Sadly, we all know that Peter did deny Jesus on three occasions. As John described those scenes of Peter’s denial, he very specifically uses an uncommon word in the New Testament to give us the detail that during his denials, Peter was standing next to a coal fire, warming himself on the chilly night. John, like the other Gospel writers didn’t really include details for no reason, so it stands out to us his readers that he specifically points out that this was a coal fire. If nothing else, coal fires have a very distinctive smell. So, it is an incredible detail, in my mind, when John tells us that when Jesus came to Peter on the beach in chapter 21, that he first had Peter build a coal fire to cook some fish on. Then, with the smell of that same type of coal fire wafting in the air, Jesus resolutely asked Peter three times if Peter really loved him, the same number of times that Peter had denied him. This was all no coincidence. Jesus wanted Peter to have a chance to reverse, in a sense, what he had done. He wanted him to have a memory of redemption that came back to mind every time he smelled a coal fire burning rather than thinking of the night of the betrayal. Jesus wanted to, in a real sense, undo what was done. He gave Peter a do-over and a chance at a new start.
As we have joined Luke on this long journey we should not forget that he promised all the way back in 9:31 that this was going to be a new exodus journey. We have followed along with Jesus as he resolutely made his way to Jerusalem to face down death and evil and have been right there as Jesus was seemingly swallowed up by death. But now something amazing has evidently happened. Luke is in the midst of telling us of the most amazing event in human history. This was how the new exodus was happening. But just as Peter needed to return, in a sense, and receive a do-over, that is exactly what Jesus has done for the whole human race. Humanity rebelled against God, which was the very cause of Jesus’ incarnation and crucifixion, but watch carefully as Luke masterfully describes the chance at a new start for fallen humanity. What humans really needed was a do-over, a new creation, and that is exactly what Luke describes in this passage.
As this scene continue to develop in the hands of the master writer Luke, he gives us the detail that as the three people approached the village of Emmaus, Jesus began to continue on as though his intent was to go further. Luke is continuing to build the tension of this scene. Will this be it for this encounter? Will these disciples ever learn the truth of who was walking with them, teaching them, and rebuking them on their slowness and lack of knowledge? It seems as if they are going to learn the truth and be reconciled with Jesus it will be because they deeply desire to know the truth. And that is exactly what happened. They strongly urged and tried to convince Jesus to stay with them. It was nearing nightfall and it was not a generally safe or good idea to travel once night fell. They invited Jesus to come in with them and stay the night so that they could continue to fellowship with and learn from this man whom they only knew as a stranger. But perhaps something inside of them was telling them that he was much more than a stranger if they would only spend some more time with him.
As they went into the place where these disciples were heading, the roles suddenly switch in what would have been a strange happening. They had invited Jesus in as a guest to spend the night with them but as soon as they sat down to eat, Jesus grabbed the bread and took the role of host. They were now his guests. As he took the bread, Luke tells us that he gave thanks, broke the bread, and gave it to them. Perhaps it was that the scales of un-recognition were finally and miraculously removed from their eyes, or maybe it was that they had seen and heard Jesus give thanks and break bread just like this before (Luke 9:16; 22:19), or maybe even it was the scars on his wrists as he reached the bread out to them. Whatever it was, it was at the moment that he reached out to hand them the bread that they recognized that it was Jesus. But they didn’t just recognize him. Something far more significant happened than just a mere recognition that it was Jesus that was with them after all.
There is a common theme that runs through many of the Gospel writer’s works as the focus on the period after Jesus’ resurrection. Let’s look at a few example and see if the theme becomes clear. In Matthew 28:18-20, as Jesus is giving his final instructions to his disciples, he tells them that they should go and create disciples of all nations to add to God’s one family. He told them, in other words, to be fruitful and multiply as the people restored in the image of God. What does that sound like? If you said Genesis 1:28, you are correct. In that passage, God tells his new creation, humanity, to be fruitful and increase in number so that they may fill the earth and subdue it. In Matthew 28 Jesus gives an echo of the same command to his new humanity. They are to be fruitful and increase in number so that they may fill the earth and subdue it.
Another example (although there are too many to discuss all of them here) comes in John 20:22 where Jesus appeared in a locked room to his anxious disciples. They had been, in a sense, created as God’s people through the death and resurrection of Christ but they were still waiting for the breath of life in them that would enable them to go out as God’s new humanity and transform the world. So as Jesus was talking to them, he “breathed on them” and sent the Holy Spirit into their midst. So what does that bring to mind? If you were thinking of Genesis 2:7 where God breathes the “breath” or “spirit” of life into his new human creation then you are right on track.
Now look at this passage again. As the disciples sit down to eat with Jesus, their eyes are suddenly opened. What other time in Scripture can you think of where two people (quite possibly a husband and wife in this scene) who ate and then their eyes were opened? Did Genesis 3:7 come to mind? That was, of course, the worst day in the history of humanity. Human beings, for the first time, reached out against God’s will to do their own, and sin was released like a virus into the world of human beings. Their eyes were opened to the world of exalting their own will over God’s. And here was a major problem as well. Peter had denied Jesus but he could also, with the help of Jesus, repent and retrace his steps, affirming his loyalty for Jesus. But humanity could not re-trace their steps. We could not fix the problem of sin and truly repent. But something new was breaking into the world at that very moment. They were taking part in a meal that had obvious echoes of the Lord’s Supper but it also retraced the steps of Adam and Eve. The disciples took the bread from Jesus and their eyes were opened suddenly to the new creation that had just broken into the present age. In Jesus’ death and resurrection something entirely new was available that had never been possible before. Jesus had served as humanity’s representative and had reversed the long, dark curse of humanity. Their eyes were opened to the new creation. It is the monumental theme of the resurrection opening up the new creation of God that is the common theme of all of the examples above.
As soon as their eyes were opened to the new world that had broken into the present age, Jesus was gone and they were left to ponder the depth of the mysteries that had been revealed to them. They immediately recognized that something was burning within them all along as Jesus was speaking to them on their walk down the road to Emmaus. They should have known all along. When the head knowledge of Scriptures that Jesus had shared with them mingled with the breaking of bread, they realized that their hearts were burning within them the whole time. So it still is today with God’s people that enter into the new creation and his new family by dying to self in baptism and raising to a new life (Rom. 6:1-10). When we combine a deeper understanding of the Scriptures as an entire unit that point as an entirety to the life of Jesus Christ with the sacrament of fellowship and breaking bread, we will truly be able to open our eyes to the new creation that is available in Christ. Proper theology comes from our heads and our hearts. Without our heads, our theology becomes emotional and often uncontrollable. Without our hearts, our theology becomes rigid and lifeless. We need both.
As the fullness of what had just happened began to dawn on these two disciples, they just couldn’t keep it to themselves. Despite the fact that it was getting late and they had convinced Jesus earlier that it was unwise and unsafe to continue any farther down the road, they couldn’t help themselves. They had to return to Jerusalem to tell the others in the family of believers what had happened. When they arrived in Jerusalem, presumably well after dark, they found the eleven (the twelve minus Judas) with the other disciples still gathering together. It was getting late but it was still Sunday, the first day of the week. Before they could speak and share their incredible story, the other disciples burst forth with their own exciting tales. The women weren’t crazy. The tomb was empty and it wasn’t because someone stole the body or some other logical explanation. The very thing that they were not expecting and had a hard time wrapping their minds around had happened. Jesus had resurrected and he had appeared to Simon Peter, an appearance that Luke doesn’t tell us about. It seems that Jesus was appearing all over the place on that first day. Only then could Cleopas and his companion share their incredible story. Imagine the excitement and awe of the disciples as one story after another burst into that room that day.
When we open our hearts to this story we will find that we can, at times, be very much like Cleopas and his friend that day. We can have times when we are confused, disappointed, and looking for Jesus. It is as those times that we need to return to God’s word and let the Spirit guide us as we look for a fresh word of insight from the Lord, and to breaking of bread with other believers as we connect with the risen Christ and the new creation that he has made available through his resurrection. When we do that, we will find the same thing that they discovered; that Jesus was right there with them all along.
Devotional Thought
Take a look around you as you go about your day today. Do you see any Cleopas’? Do you see any people that had great hopes and dreams for what their lives might look like or what kind of relationship they might have with God only to find disappointment and confusion. Pray that you have the spiritual eyes to see such situations but also that you are prepared to share the Scriptures with them in a way that is appropriate to the situation just like Jesus did. Perhaps as you do and as you spend some time with them, they will find their hearts burning within them as well and it won’t be from the lunch you’re sharing.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Luke 24:13-27 Commentary
On the Road to Emmaus
13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles [a] from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him.
17 He asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?"
They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"
19 "What things?" he asked.
"About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."
25 He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
Dig Deeper
Disappointment is one of the more difficult things in life to deal with. Especially the disappointment that comes when you put faith in someone and they don’t live up to your expectations. I have seen that so many times in the world of sports where a team will draft a young man and put the hopes of an entire city on his shoulders as the savior of the franchise. Seven years ago, an NBA team named the Cleveland Cavaliers experienced this. They drafted a young phenom named LeBron James right out of high school. He was touted to be the best pro prospect since Michael Jordan and his first few years in the NBA proved those predictions to be correct. But Cleveland didn’t want just a great player. They wanted someone who would single-handedly lead the team to many championships and spark an emotional and economic renewal for the entire city and even the state of Ohio. The expectations were truly unrealistic but they were something that LeBron tried to live up to and even, at times, encouraged. This summer, however, he became a free agent and after a lengthy and poorly handled process on his part in which he had team after team coming to woo him to their team, James decided to leave Cleveland for the Miami Heat. This decision absolutely stunned the Cleveland faithful who had convinced themselves that he would never leave them. He was, after all, from Ohio himself and he was going to be the savior of the whole area. But suddenly, in a flash, he was gone.
The disappointment that the people involved with the Cleveland Cavalier organization and the fans of the Cavaliers was overwhelming. People who had loved him and hailed him as their great hope were instantly downgrading him, calling him over-rated, and claiming that they never thought that highly of him. Ten-story billboards of James were torn down overnight and they quickly scrambled to erase any memories of James. But when reporters would go and talk to the fans on the street, they still seemed confused and hurt. They had no idea where their team was going to go now or how they would ever win a championship. All the hope that they had just a few days before had vanished in an instant.
The events that Luke has been describing are infinitely more important than any basketball player or an NBA championship but there is a parallel in there. It is the disappointment that people feel when something that they have put so much hope suddenly bursts. Luke masterfully built up the tension in the last scene as the women and then Peter came upon the empty tomb. Two angels told the women what happened but we don’t have any details yet. Luke wants us to identify with the confusion and lack of understanding that the disciples had in those moments. Now he will continue to mount the suspense as we join in with two disciples who are full of disappointment. Everything that they had hoped for seems to be gone. What will they do now? Where will they go? How will all of their hopes be fulfilled? Are they now facing a world where their great hopes of what God was going to do through his kingdom are now gone forever? It was all so disappointing. Or was it?
It is interesting as we join these two disciples on their journey to Emmaus, that Luke only gives us the name of one of the disciples, Cleopas. The usual assumption has always been that these two disciples were men, but it is quite possible that this Cleopas is the same person mentioned by John in John 19:25. John tells us of Clopas’ wife named Mary, a woman who is not mentioned by Luke as being among the group of women who went to Jesus’ tomb. So it is rather possible that the unnamed disciple accompanying Cleopas was, in fact, his wife, Mary.
Whoever the other disciple was, they were engaged in a rather lively discussion of all that had happened. The words used by Luke indicate that this was an intense discussion not just a regular conversation concerning the death and burial of Christ and the subsequent status of where his body might have been and just what exactly the women at the tomb had learned from these two angels. In the midst of this heated discussion, as they are trying desperately to figure out what has happened with Jesus and where exactly his body might be, Jesus came to them. But they were still in the dark in more ways than one. They didn’t recognize that the man who had joined them on their journey was the very man they were wondering about and looking for. The fact that people did not always immediately recognize the resurrected Jesus is one of those strange but recurring details of the resurrection accounts (Matt. 28:17; Jn. 20:14; 21:4, 12) that three of the four Gospel writers report but none of them try to explain. We could come up with many different theories but perhaps this is one of those things about resurrection that will remain mysterious until we actually take part in the resurrection ourselves one day (although it is just as likely that the inability to immediately recognize Jesus had miraculous purposes and was not something inherent to a resurrection body). What is apparent is that the body Jesus had was a real and very physical body, otherwise the tomb would not have been left empty. In some respects, his resurrected body was the same, but it was still somehow different. How that can be is something we will have to wait to have revealed to us.
As the two disciples walked along with Jesus, still not knowing the truth of who he is, Jesus asked they were talking about. This question seemed to shock the disciples as they assumed that anyone in the area of Jerusalem would have naturally known the incredible events surrounding Jesus’ last week and his crucifixion. It was the talk of the town so who could this stranger be that had not heard of any of this?
As they began to explain things to this man, the loss of their great hope became apparent. Who was Jesus? Well, he was a great prophet, that much they would never doubt. In declaring Jesus to be a prophet, however, they revealed their inner struggle. They had hoped that he would be the Messiah, the one that was going to redeem and exalt Israel. They had pinned all of their hopes on him but he had been crucified. They just could not envision a Messiah that would suffer and die. They failed to see that his crucifixion did not derail Jesus as the Messiah who was going to redeem Israel and the whole world. No, his crucifixion was the very means through which he was gong to redeem his people. But they just couldn’t see that. Messiahs should be defeating the pagans not dying on their crosses. That’s why they had apparently already downgraded him in their own minds. Maybe he wasn’t a Messiah after all, but just a prophet. To see a prophet suffer and die was no category mistake. That happened all throughout history to the prophets. So maybe he was a prophet, a mighty one at that, but sadly it appeared that that was all he was. Their hopes had been buried with Jesus in that tomb.
But the situation was becoming even more confusing for them by the minute. They had heard the reports of the women that Jesus body was not in the tomb. Notice that they pointed out that the women had not found the “body” rather than “Jesus.” Despite the confusion, they still believed that Jesus was dead. They just did not understand what was going on.
Imagine their surprise when this uninformed stranger began to rebuke them. They were “foolish,” not in the sense that they were unintelligent, silly, or ignorant but in that they were blind to the purposes of God in the world. They were in a haze and Luke is challenging his readers to recognize that and not join them in their foolishness. He is challenging us to see beyond Jesus’ crucifixion and see it not as the end of hope but the beginning.
If they would only return to the word of God and actually believe them, then they would perhaps see what they could not before. Like the women at the tomb, they needed to remember the word of the prophets and understand them in the same way that the women needed to remember and understand the words of Jesus. They needed to look afresh at the Scriptures and seek what God really said about what he would do with and through the Messiah rather than running everything through the paradigm of their expectations. If they did that they would see that God’s servant had to suffer before entering his glory. The suffering and death of the Messiah was not an obstacle for the Messiah to come into his glory, it was the very path he would travel to enter his glory.
Jesus then went through what had to be one of the most spell-binding biblical lessons ever taught as he showed them what the Scriptures said about the Messiah and God’s plans to bless the world. Jesus didn’t just pull out a couple of verses from here and there to demonstrate his point. He took them through the whole of the Scriptures and showed them how the entirety of them pointed to the Messiah that would serve as a representative for all of God’s people, and indeed the whole world, and take on the suffering and punishment that was due all of us. He no doubt left them with a deep ability to understand that Jesus was indeed the Messiah and he had fulfilled God’s will by marching to the cross. No longer would the suffering and cruel death of Jesus on the cross serve as a stumbling block for them. No longer would they think that he was merely a prophet. They were beginning to understand the truth about Jesus and his work in and for the world. But they still only had half the story. They might have understood that Jesus was truly God’s Messiah and that God was firmly in control of the events that had been going on during the last three days, not the chief priests or the Romans. Yet, where was Jesus? How were God’s promises to bring him into full glory be fulfilled now? They would have to spend a little more time with Jesus in order to unravel those mysteries. And perhaps that is one of Luke’s points. To really understand who Jesus is and what he is doing, we have to stay with him. Ask more questions, and keep learning.
Devotional Thought
One of the primary lessons that the disciples had to learn was that just because negative things seem to happen that doesn’t necessarily mean that God’s purposes have been thwarted. During what they thought were the worst of circumstances, God was working the most. Do you need to learn that same lesson today? Is there some trying circumstance that you are going through right now that seems like no good can come from it? It seems like the end of the road and makes you question God. If you can identify with that, take some time to return to the accounts of Jesus death and resurrection. The reality is that God can and does work the most through situations that seem the least likely. What is doing in your life right now?
13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles [a] from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him.
17 He asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?"
They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"
19 "What things?" he asked.
"About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."
25 He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
Dig Deeper
Disappointment is one of the more difficult things in life to deal with. Especially the disappointment that comes when you put faith in someone and they don’t live up to your expectations. I have seen that so many times in the world of sports where a team will draft a young man and put the hopes of an entire city on his shoulders as the savior of the franchise. Seven years ago, an NBA team named the Cleveland Cavaliers experienced this. They drafted a young phenom named LeBron James right out of high school. He was touted to be the best pro prospect since Michael Jordan and his first few years in the NBA proved those predictions to be correct. But Cleveland didn’t want just a great player. They wanted someone who would single-handedly lead the team to many championships and spark an emotional and economic renewal for the entire city and even the state of Ohio. The expectations were truly unrealistic but they were something that LeBron tried to live up to and even, at times, encouraged. This summer, however, he became a free agent and after a lengthy and poorly handled process on his part in which he had team after team coming to woo him to their team, James decided to leave Cleveland for the Miami Heat. This decision absolutely stunned the Cleveland faithful who had convinced themselves that he would never leave them. He was, after all, from Ohio himself and he was going to be the savior of the whole area. But suddenly, in a flash, he was gone.
The disappointment that the people involved with the Cleveland Cavalier organization and the fans of the Cavaliers was overwhelming. People who had loved him and hailed him as their great hope were instantly downgrading him, calling him over-rated, and claiming that they never thought that highly of him. Ten-story billboards of James were torn down overnight and they quickly scrambled to erase any memories of James. But when reporters would go and talk to the fans on the street, they still seemed confused and hurt. They had no idea where their team was going to go now or how they would ever win a championship. All the hope that they had just a few days before had vanished in an instant.
The events that Luke has been describing are infinitely more important than any basketball player or an NBA championship but there is a parallel in there. It is the disappointment that people feel when something that they have put so much hope suddenly bursts. Luke masterfully built up the tension in the last scene as the women and then Peter came upon the empty tomb. Two angels told the women what happened but we don’t have any details yet. Luke wants us to identify with the confusion and lack of understanding that the disciples had in those moments. Now he will continue to mount the suspense as we join in with two disciples who are full of disappointment. Everything that they had hoped for seems to be gone. What will they do now? Where will they go? How will all of their hopes be fulfilled? Are they now facing a world where their great hopes of what God was going to do through his kingdom are now gone forever? It was all so disappointing. Or was it?
It is interesting as we join these two disciples on their journey to Emmaus, that Luke only gives us the name of one of the disciples, Cleopas. The usual assumption has always been that these two disciples were men, but it is quite possible that this Cleopas is the same person mentioned by John in John 19:25. John tells us of Clopas’ wife named Mary, a woman who is not mentioned by Luke as being among the group of women who went to Jesus’ tomb. So it is rather possible that the unnamed disciple accompanying Cleopas was, in fact, his wife, Mary.
Whoever the other disciple was, they were engaged in a rather lively discussion of all that had happened. The words used by Luke indicate that this was an intense discussion not just a regular conversation concerning the death and burial of Christ and the subsequent status of where his body might have been and just what exactly the women at the tomb had learned from these two angels. In the midst of this heated discussion, as they are trying desperately to figure out what has happened with Jesus and where exactly his body might be, Jesus came to them. But they were still in the dark in more ways than one. They didn’t recognize that the man who had joined them on their journey was the very man they were wondering about and looking for. The fact that people did not always immediately recognize the resurrected Jesus is one of those strange but recurring details of the resurrection accounts (Matt. 28:17; Jn. 20:14; 21:4, 12) that three of the four Gospel writers report but none of them try to explain. We could come up with many different theories but perhaps this is one of those things about resurrection that will remain mysterious until we actually take part in the resurrection ourselves one day (although it is just as likely that the inability to immediately recognize Jesus had miraculous purposes and was not something inherent to a resurrection body). What is apparent is that the body Jesus had was a real and very physical body, otherwise the tomb would not have been left empty. In some respects, his resurrected body was the same, but it was still somehow different. How that can be is something we will have to wait to have revealed to us.
As the two disciples walked along with Jesus, still not knowing the truth of who he is, Jesus asked they were talking about. This question seemed to shock the disciples as they assumed that anyone in the area of Jerusalem would have naturally known the incredible events surrounding Jesus’ last week and his crucifixion. It was the talk of the town so who could this stranger be that had not heard of any of this?
As they began to explain things to this man, the loss of their great hope became apparent. Who was Jesus? Well, he was a great prophet, that much they would never doubt. In declaring Jesus to be a prophet, however, they revealed their inner struggle. They had hoped that he would be the Messiah, the one that was going to redeem and exalt Israel. They had pinned all of their hopes on him but he had been crucified. They just could not envision a Messiah that would suffer and die. They failed to see that his crucifixion did not derail Jesus as the Messiah who was going to redeem Israel and the whole world. No, his crucifixion was the very means through which he was gong to redeem his people. But they just couldn’t see that. Messiahs should be defeating the pagans not dying on their crosses. That’s why they had apparently already downgraded him in their own minds. Maybe he wasn’t a Messiah after all, but just a prophet. To see a prophet suffer and die was no category mistake. That happened all throughout history to the prophets. So maybe he was a prophet, a mighty one at that, but sadly it appeared that that was all he was. Their hopes had been buried with Jesus in that tomb.
But the situation was becoming even more confusing for them by the minute. They had heard the reports of the women that Jesus body was not in the tomb. Notice that they pointed out that the women had not found the “body” rather than “Jesus.” Despite the confusion, they still believed that Jesus was dead. They just did not understand what was going on.
Imagine their surprise when this uninformed stranger began to rebuke them. They were “foolish,” not in the sense that they were unintelligent, silly, or ignorant but in that they were blind to the purposes of God in the world. They were in a haze and Luke is challenging his readers to recognize that and not join them in their foolishness. He is challenging us to see beyond Jesus’ crucifixion and see it not as the end of hope but the beginning.
If they would only return to the word of God and actually believe them, then they would perhaps see what they could not before. Like the women at the tomb, they needed to remember the word of the prophets and understand them in the same way that the women needed to remember and understand the words of Jesus. They needed to look afresh at the Scriptures and seek what God really said about what he would do with and through the Messiah rather than running everything through the paradigm of their expectations. If they did that they would see that God’s servant had to suffer before entering his glory. The suffering and death of the Messiah was not an obstacle for the Messiah to come into his glory, it was the very path he would travel to enter his glory.
Jesus then went through what had to be one of the most spell-binding biblical lessons ever taught as he showed them what the Scriptures said about the Messiah and God’s plans to bless the world. Jesus didn’t just pull out a couple of verses from here and there to demonstrate his point. He took them through the whole of the Scriptures and showed them how the entirety of them pointed to the Messiah that would serve as a representative for all of God’s people, and indeed the whole world, and take on the suffering and punishment that was due all of us. He no doubt left them with a deep ability to understand that Jesus was indeed the Messiah and he had fulfilled God’s will by marching to the cross. No longer would the suffering and cruel death of Jesus on the cross serve as a stumbling block for them. No longer would they think that he was merely a prophet. They were beginning to understand the truth about Jesus and his work in and for the world. But they still only had half the story. They might have understood that Jesus was truly God’s Messiah and that God was firmly in control of the events that had been going on during the last three days, not the chief priests or the Romans. Yet, where was Jesus? How were God’s promises to bring him into full glory be fulfilled now? They would have to spend a little more time with Jesus in order to unravel those mysteries. And perhaps that is one of Luke’s points. To really understand who Jesus is and what he is doing, we have to stay with him. Ask more questions, and keep learning.
Devotional Thought
One of the primary lessons that the disciples had to learn was that just because negative things seem to happen that doesn’t necessarily mean that God’s purposes have been thwarted. During what they thought were the worst of circumstances, God was working the most. Do you need to learn that same lesson today? Is there some trying circumstance that you are going through right now that seems like no good can come from it? It seems like the end of the road and makes you question God. If you can identify with that, take some time to return to the accounts of Jesus death and resurrection. The reality is that God can and does work the most through situations that seem the least likely. What is doing in your life right now?
Friday, July 23, 2010
Luke 24:-12 Commentary
Jesus Has Risen
1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 'The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' " 8 Then they remembered his words.
9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
Dig Deeper
When you’re part of a church family you experience almost all stations of life on an ongoing basis because it seems that someone in your church family is always going through some aspect of life whether it be graduation, marriage, child birth, starting a new job, and so many other things. I love to be around a young married couple that is about to have their first child. They are so excited and so hopeful, and some of them start, at some point, to think that they finally have a good handle on what is coming and they are ready. We’ve spent time with several couples like that over the years and it’s almost a little amusing when they get to that stage. Granted, some couples never feel prepared and have a good dose of healthy fear right up until the day of the birth of the child as to what they have gotten themselves into, but for every one of those couples there is another couple who starts to get confident that they are ready. You can try to tell those couples that having a baby is a much bigger life event than they think and you can try to tell them what they are in for, but once someone is over-confident it’s hard to move them from that position. So you warn them that having a new child is great but it is going to be more demanding on them than they can imagine, and you try to warn them that they cannot possibly prepare for every possible situation no matter how organized they are. And you try to warn them that they are going to be more tired than they they could ever have dreamed was possible, but they just confidently smile and say they are ready.
Then the day comes and they have their wonderful child. Once they’ve had a few weeks to experience the real deal, they usually come back exhausted, worn down, and much wiser. They realize that people told them these things all along but they had such a perception built up of what things would be like that they simply couldn’t comprehend what they were being told. They couldn’t grasp how hard it really is until they went through it and experienced it for themselves. Only then could they look back and see that this was what people had been saying all along.
It seems that throughout his ministry, especially near the end, Jesus continually told and warned his disciples that bad times were ahead. He was going to Jerusalem to die. They had such powerful expectations for the Messiah, however, that they simply could not grasp or embrace the full reality of that. But that wasn’t the end, Jesus didn’t just tell them in many ways that his death was coming, he also hinted at, alluded to, and even talked openly about resurrection and about his own exaltation and vindication after his death. His disciples were listening but they just could not understand what he was saying because it didn’t fit into the categories that they had already created in their own expectations. They just had no idea. No, they would have to go through it and experience if before they could fully grasp what Jesus was talking about. Only then would they be able to look back and see that this was what Jesus had been saying all along.
Luke quickly jumps ahead from Jesus’ burial to Sunday, the first day of the week, quite early in the morning. But I can’t help but wonder what that Friday and Saturday would have been like for Jesus’ disciples. It appears that it would have been full of fear and uncertainty. What would they do now without Jesus? What of all of the promises that he had made? How were they to interpret all of the incredible things that they had seen with the fact that he was now clearly dead? Should they stay together as a family or split up and go back to their old lives? The one thing that seemed to be in short supply was hope. If Luke and other Gospel writers were making up this story, as some critics have claimed, we would expect to find descriptions of faithful and hopeful disciples waiting anxiously for the return of Christ. That’s not at all what we find, though. They were confused and defeated. Their leader was dead and they were now reduced to sending the women of this family that Jesus had formed to the tomb to properly prepare his body. They weren’t going there with spices just in case he was still dead but hoping secretly that he wasn’t. In their minds this was it, and what that meant for this supposed new family was anyone’s guess.
The tomb where the women watched Jesus be laid three days before was a typical Jewish tomb that was cut into stone and would have had a large wheel-shaped stone that was rolled in front of the open doorway in a groove that was cut into the ground. As the women approached, it would have been quite out of place to see that the stone was rolled back from the entrance. Mark includes the detail that they worried on the way how they were going to get that stone moved (Mk. 15:3) but Luke either assumed that readers would know that detail already or didn’t find it necessary to add to his account. Wondering what was going on, they peered into the tomb and did not find Jesus’ body as they were expecting. What could have happened? Who would have done this? In the midst of their wondering, two men, gleaming like lighting, appeared in their presence (Luke doesn’t say for sure here but will confirm in verse 23 that these two men were indeed angels). Everywhere we look in this chapter, Luke seems intent on provided the necessary two witnesses to provide a proper testimony (Deut. 19:15): the two angels; the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, two appearances of the resurrected Jesus, and a double appeal to the witness of Scripture.
Before we move on, it is important to point out that the way that Luke (and the other Gospel writers) has recorded this account is powerful evidence to the fact that they were telling a true story. Women were simply not respected as witnesses in the first century, so if he were inventing a story or trying to exaggerate one, he just would not have done so by describing women as the ones to find the empty tomb first. It would have weakened their case to use such sketchy testimony. Luke was presenting truth, and the facts were the facts. But it is possible that though many first century readers would have been initially displeased with women being the first to find the tomb, the discerning reader who was genuinely looking for truth would probably have understood Luke’s dilemma and would have realized, just as we can now see, that it was actually powerful proof that he was telling a factual story using real eyewitnesses.
As the women listened to the angels, they were urged to remember. “Remembering” in this context doesn’t just mean mentally recalling something but also to now have understanding and insight into what one is recalling. They had failed to understand God’s purposes through the Christ and his death and, as is always the case, the antidote to a lack of understanding God’s purposes is to return to his word. In this case it was the very words of Christ that they heard with their own ears, but now they needed to shed their preconceived categories and look again.
As first-century Jews, they were so conditioned to think of resurrection as something that would happen to all of God’s people at the end of the present age and at the time when God’s new age unmistakably broke into the world, ridding it of evil and exalting God’s people to rule over it, that they just could not comprehend anything else. Yes, Jesus had spoken of being resurrected but they just could not comprehend that in the new and meaningful way that he wanted them to see. And perhaps from Jesus’ perspective they didn’t need to fully comprehend it ahead of time, but if he told them, they would eventually be able to look back and see that this was what he was up to all along and their faith would be built up. But while he was still with them, they simply could not wrap their minds around the thought of someone resurrecting as a single event in the middle of the present age and somehow ushering in the age to come in some aspects while the rest of the world went on pretty much as normal. They had categorized Jesus’ words of rising on the third day under their paradigm that Hosea 6:2 and it’s talk of being raised and restored on the third day as a symbol for the time when God would resurrect all of his people. Now they needed to remember Jesus’ words and realize that their whole framework was wrong. That’s not what God was doing. Hosea 6:2 wasn’t a symbol it was a prophecy. Jesus had been cut off as a representative for all people and had now resurrected quite literally on the third day.
They did finally, Luke tells us, remember his words. The light was beginning to turn on for the women, but that stands in contrast to the men. When the women ran back to tell them, Luke makes it clear that they weren’t waiting in hopeful expectation either. They were together. They had at least stayed together as the family that Jesus wanted them to be, but when the women came back and told them that the tomb was empty, and no doubt told them what they now understood, that this was what Jesus was planning to do all along, that death could not contain Jesus, the men took it as nonsense. These poor grief-stricken women didn’t know what they were talking about, at least not in the eyes of the men. Even though they had seen Jesus raise people from the dead, they just could not wrap their minds around the idea that those miracles were pointing to something even greater. Jesus didn’t just get sucked back out of the clutches of death, only to die again someday as those he had raised did. This was something entirely new. He had resolutely made war with death and had now burst out on the other side. But Luke, the master craftsman, hasn’t etched all of those details in yet. His readers know something that the disciples don’t yet know.
He first builds the mounting tension even more as Peter races to the tomb to see what these “crazy” women were babbling on about. Perhaps he thought he could clear up their confusion. But when he got there, no body was to be found, only strips of the linen cloth that Jesus was wrapped in days earlier. What could have happened? Peter doesn’t have a revealing encounter with any angels, though. He doesn’t yet “remember” and understand. He is left to walk away even more confused than when he came. Where did Jesus go? What happened to his body? Luke has one more incredible pair of witnesses to tell us about before he will answer those questions.
Devotional Thought
When God does things or things happen spiritually that you don’t understand, what is your response? Do you get frustrated and give up for a while? Do you just ignore the issue and hope it will go away? Or do you remember back to Jesus’ words, those find in the pages of the Bible and search for understanding? If the Bible is not the sole arbiter of truth in your life, then what else is?
1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 'The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' " 8 Then they remembered his words.
9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
Dig Deeper
When you’re part of a church family you experience almost all stations of life on an ongoing basis because it seems that someone in your church family is always going through some aspect of life whether it be graduation, marriage, child birth, starting a new job, and so many other things. I love to be around a young married couple that is about to have their first child. They are so excited and so hopeful, and some of them start, at some point, to think that they finally have a good handle on what is coming and they are ready. We’ve spent time with several couples like that over the years and it’s almost a little amusing when they get to that stage. Granted, some couples never feel prepared and have a good dose of healthy fear right up until the day of the birth of the child as to what they have gotten themselves into, but for every one of those couples there is another couple who starts to get confident that they are ready. You can try to tell those couples that having a baby is a much bigger life event than they think and you can try to tell them what they are in for, but once someone is over-confident it’s hard to move them from that position. So you warn them that having a new child is great but it is going to be more demanding on them than they can imagine, and you try to warn them that they cannot possibly prepare for every possible situation no matter how organized they are. And you try to warn them that they are going to be more tired than they they could ever have dreamed was possible, but they just confidently smile and say they are ready.
Then the day comes and they have their wonderful child. Once they’ve had a few weeks to experience the real deal, they usually come back exhausted, worn down, and much wiser. They realize that people told them these things all along but they had such a perception built up of what things would be like that they simply couldn’t comprehend what they were being told. They couldn’t grasp how hard it really is until they went through it and experienced it for themselves. Only then could they look back and see that this was what people had been saying all along.
It seems that throughout his ministry, especially near the end, Jesus continually told and warned his disciples that bad times were ahead. He was going to Jerusalem to die. They had such powerful expectations for the Messiah, however, that they simply could not grasp or embrace the full reality of that. But that wasn’t the end, Jesus didn’t just tell them in many ways that his death was coming, he also hinted at, alluded to, and even talked openly about resurrection and about his own exaltation and vindication after his death. His disciples were listening but they just could not understand what he was saying because it didn’t fit into the categories that they had already created in their own expectations. They just had no idea. No, they would have to go through it and experience if before they could fully grasp what Jesus was talking about. Only then would they be able to look back and see that this was what Jesus had been saying all along.
Luke quickly jumps ahead from Jesus’ burial to Sunday, the first day of the week, quite early in the morning. But I can’t help but wonder what that Friday and Saturday would have been like for Jesus’ disciples. It appears that it would have been full of fear and uncertainty. What would they do now without Jesus? What of all of the promises that he had made? How were they to interpret all of the incredible things that they had seen with the fact that he was now clearly dead? Should they stay together as a family or split up and go back to their old lives? The one thing that seemed to be in short supply was hope. If Luke and other Gospel writers were making up this story, as some critics have claimed, we would expect to find descriptions of faithful and hopeful disciples waiting anxiously for the return of Christ. That’s not at all what we find, though. They were confused and defeated. Their leader was dead and they were now reduced to sending the women of this family that Jesus had formed to the tomb to properly prepare his body. They weren’t going there with spices just in case he was still dead but hoping secretly that he wasn’t. In their minds this was it, and what that meant for this supposed new family was anyone’s guess.
The tomb where the women watched Jesus be laid three days before was a typical Jewish tomb that was cut into stone and would have had a large wheel-shaped stone that was rolled in front of the open doorway in a groove that was cut into the ground. As the women approached, it would have been quite out of place to see that the stone was rolled back from the entrance. Mark includes the detail that they worried on the way how they were going to get that stone moved (Mk. 15:3) but Luke either assumed that readers would know that detail already or didn’t find it necessary to add to his account. Wondering what was going on, they peered into the tomb and did not find Jesus’ body as they were expecting. What could have happened? Who would have done this? In the midst of their wondering, two men, gleaming like lighting, appeared in their presence (Luke doesn’t say for sure here but will confirm in verse 23 that these two men were indeed angels). Everywhere we look in this chapter, Luke seems intent on provided the necessary two witnesses to provide a proper testimony (Deut. 19:15): the two angels; the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, two appearances of the resurrected Jesus, and a double appeal to the witness of Scripture.
Before we move on, it is important to point out that the way that Luke (and the other Gospel writers) has recorded this account is powerful evidence to the fact that they were telling a true story. Women were simply not respected as witnesses in the first century, so if he were inventing a story or trying to exaggerate one, he just would not have done so by describing women as the ones to find the empty tomb first. It would have weakened their case to use such sketchy testimony. Luke was presenting truth, and the facts were the facts. But it is possible that though many first century readers would have been initially displeased with women being the first to find the tomb, the discerning reader who was genuinely looking for truth would probably have understood Luke’s dilemma and would have realized, just as we can now see, that it was actually powerful proof that he was telling a factual story using real eyewitnesses.
As the women listened to the angels, they were urged to remember. “Remembering” in this context doesn’t just mean mentally recalling something but also to now have understanding and insight into what one is recalling. They had failed to understand God’s purposes through the Christ and his death and, as is always the case, the antidote to a lack of understanding God’s purposes is to return to his word. In this case it was the very words of Christ that they heard with their own ears, but now they needed to shed their preconceived categories and look again.
As first-century Jews, they were so conditioned to think of resurrection as something that would happen to all of God’s people at the end of the present age and at the time when God’s new age unmistakably broke into the world, ridding it of evil and exalting God’s people to rule over it, that they just could not comprehend anything else. Yes, Jesus had spoken of being resurrected but they just could not comprehend that in the new and meaningful way that he wanted them to see. And perhaps from Jesus’ perspective they didn’t need to fully comprehend it ahead of time, but if he told them, they would eventually be able to look back and see that this was what he was up to all along and their faith would be built up. But while he was still with them, they simply could not wrap their minds around the thought of someone resurrecting as a single event in the middle of the present age and somehow ushering in the age to come in some aspects while the rest of the world went on pretty much as normal. They had categorized Jesus’ words of rising on the third day under their paradigm that Hosea 6:2 and it’s talk of being raised and restored on the third day as a symbol for the time when God would resurrect all of his people. Now they needed to remember Jesus’ words and realize that their whole framework was wrong. That’s not what God was doing. Hosea 6:2 wasn’t a symbol it was a prophecy. Jesus had been cut off as a representative for all people and had now resurrected quite literally on the third day.
They did finally, Luke tells us, remember his words. The light was beginning to turn on for the women, but that stands in contrast to the men. When the women ran back to tell them, Luke makes it clear that they weren’t waiting in hopeful expectation either. They were together. They had at least stayed together as the family that Jesus wanted them to be, but when the women came back and told them that the tomb was empty, and no doubt told them what they now understood, that this was what Jesus was planning to do all along, that death could not contain Jesus, the men took it as nonsense. These poor grief-stricken women didn’t know what they were talking about, at least not in the eyes of the men. Even though they had seen Jesus raise people from the dead, they just could not wrap their minds around the idea that those miracles were pointing to something even greater. Jesus didn’t just get sucked back out of the clutches of death, only to die again someday as those he had raised did. This was something entirely new. He had resolutely made war with death and had now burst out on the other side. But Luke, the master craftsman, hasn’t etched all of those details in yet. His readers know something that the disciples don’t yet know.
He first builds the mounting tension even more as Peter races to the tomb to see what these “crazy” women were babbling on about. Perhaps he thought he could clear up their confusion. But when he got there, no body was to be found, only strips of the linen cloth that Jesus was wrapped in days earlier. What could have happened? Peter doesn’t have a revealing encounter with any angels, though. He doesn’t yet “remember” and understand. He is left to walk away even more confused than when he came. Where did Jesus go? What happened to his body? Luke has one more incredible pair of witnesses to tell us about before he will answer those questions.
Devotional Thought
When God does things or things happen spiritually that you don’t understand, what is your response? Do you get frustrated and give up for a while? Do you just ignore the issue and hope it will go away? Or do you remember back to Jesus’ words, those find in the pages of the Bible and search for understanding? If the Bible is not the sole arbiter of truth in your life, then what else is?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Luke 23:44-56 Commentary
The Death of Jesus
44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." [d] When he had said this, he breathed his last.
47 The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, "Surely this was a righteous man." 48 When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. 49 But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
The Burial of Jesus
50 Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, 51 who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. 52 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body. 53 Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. 54 It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.
55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
Dig Deeper
I’m mildly ashamed to admit this, but as much as I hate most of the shows that pass for programming on the history channel these days there is one show that I constantly wind up watching, no matter how much I don’t want to enjoy it. It’s sad to me that a channel, that purports to be about history, shows very few shows these days that cover actually important historical events and seems intent, instead, on having shows on aliens, Nostradamus, and the supposed end of the world. So as much as I don’t want to like the show “Monster Quest,” I keep finding myself watching it. “Monster Quest” is a show that details supposed sighting or infestations of everything from known animals like piranha and examine whether they are now in lakes in the United States to Yetis and other strange creatures. They will interview eyewitnesses and recreate the events that they claim to have seen.
Most of these “monsters” that people claim to have seen would be dismissed as nothing more than fantasy if it wasn’t for one thing. The cases that have eyewitnesses need to be at least considered. Time and again, while watching the show, you will hear an eyewitness say something like, “if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I just would not have believed it.” It’s hard to discount actual eyewitness evidence. In fact, as the show further investigates each case, most of the claims, especially of undocumented beasts like the Yeti, fall apart when the eyewitness evidence is really examined. The person is making up the story, or there is a perfectly logical explanation to what they saw, or they have misidentified a known animal, or they really didn’t see much at all but their imaginations have filled in the rest. Every now and then, though, there is a credible witness who has some expertise in the area, who got a good look at something, and is adamant that what they saw cannot be explained away easily. Those eyewitnesses are at least worth listening to.
From the very opening of this Gospel, Luke promised that he was going to give an ordered account that came directly from eyewitnesses that were keepers of the word. Everything that followed has fallen under that parameter but now Luke is arriving at the pinnacle of his account. This is what everything else has pointed to. It’s not the death of Christ as most modern Christians might suppose. That is certainly important for Luke but is by no means the most important thing. In fact, as he describes the crucifixion and death of Jesus, he is very careful to set up his account for what is to come. Everywhere we look, Luke is giving us eyewitnesses that would have been credible to a Roman audience and at least cause them to take pause and consider the evidence. He is setting everything up for the next chapter, the description of the incredible resurrection of Christ, and he is making sure that any reader would see that this is a credible event. There were no mistakes and this is not some fantasy cooked up by a small group of loyal Jewish followers of Jesus.
In the Old Testament, darkness was frequently associated with judgment (Joel 2:10; Amos 8:9; Zeph. 1:15). This would have been a frightening specter and one that would be difficult to explain away. It also served as a powerful witness to the death of one who was unique to God. Everyone that was in Jerusalem at the time would remember and be able to attest to the unexplained darkness that happened the moment Jesus died. They might be able to come up with logical explanations for the darkness but the timing would certainly seem miraculous. The judgment of God was being poured out on Israel’s representative and the hour of darkness had truly come (Lk. 22:53). Jerusalem could avoid a similar fate if they would but put their faith in the life of the Messiah and allow him to be their representative.
At the same time that the sun had stopped shining, the massive curtain in the Temple, likely that one that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple, was torn in two. Luke doesn’t attempt to speculate on the specific meaning of this event but only reports it. It is likely that the tearing of the Temple curtain indicated one of several things or possibly all of them. The first was that a time of judgment had now come upon the Temple. Israel would be given time to repent as individuals but the nation had been judged and the Temple would be destroyed. The second thing was that ripping of the curtain indicated that access to God had been bridged. Because of Jesus’ death, those in Christ really could now enter into the presence of the Holy God and be reconciled. The third element is alluded to in Ephesians 2:14 where Paul says that in Christ the dividing wall of hostility (the law) had been torn down so that the Jews and Gentiles could really become the one family of many nations that God had promised for so long. When the curtain was torn, so was the wall that had separated the people under the law.
As Jesus took his last breath, he quoted from Psalm 31:5, again identifying himself as the righteous sufferer. The Psalm is a cry of the righteous sufferer committing his spirit into the hands of the mighty God. It is the cry of one who has befallen hard times but trusts that God will exalt him, protect him, and show him to be in the right. Despite appearances, the Psalmist declares that the righteous sufferer has not been given into the hands of his enemy but has instead been entrusted to God’s care all along.
The righteous sufferer would be justified but quoting from a Psalm would mean little to a Roman reader. So what? Anyone could claim that ancient writing as their own. But, says Luke, consider the Roman centurion who was watching all of this. This influential and respected man of position praised God. This crucified man, said the centurion, was in the right, he was one who was innocent (what the TNIV renders “righteous”). This wasn’t some flighty Jewish witness. This wasn’t someone who would be swayed by the emotion of the moment or fooled because he was really hoping that this would be the Messiah. In the eyes of a Roman audience, this was a credible witness that could not be dismissed but Luke goes even further. Those who had gathered around to watch the spectacle but certainly didn’t oppose it or try to stop the proceedings, now shared in the feelings of the centurion. They beat their breasts, knowing that an innocent man had been put to death. Whatever happened that day, they knew that God was not pleased. The Roman witness was impressive, but a vast majority of the people corroborated his response. This man should not have been killed, but he had been and he was now dead.
As Jesus was taken off of the cross, Luke brings us another impressive witness, Joseph of Arimathea. This was no peasant. Joseph was an important member of the Council, one that would have been respected by both Jews and most Romans. He was known to follow the law and to be an upright and trustworthy man. He had not agreed with the council’s decision to put Jesus to death and now he was taking a great gamble. He hadn’t stepped forward before as a public follower of Jesus but he would now. He took the risk of going to Pilate and asking for the body of Jesus, something that was dangerous because it was common practice after a political rebel had been put to death to also get rid of his supporters. We should not miss the fact that Joseph’s actions were squarely outside of the normal cultural practices. Taking care of burial arrangements was not only the sole responsibility of the family of the deceased, it was one of the most solemn duties of a family member. Joseph was publicly stepping up and embracing Jesus’ teaching of creating a new surrogate family around himself by fulfilling the role of family in that society. By taking Jesus down and burying him, Joseph was loudly declaring that he was a part of Jesus’ family.
The burial process in Israel at the time was a two-part process that could take up to a year. The body would be prepared with spices and perfumes and then would be placed on a shelf inside a tomb for up to a year while the flesh decayed. The bones would then be taken and placed in a bone box called an ossuary and put up on another shelf in the tomb. Generally tombs were for an entire family and would contain many family members. But Luke is careful to point out that Joseph was a wealthy man with a new tomb. The tomb would be in a prominent place and it was empty. It wouldn’t have been in an area that was jammed in with a bunch of other low-grade tombs and there were no other bodies in that tomb. Luke is clearly laying out the importance of the witnesses for what is about to take place. Joseph was an impressive witness who had come out publicly and taken bold action. He could be sought out and questioned about what he had seen. On top of that, Luke has taken away many of the “logical explanations.” There was no getting the wrong tomb or looking in the wrong place.
In addition to all of this, Luke produces further witnesses. The women were standing to the side all along, watching all of these events. Granted, women weren’t impressive witnesses in the first century but Luke wasn’t making up a story here. He was presenting facts as they happened. He has carefully produced several impressive witnesses but he has also produced a horde of other witnesses to supplement the testimony. The women were waiting to prepare the body for burial but they could not properly complete the job because of the coming Sabbath. It seems most likely that, despite much Christian tradition that he died on Friday, Jesus died on a Thursday afternoon (which would put him in the tomb for the required three days and nights). Joseph was acting in accordance with Deuteronomy 21:22-23 which declared that a man killed in the fashion that Jesus had been must be buried on that same day, but they couldn’t complete the proper preparation of the body. The women could not handle the body during the special Passover Sabbath on Friday and the regular Sabbath on Saturday. They watched carefully, says Luke, where the body was laid. There would be no going to the wrong tomb when they returned on Sunday morning to finish the burial preparations.
It would be easy to miss Luke’s final point of witness with the women and other disciples but it’s important that we don’t. Their plan was to return on Sunday and finish the burial. Jesus was dead and gone in their minds. What that meant for his claims of being the Messiah they had no doubt not worked out yet. But the fact is clear. They were not expecting to find anything more on Sunday morning than a dead body badly in need of spices and perfume. They were not huddled together waiting expectantly for Jesus to rise from the tomb, an addition which we would expect to find if Luke was simply making up this story. No, they were expecting nothing of the kind. Their Messiah was dead and they would return home for the darkest days and nights of their life.
Devotional Thought
I find it fascinating that even while the women thought that Jesus was dead and had failed in his attempt to be Messiah and bring about the salvation that he had promised, they remained faithful to him and were prepared to honor him and care for his body. Yet, when we feel like God has let us down or not fulfilled our expectations, those are the moments that we are usually quickest to jump ship. Are you faithful to God even when things don’t seem to be going well? Do you honor Jesus in your life even when it seems to you that things have failed miserably? The faithful women, when they returned to Jesus would discover something amazing and so will we when we remain faithful despite difficult circumstances.
44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." [d] When he had said this, he breathed his last.
47 The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, "Surely this was a righteous man." 48 When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. 49 But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
The Burial of Jesus
50 Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, 51 who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. 52 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body. 53 Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. 54 It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.
55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
Dig Deeper
I’m mildly ashamed to admit this, but as much as I hate most of the shows that pass for programming on the history channel these days there is one show that I constantly wind up watching, no matter how much I don’t want to enjoy it. It’s sad to me that a channel, that purports to be about history, shows very few shows these days that cover actually important historical events and seems intent, instead, on having shows on aliens, Nostradamus, and the supposed end of the world. So as much as I don’t want to like the show “Monster Quest,” I keep finding myself watching it. “Monster Quest” is a show that details supposed sighting or infestations of everything from known animals like piranha and examine whether they are now in lakes in the United States to Yetis and other strange creatures. They will interview eyewitnesses and recreate the events that they claim to have seen.
Most of these “monsters” that people claim to have seen would be dismissed as nothing more than fantasy if it wasn’t for one thing. The cases that have eyewitnesses need to be at least considered. Time and again, while watching the show, you will hear an eyewitness say something like, “if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I just would not have believed it.” It’s hard to discount actual eyewitness evidence. In fact, as the show further investigates each case, most of the claims, especially of undocumented beasts like the Yeti, fall apart when the eyewitness evidence is really examined. The person is making up the story, or there is a perfectly logical explanation to what they saw, or they have misidentified a known animal, or they really didn’t see much at all but their imaginations have filled in the rest. Every now and then, though, there is a credible witness who has some expertise in the area, who got a good look at something, and is adamant that what they saw cannot be explained away easily. Those eyewitnesses are at least worth listening to.
From the very opening of this Gospel, Luke promised that he was going to give an ordered account that came directly from eyewitnesses that were keepers of the word. Everything that followed has fallen under that parameter but now Luke is arriving at the pinnacle of his account. This is what everything else has pointed to. It’s not the death of Christ as most modern Christians might suppose. That is certainly important for Luke but is by no means the most important thing. In fact, as he describes the crucifixion and death of Jesus, he is very careful to set up his account for what is to come. Everywhere we look, Luke is giving us eyewitnesses that would have been credible to a Roman audience and at least cause them to take pause and consider the evidence. He is setting everything up for the next chapter, the description of the incredible resurrection of Christ, and he is making sure that any reader would see that this is a credible event. There were no mistakes and this is not some fantasy cooked up by a small group of loyal Jewish followers of Jesus.
In the Old Testament, darkness was frequently associated with judgment (Joel 2:10; Amos 8:9; Zeph. 1:15). This would have been a frightening specter and one that would be difficult to explain away. It also served as a powerful witness to the death of one who was unique to God. Everyone that was in Jerusalem at the time would remember and be able to attest to the unexplained darkness that happened the moment Jesus died. They might be able to come up with logical explanations for the darkness but the timing would certainly seem miraculous. The judgment of God was being poured out on Israel’s representative and the hour of darkness had truly come (Lk. 22:53). Jerusalem could avoid a similar fate if they would but put their faith in the life of the Messiah and allow him to be their representative.
At the same time that the sun had stopped shining, the massive curtain in the Temple, likely that one that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple, was torn in two. Luke doesn’t attempt to speculate on the specific meaning of this event but only reports it. It is likely that the tearing of the Temple curtain indicated one of several things or possibly all of them. The first was that a time of judgment had now come upon the Temple. Israel would be given time to repent as individuals but the nation had been judged and the Temple would be destroyed. The second thing was that ripping of the curtain indicated that access to God had been bridged. Because of Jesus’ death, those in Christ really could now enter into the presence of the Holy God and be reconciled. The third element is alluded to in Ephesians 2:14 where Paul says that in Christ the dividing wall of hostility (the law) had been torn down so that the Jews and Gentiles could really become the one family of many nations that God had promised for so long. When the curtain was torn, so was the wall that had separated the people under the law.
As Jesus took his last breath, he quoted from Psalm 31:5, again identifying himself as the righteous sufferer. The Psalm is a cry of the righteous sufferer committing his spirit into the hands of the mighty God. It is the cry of one who has befallen hard times but trusts that God will exalt him, protect him, and show him to be in the right. Despite appearances, the Psalmist declares that the righteous sufferer has not been given into the hands of his enemy but has instead been entrusted to God’s care all along.
The righteous sufferer would be justified but quoting from a Psalm would mean little to a Roman reader. So what? Anyone could claim that ancient writing as their own. But, says Luke, consider the Roman centurion who was watching all of this. This influential and respected man of position praised God. This crucified man, said the centurion, was in the right, he was one who was innocent (what the TNIV renders “righteous”). This wasn’t some flighty Jewish witness. This wasn’t someone who would be swayed by the emotion of the moment or fooled because he was really hoping that this would be the Messiah. In the eyes of a Roman audience, this was a credible witness that could not be dismissed but Luke goes even further. Those who had gathered around to watch the spectacle but certainly didn’t oppose it or try to stop the proceedings, now shared in the feelings of the centurion. They beat their breasts, knowing that an innocent man had been put to death. Whatever happened that day, they knew that God was not pleased. The Roman witness was impressive, but a vast majority of the people corroborated his response. This man should not have been killed, but he had been and he was now dead.
As Jesus was taken off of the cross, Luke brings us another impressive witness, Joseph of Arimathea. This was no peasant. Joseph was an important member of the Council, one that would have been respected by both Jews and most Romans. He was known to follow the law and to be an upright and trustworthy man. He had not agreed with the council’s decision to put Jesus to death and now he was taking a great gamble. He hadn’t stepped forward before as a public follower of Jesus but he would now. He took the risk of going to Pilate and asking for the body of Jesus, something that was dangerous because it was common practice after a political rebel had been put to death to also get rid of his supporters. We should not miss the fact that Joseph’s actions were squarely outside of the normal cultural practices. Taking care of burial arrangements was not only the sole responsibility of the family of the deceased, it was one of the most solemn duties of a family member. Joseph was publicly stepping up and embracing Jesus’ teaching of creating a new surrogate family around himself by fulfilling the role of family in that society. By taking Jesus down and burying him, Joseph was loudly declaring that he was a part of Jesus’ family.
The burial process in Israel at the time was a two-part process that could take up to a year. The body would be prepared with spices and perfumes and then would be placed on a shelf inside a tomb for up to a year while the flesh decayed. The bones would then be taken and placed in a bone box called an ossuary and put up on another shelf in the tomb. Generally tombs were for an entire family and would contain many family members. But Luke is careful to point out that Joseph was a wealthy man with a new tomb. The tomb would be in a prominent place and it was empty. It wouldn’t have been in an area that was jammed in with a bunch of other low-grade tombs and there were no other bodies in that tomb. Luke is clearly laying out the importance of the witnesses for what is about to take place. Joseph was an impressive witness who had come out publicly and taken bold action. He could be sought out and questioned about what he had seen. On top of that, Luke has taken away many of the “logical explanations.” There was no getting the wrong tomb or looking in the wrong place.
In addition to all of this, Luke produces further witnesses. The women were standing to the side all along, watching all of these events. Granted, women weren’t impressive witnesses in the first century but Luke wasn’t making up a story here. He was presenting facts as they happened. He has carefully produced several impressive witnesses but he has also produced a horde of other witnesses to supplement the testimony. The women were waiting to prepare the body for burial but they could not properly complete the job because of the coming Sabbath. It seems most likely that, despite much Christian tradition that he died on Friday, Jesus died on a Thursday afternoon (which would put him in the tomb for the required three days and nights). Joseph was acting in accordance with Deuteronomy 21:22-23 which declared that a man killed in the fashion that Jesus had been must be buried on that same day, but they couldn’t complete the proper preparation of the body. The women could not handle the body during the special Passover Sabbath on Friday and the regular Sabbath on Saturday. They watched carefully, says Luke, where the body was laid. There would be no going to the wrong tomb when they returned on Sunday morning to finish the burial preparations.
It would be easy to miss Luke’s final point of witness with the women and other disciples but it’s important that we don’t. Their plan was to return on Sunday and finish the burial. Jesus was dead and gone in their minds. What that meant for his claims of being the Messiah they had no doubt not worked out yet. But the fact is clear. They were not expecting to find anything more on Sunday morning than a dead body badly in need of spices and perfume. They were not huddled together waiting expectantly for Jesus to rise from the tomb, an addition which we would expect to find if Luke was simply making up this story. No, they were expecting nothing of the kind. Their Messiah was dead and they would return home for the darkest days and nights of their life.
Devotional Thought
I find it fascinating that even while the women thought that Jesus was dead and had failed in his attempt to be Messiah and bring about the salvation that he had promised, they remained faithful to him and were prepared to honor him and care for his body. Yet, when we feel like God has let us down or not fulfilled our expectations, those are the moments that we are usually quickest to jump ship. Are you faithful to God even when things don’t seem to be going well? Do you honor Jesus in your life even when it seems to you that things have failed miserably? The faithful women, when they returned to Jesus would discover something amazing and so will we when we remain faithful despite difficult circumstances.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Luke 23: 27-43 Commentary
27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, 'Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!' 30 Then
" 'they will say to the mountains, "Fall on us!"
and to the hills, "Cover us!" ' [a]
31 For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?"
32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." [b] And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is God's Messiah, the Chosen One."
36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself."
38 There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!"
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong."
42 Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. [c]"
43 Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
Dig Deeper
This morning as we were busying around the house doing things, I reminded my youngest son that he needed to get his chores done for the day before he went outside to play. Some days he does a great job with getting right on his chores and getting them done while on other days it seems more like pulling teeth to get him to do them. This morning was one of those days where he didn’t necessarily feel like getting his chores done and he hadn’t yet done them by mid-morning. So I sternly reminded him that he needed to start right then with feeding the dog. He walked over to the dog’s dish, moped for a second about the fact that he didn’t necessarily embrace the idea of doing a chore right then and there and then he started to walk the other way towards the kitchen. I watched him a bit incredulously as he moved his stepping stool over to the cabinet with the cups, making all the telltale moves of a little boy who was going to get himself a drink first. I waited until he got himself up on the counter and started to grab a cup, thus completely incriminating himself, and then told him that he had a spank coming for not obeying me and feeding the dog first. We marched into the bedroom and I calmly explained to him how important it was for him to obey on the first time and then doled out a very minor and quick spanking. Only then did he say “Dad, can I tell you something?” I told him that he could and he proceeded to explain that he was getting a cup so that he could fill the dog’s water up and then was going to fill his food dish. I apologized to him for misreading the situation and he handled it rather well. I then joked with him that if that’s what he got when he was obeying, he’d better really think about that before he thought of disobeying. He laughed a little and we went on and finished the morning.
What is so amazing to me as I read Luke’s account of Jesus’ death is how constantly and consistently Jesus acted with others in mind. Here he was being led to his own death but we see him worrying about the condition and repentance of those very people who were putting him to death. I cannot even imagine what it takes to think about and put the interests of others ahead of my own all the while those very same people are trying to kill me. They were putting to death the most innocent man who had ever lived. And yet Jesus showed no bitterness or anger but only remorse for the people of Jerusalem. If only they would repent. In fact, that is one thing that he really wanted them to deeply consider. He had tried to warn them about going the way of national rebellion against Rome and the idea that God’s Messiah, when he came, would lead them in a glorious victory over Israel’s enemies. He had urged the nation to go the way of peace and embrace God’s kingdom, his new family that was being formed around the Messiah. They were instead bent on rejecting Jesus and turning him over to those very Romans to do his bidding. But this is where Jesus wanted them to stop and think. If this crucifixion was the sort of things that Romans would do to someone they knew quite well was innocent (Pilate had declared Jesus to be innocent twice and Herod once), then the people that were rejecting Jesus and heading into an eventual conflict with Rome had better think long and hard about what Rome might do to those who actually were guilty of trying to bring violence and rebellion to the doorstep of the Roman Empire.
As Jesus is led off to his death Luke doesn’t tell us whether the large number of mourning women were followers and sympathizers or professional mourners who were a common sight in Jerusalem. It may have been a combination of both but the important detail is that rather than focusing on his own situation, Jesus takes one last chance to think of and plead with the people of Jerusalem through a warning. “Daughters of Jerusalem” was a common generic phrase that simply referred to the people of Jerusalem, so Jesus’ emotional request is that they not think of or weep for him. No one is taking his life from him; he has laid it down. Jesus will march off to his own death willingly but they need not cry for him. He is doing God’s will. They needed to stop and consider their own situation and the ramifications of their disastrous decisions.
Normally, having children was considered to be a sign of God’s blessing, but the times that were ahead for the people of Jerusalem that continued to march down the path of rejection of God’s Messiah were so bleak and horrendous that when the time of God’s judgment came (a judgment that would come through the fierce armies of Rome in 70 AD) everything would be turned on its head. The people of Jerusalem would be so terrorized that they would declare a blessing on those that had never had children. In other words, things would be so terrible that it would be better to have never been born. Jewish historian Josephus’ account of the plundering of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD certainly bear that out. Things got so bad inside Jerusalem during the siege by the Roman army that there were accounts of Jewish people robbing and killing one another for food scraps, eating leather shoes for lack of food, and even mothers cooking their own infants. Certainly the way of rejecting God’s path of peace and his new family centered around the Messiah would be catastrophic for the people of Jerusalem.
To make his point clear, Jesus quoted from Hosea 10:8 in verse 30. The Hosea passage comes from a warning of the trouble that will come on God’s people for rejecting him and turning to the worship of idols. They would be so devastated that they would cry out for the quick death of having mountains and hills falling on them and covering over them. This is what it will be like, Jesus said, for the people of Jerusalem if they didn’t turn away from their current path. The proverb in verse 31 drives his tragic point home. He was being marched to a cruel and shameful death. If this is how Rome was treating the Messiah, the green tree, who repeatedly renounced the way of violence, then it was terrible to even imagine what they would do when the violent zealots had their way and actually tried to oppose Rome.
As Jesus arrives at the spot of his crucifixion, we are told that the place was called the Skull, which was Golgotha in Aramaic and Calvaria in Latin. But everywhere we look in this scene we find evidence of those who had rejected Jesus engaging in the act of mocking him. They mocked him by calling on him to save himself. If he could supposedly save the whole world and invite them into the Father’s family then why couldn’t he save himself from a cruel Roman death? They mocked him by giving him the drink of insult (see Ps. 69:21). They even mocked him by writing a notice above the cross that he was the king of the Jews. But at every turn, they failed to realize the deeper truth behind each one of their cruel acts of mockery. They mocked him for his lack of being able to save himself, but missed the fact that he was bringing salvation to the world precisely by not saving himself. They mocked him with the drink of insult but failed to see that he was willingly drinking from the cup of the Father’s wrath so that they did not have to. They mocked him with the placard that he was king of the Jews, but completely missed the truth that he was far more than that. He was the noble king and creator of the world, hanging on a cross to take a punishment that rightfully belongs to all of us. Yet, all the while they mocked him, he prayed to the Father for forgiveness for them. He was still more concerned with their interests than his own. It was too late for the nation of Israel as a whole, but there was still the offer of forgiveness for those that would repent and come to trust in the Messiah.
As Jesus was finally nailed through his hands (likely just under the bend of the wrist) and hoisted up on the vertical beam of the cross, he had found his final place among the unrighteous transgressors (Lk. 22:37). He was placed in the midst of men who really were sinners and really did deserve the kind of violent death that Jesus was receiving. Luke gives us the detail that one of the rebels (they likely were involved in some type of insurrection against Roman authority) joined in with everyone else who was mocking Jesus. To his side, one of the rebels rejected and mocked Jesus and called on him to save them as well as himself. But Luke here pictures Jesus as the perfect bridge between the unrighteous and the righteous, for on his other side was another criminal, that apparently initially mocked him but had come to accept Jesus’ claims as king. What changed his mind or why he accepted Jesus as such we simply don’t know. But he was an answer to Jesus’ prayer. He had repented and the Father would forgive him.
In fact, not only did this man repent, he rebuked the other rebel on three accounts. First, he had failed to fear God and mocked his very instrument of salvation. Second, he made the assumption that Jesus was guilty of the things that he was charged with, even though he was infinitely innocent. Finally, He failed to see that Jesus would be delivered through death not from it. This is how he would come into his kingdom. The faith of the man hanging on the cross next to Jesus is remarkable in the sense that he somehow came to recognize that Jesus was the true Messianic king all the while hanging on a Roman cross. This man perceptively knew that Jesus would come into his kingdom through his death. Jesus’ promise to the man who had faith was no minor promise. He would be with Jesus in paradise, the pre-resurrection-of-Christ abode where the righteous went to await the great day of resurrection and the age to come. This man had found salvation as the last person described in the Bible to do so under the Old Covenant. Jesus would soon walk into death but walk out through the other side making it possible for all who would have faith in his life to be baptized (Acts 2:38) into his death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6:1-10) for salvation.
There is one other important element that runs throughout this narrative that we should not miss. Luke repeatedly reports Jesus’ connections with the Psalms. Jesus clearly identified himself with the righteous sufferer described throughout the Psalms, particularly Psalm 22. The soldiers at the foot of the cross divided up Jesus’ belongings by casting lots is a fulfillment of and allusion to Psalm 22, an entire chapter that details the plight of the righteous sufferer. Meanwhile as Jesus suffered, the people watched and the leaders sneered (v. 35), says Luke, using the same verbs from Psalm 22:7. Luke was not the only Gospel writer to tie together words of Jesus on the cross with the Psalm of the righteous sufferer (see Matt. 27:46; Mk. 15:34 and compare with Ps. 22:1). The picture is complete, though, Jesus was was the fulfillment of the righteous sufferer who would sacrifice himself for the benefit of others.
Devotional Thought
Are you willing to sacrifice for others? Before you answer that, consider that we are called to be like Jesus the righteous sufferer who sacrificed his own life not just for those that loved him but for those who were his enemies. Are you willing to lay down your life and sacrifice for those who don’t love you, for those that mistreat you, for those that have never done anything for you? This is the true test of whether or not we are truly people who will lay down their lives for others. This is what we have been called to be.
" 'they will say to the mountains, "Fall on us!"
and to the hills, "Cover us!" ' [a]
31 For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?"
32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." [b] And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is God's Messiah, the Chosen One."
36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself."
38 There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!"
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong."
42 Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. [c]"
43 Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
Dig Deeper
This morning as we were busying around the house doing things, I reminded my youngest son that he needed to get his chores done for the day before he went outside to play. Some days he does a great job with getting right on his chores and getting them done while on other days it seems more like pulling teeth to get him to do them. This morning was one of those days where he didn’t necessarily feel like getting his chores done and he hadn’t yet done them by mid-morning. So I sternly reminded him that he needed to start right then with feeding the dog. He walked over to the dog’s dish, moped for a second about the fact that he didn’t necessarily embrace the idea of doing a chore right then and there and then he started to walk the other way towards the kitchen. I watched him a bit incredulously as he moved his stepping stool over to the cabinet with the cups, making all the telltale moves of a little boy who was going to get himself a drink first. I waited until he got himself up on the counter and started to grab a cup, thus completely incriminating himself, and then told him that he had a spank coming for not obeying me and feeding the dog first. We marched into the bedroom and I calmly explained to him how important it was for him to obey on the first time and then doled out a very minor and quick spanking. Only then did he say “Dad, can I tell you something?” I told him that he could and he proceeded to explain that he was getting a cup so that he could fill the dog’s water up and then was going to fill his food dish. I apologized to him for misreading the situation and he handled it rather well. I then joked with him that if that’s what he got when he was obeying, he’d better really think about that before he thought of disobeying. He laughed a little and we went on and finished the morning.
What is so amazing to me as I read Luke’s account of Jesus’ death is how constantly and consistently Jesus acted with others in mind. Here he was being led to his own death but we see him worrying about the condition and repentance of those very people who were putting him to death. I cannot even imagine what it takes to think about and put the interests of others ahead of my own all the while those very same people are trying to kill me. They were putting to death the most innocent man who had ever lived. And yet Jesus showed no bitterness or anger but only remorse for the people of Jerusalem. If only they would repent. In fact, that is one thing that he really wanted them to deeply consider. He had tried to warn them about going the way of national rebellion against Rome and the idea that God’s Messiah, when he came, would lead them in a glorious victory over Israel’s enemies. He had urged the nation to go the way of peace and embrace God’s kingdom, his new family that was being formed around the Messiah. They were instead bent on rejecting Jesus and turning him over to those very Romans to do his bidding. But this is where Jesus wanted them to stop and think. If this crucifixion was the sort of things that Romans would do to someone they knew quite well was innocent (Pilate had declared Jesus to be innocent twice and Herod once), then the people that were rejecting Jesus and heading into an eventual conflict with Rome had better think long and hard about what Rome might do to those who actually were guilty of trying to bring violence and rebellion to the doorstep of the Roman Empire.
As Jesus is led off to his death Luke doesn’t tell us whether the large number of mourning women were followers and sympathizers or professional mourners who were a common sight in Jerusalem. It may have been a combination of both but the important detail is that rather than focusing on his own situation, Jesus takes one last chance to think of and plead with the people of Jerusalem through a warning. “Daughters of Jerusalem” was a common generic phrase that simply referred to the people of Jerusalem, so Jesus’ emotional request is that they not think of or weep for him. No one is taking his life from him; he has laid it down. Jesus will march off to his own death willingly but they need not cry for him. He is doing God’s will. They needed to stop and consider their own situation and the ramifications of their disastrous decisions.
Normally, having children was considered to be a sign of God’s blessing, but the times that were ahead for the people of Jerusalem that continued to march down the path of rejection of God’s Messiah were so bleak and horrendous that when the time of God’s judgment came (a judgment that would come through the fierce armies of Rome in 70 AD) everything would be turned on its head. The people of Jerusalem would be so terrorized that they would declare a blessing on those that had never had children. In other words, things would be so terrible that it would be better to have never been born. Jewish historian Josephus’ account of the plundering of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD certainly bear that out. Things got so bad inside Jerusalem during the siege by the Roman army that there were accounts of Jewish people robbing and killing one another for food scraps, eating leather shoes for lack of food, and even mothers cooking their own infants. Certainly the way of rejecting God’s path of peace and his new family centered around the Messiah would be catastrophic for the people of Jerusalem.
To make his point clear, Jesus quoted from Hosea 10:8 in verse 30. The Hosea passage comes from a warning of the trouble that will come on God’s people for rejecting him and turning to the worship of idols. They would be so devastated that they would cry out for the quick death of having mountains and hills falling on them and covering over them. This is what it will be like, Jesus said, for the people of Jerusalem if they didn’t turn away from their current path. The proverb in verse 31 drives his tragic point home. He was being marched to a cruel and shameful death. If this is how Rome was treating the Messiah, the green tree, who repeatedly renounced the way of violence, then it was terrible to even imagine what they would do when the violent zealots had their way and actually tried to oppose Rome.
As Jesus arrives at the spot of his crucifixion, we are told that the place was called the Skull, which was Golgotha in Aramaic and Calvaria in Latin. But everywhere we look in this scene we find evidence of those who had rejected Jesus engaging in the act of mocking him. They mocked him by calling on him to save himself. If he could supposedly save the whole world and invite them into the Father’s family then why couldn’t he save himself from a cruel Roman death? They mocked him by giving him the drink of insult (see Ps. 69:21). They even mocked him by writing a notice above the cross that he was the king of the Jews. But at every turn, they failed to realize the deeper truth behind each one of their cruel acts of mockery. They mocked him for his lack of being able to save himself, but missed the fact that he was bringing salvation to the world precisely by not saving himself. They mocked him with the drink of insult but failed to see that he was willingly drinking from the cup of the Father’s wrath so that they did not have to. They mocked him with the placard that he was king of the Jews, but completely missed the truth that he was far more than that. He was the noble king and creator of the world, hanging on a cross to take a punishment that rightfully belongs to all of us. Yet, all the while they mocked him, he prayed to the Father for forgiveness for them. He was still more concerned with their interests than his own. It was too late for the nation of Israel as a whole, but there was still the offer of forgiveness for those that would repent and come to trust in the Messiah.
As Jesus was finally nailed through his hands (likely just under the bend of the wrist) and hoisted up on the vertical beam of the cross, he had found his final place among the unrighteous transgressors (Lk. 22:37). He was placed in the midst of men who really were sinners and really did deserve the kind of violent death that Jesus was receiving. Luke gives us the detail that one of the rebels (they likely were involved in some type of insurrection against Roman authority) joined in with everyone else who was mocking Jesus. To his side, one of the rebels rejected and mocked Jesus and called on him to save them as well as himself. But Luke here pictures Jesus as the perfect bridge between the unrighteous and the righteous, for on his other side was another criminal, that apparently initially mocked him but had come to accept Jesus’ claims as king. What changed his mind or why he accepted Jesus as such we simply don’t know. But he was an answer to Jesus’ prayer. He had repented and the Father would forgive him.
In fact, not only did this man repent, he rebuked the other rebel on three accounts. First, he had failed to fear God and mocked his very instrument of salvation. Second, he made the assumption that Jesus was guilty of the things that he was charged with, even though he was infinitely innocent. Finally, He failed to see that Jesus would be delivered through death not from it. This is how he would come into his kingdom. The faith of the man hanging on the cross next to Jesus is remarkable in the sense that he somehow came to recognize that Jesus was the true Messianic king all the while hanging on a Roman cross. This man perceptively knew that Jesus would come into his kingdom through his death. Jesus’ promise to the man who had faith was no minor promise. He would be with Jesus in paradise, the pre-resurrection-of-Christ abode where the righteous went to await the great day of resurrection and the age to come. This man had found salvation as the last person described in the Bible to do so under the Old Covenant. Jesus would soon walk into death but walk out through the other side making it possible for all who would have faith in his life to be baptized (Acts 2:38) into his death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6:1-10) for salvation.
There is one other important element that runs throughout this narrative that we should not miss. Luke repeatedly reports Jesus’ connections with the Psalms. Jesus clearly identified himself with the righteous sufferer described throughout the Psalms, particularly Psalm 22. The soldiers at the foot of the cross divided up Jesus’ belongings by casting lots is a fulfillment of and allusion to Psalm 22, an entire chapter that details the plight of the righteous sufferer. Meanwhile as Jesus suffered, the people watched and the leaders sneered (v. 35), says Luke, using the same verbs from Psalm 22:7. Luke was not the only Gospel writer to tie together words of Jesus on the cross with the Psalm of the righteous sufferer (see Matt. 27:46; Mk. 15:34 and compare with Ps. 22:1). The picture is complete, though, Jesus was was the fulfillment of the righteous sufferer who would sacrifice himself for the benefit of others.
Devotional Thought
Are you willing to sacrifice for others? Before you answer that, consider that we are called to be like Jesus the righteous sufferer who sacrificed his own life not just for those that loved him but for those who were his enemies. Are you willing to lay down your life and sacrifice for those who don’t love you, for those that mistreat you, for those that have never done anything for you? This is the true test of whether or not we are truly people who will lay down their lives for others. This is what we have been called to be.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Luke 23:13-26 Commentary
13Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers and the people, 14and said to them, "You brought me this man as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against him. 15Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us; as you can see, he has done nothing to deserve death. 16Therefore, I will punish him and then release him."[c]
18With one voice they cried out, "Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!" 19(Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.)
20Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. 21But they kept shouting, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"
22For the third time he spoke to them: "Why? What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty. Therefore I will have him punished and then release him."
23But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed. 24So Pilate decided to grant their demand. 25He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, the one they asked for, and surrendered Jesus to their will.
26 As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.
Dig Deeper
A few months back we went to an amazing exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum which was dedicated to the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of ancient writings of the Qumran community that laid silent and undiscovered for nearly two thousand years until they were accidentally stumbled upon by some goat herders in the early 1950’s. The amazing thing about the Scrolls is that we still know very little about the people that wrote them and there is much dispute and debate as to who was even responsible for writing them. The exhibit was full of mysteries and people that have been lost to history. They are little more than nameless and faceless ghosts who have gone the way of the vast majority of human beings following their death. We live for a short while and then fade away, lost into history.
But as we came around one of the corners in the exhibit I saw something that would have been easy to pass by without paying it much mind. In fact, most people that day were streaming by this small, rather plain box under a glass case in the corner of the exhibit. It was a small ossuary, a bone box, with an inscription on it which read, “Alexander, the son of Simon of Cyrene.” I was simply stunned and overcome with awe. Here I was, standing before the bone box of the son of Simon of Cyrene. He was the young boy that was present when his father was suddenly thrust into the middle of the most important event in the history of the world (see Mk. 15:21). Many historians agree that Simon’s sons are mentioned by name in Mark’s Gospel because they had later both become Christians and so the mention of their names was a way to identify them as eyewitnesses. As I looked at that box, though, I was struck with two things. The first was that I was standing so close to history. Here I was right next to the bone box of someone who was present when Jesus was being led to the Cross. The second thing that struck me was that I even knew who Simon of Cyrene was. Despite the long, cruel march of history as it quietly erases the names and memories of billions of people, here in this passage we have two rather unimportant men in the annals of history whose names and memories will never be forgotten. Their lives merely intersected with Jesus’ life for a moment and they will, in some respects, live forever. It surely is a fitting reminder and picture of what happens to those who lives are connected with the death and life of Christ; they will inherit the eternal life of the age to come.
As we read through the account of the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, we have to begin to wonder how many times someone can be found innocent of the charges against him before he is released. Pilate already found no basis for any death penalty to be brought against Jesus and sent him to Herod who found Jesus to be disappointing and worthy of being mocked, but not someone worthy of his attention or of even being put to death. As Jesus was brought back to Pilate again, Pilate seems to sense somehow that this man was no danger. Jesus was not the kind of wild-eyed revolutionary that was a danger to Rome, yet there was such a pressure on him from the chief priests and those loyal to them, that Pilate was hesitant to let people go. He cared, in the end, more about his own political position than he did in finding any sense of justice for Jesus. He would have preferred to let Jesus go, but there were bigger and stranger forces at work here. A man who had been found innocent three separate times would still not go free. He deserved freedom, but that was not his vocation according to God’s will.
Pilate’s somewhat cowardly and compromising solution would be to severely flog Jesus with the metal-tipped leather flogs used by the Romans. He would exact some blood from this innocent man and be done with it. Surely he thought that would appease everyone and he wouldn’t have to put to death this man in whom he clearly must have saw something that stirred him in his soul to know that he was much more than an expendable human being who could be put to death without a second thought.
The crowd was determined to have more than just a little blood in punishment. They wanted Jesus completely out of the picture. It was such a stark contrast to warm and kingly reception that was given to Jesus a week earlier when he arrived in Jerusalem that it has led some to propose that this crowd was a smaller mob that consisted more of those loyal to the chief priests and teachers of the law, while the crowd that greeted Jesus and welcomed him into Jerusalem consisted more of the common people. Luke, nor any of the other Gospel writers, give any clear indication of this, though. That is a plausible explanation that explains some things but it is still likely that to one degree or another, the fickle nature of crowds had been turned from being caught up in the hype of Jesus’ arrival to being part of the frenzy to kill him as a false prophet.
The religious leaders were so desperate to have Jesus killed that they reacted quickly to Pilate’s suggestion of punishing him severely and then letting him go. They immediately appealed to a tradition that is little attested to outside of the Gospel accounts. Evidently the Roman governors, or at least Pilate, had taken to letting one prisoner go free as a small token of peace during the Jewish people’s most important holiday, Passover. Letting Jesus go was simply unacceptable. Rather than have that happen, they would prefer to let the revolutionary Barabbas go. This man was involved in an insurrection of some kind and had taken a life. He was involved in the very kind of violence that they were trying to charge Jesus with. The crowds chanted for the release of Barabbas, and as they whipped themselves further into a frenzy of hate and bloodlust, they began to accost Pilate with cries of crucifying Jesus. Crucifixion was the most shameful and dehumanizing death that Rome had to offer. It was illegal to crucify Roman citizens and was a punishment that was generally reserved for traitors and rebels. This is what they wanted for Jesus.
It is a fascinating detail that Barabbas’ name literally means “son of a father.” He was a nobody; he would have been long ago forgotten and lost to history if he had not had his life forever connected to Jesus. He was just the son of a father. He could have been anyone of us. Barabbas was guilty of rebellion and murder, no one seemed to deny that. He deserved death on a cross. And yet the crowds wanted Jesus, who was charged with the types of crimes that Barabbas had committed, but was completely innocent, to die the death of shame on the cross. Don’t miss the significance of the fact that Jesus was going to the cross to die the death and take the punishment that rightly belonged to this son of a father. Barabbas would be the first, but certainly not the last, to have Jesus take the punishment that was rightly his. He could be us, for certainly we are the sons (or daughters) of a man and worthy of death, only to see Jesus step into our place and bear our iniquities upon himself (Isa. 53:4). Jesus had said that he would be numbered among the transgressors (Lk. 22:37) and now he was surely suffering the fate that should have belonged to the man who was being set free. Barabbas was gaining life and freedom, despite his lack of deserving any such thing, because Jesus would die in his place. We find that when we respond to Jesus in faith and enter into his life at baptism (Rom. 6:1-10), that he has died in our place as well.
Luke has already given us so many scenes in which Jesus was found in the company of tax-collectors, outcasts, and sinners. He has been seen with sinners. He has allowed sinners into his presence and enjoyed table fellowship with them. He has let sinners anoint his feet and has even entered into the home of sinners but now he will do precisely what Isaiah had predicted so long ago in Isaiah 53. “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth” (v. 9). He would die the death of a sinner, a violent insurrectionist.
Pilate well knew that Jesus deserved no such death. He had the power in his hands to let Jesus go, but he valued his own tenuous political position more than doing what was right. He had stared truth in the face and blinked. Jesus followed God’s will and marched obediently towards his own death. He would lose his life, but in the end he would save it (Lk. 9:24). Pilate, on the other hand, would do the will of the religious leaders rather than God (v. 25). He would seek to save his own life, but in the end, he would lose it (Lk. 9:24).
As Pilate sent Jesus to his death, Luke tells us that Simon of Cyrene was plucked from the crowd. Normally a prisoner that was being led to his own death would carry the cross beam that would be placed on the pole to form the cross on which he would die. Luke doesn’t tell us exactly why Jesus needed Simon’s help to carry the cross, but it doesn’t take much imagination to conclude that the exhaustion from praying in the garden, going without sleep, a particularly savage beating, and a barbaric whipping all combined to leave Jesus weakened. Just as Barabbas was a picture of what Jesus would do for us, so is Simon a picture. Jesus had told his disciples that “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9:23) and that we could not be his disciple without following behind him with our cross (Lk. 14:27). This is precisely what Simon would do. He would pick up the cross and follow Jesus and serve as a picture example of what we are called to do as we reverently and obediently lay down our lives, pick up the cross, and march behind Jesus to our own deaths, to the only place where we will truly find life.
There is no way that Simon or Barabbas woke up that day knowing what would happen to them. They could hardly have imagined that they would be caught up in events that would lead to their names being forever memorialized in the annals of history. Their names will never be forgotten and their stories will never fade away. Our names may never be remembered like theirs have been, but when we embrace the fact that the man of peace died a violent death in our place and that we may truly follow him, carrying our cross, we find that we can become part of the ongoing story of God’s people and his kingdom in ways that will continue to ripple on throughout history and that it will matter in ways that we can never imagine.
Devotional Thought
Carrying your cross in those days meant that you were completely losing control over your own life and marching to your death. Are you truly living a life that could be characterized by following behind Jesus while carrying your cross? Have you given total control of every area of your life to God’s will? Take a sober look at your own life. Does it look more like the picture that Luke has given us of Pilate, who bowed to the will of the religious leaders rather than God, or more like Simon who followed behind Jesus carrying his cross?
18With one voice they cried out, "Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!" 19(Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.)
20Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. 21But they kept shouting, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"
22For the third time he spoke to them: "Why? What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty. Therefore I will have him punished and then release him."
23But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed. 24So Pilate decided to grant their demand. 25He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, the one they asked for, and surrendered Jesus to their will.
26 As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.
Dig Deeper
A few months back we went to an amazing exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum which was dedicated to the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of ancient writings of the Qumran community that laid silent and undiscovered for nearly two thousand years until they were accidentally stumbled upon by some goat herders in the early 1950’s. The amazing thing about the Scrolls is that we still know very little about the people that wrote them and there is much dispute and debate as to who was even responsible for writing them. The exhibit was full of mysteries and people that have been lost to history. They are little more than nameless and faceless ghosts who have gone the way of the vast majority of human beings following their death. We live for a short while and then fade away, lost into history.
But as we came around one of the corners in the exhibit I saw something that would have been easy to pass by without paying it much mind. In fact, most people that day were streaming by this small, rather plain box under a glass case in the corner of the exhibit. It was a small ossuary, a bone box, with an inscription on it which read, “Alexander, the son of Simon of Cyrene.” I was simply stunned and overcome with awe. Here I was, standing before the bone box of the son of Simon of Cyrene. He was the young boy that was present when his father was suddenly thrust into the middle of the most important event in the history of the world (see Mk. 15:21). Many historians agree that Simon’s sons are mentioned by name in Mark’s Gospel because they had later both become Christians and so the mention of their names was a way to identify them as eyewitnesses. As I looked at that box, though, I was struck with two things. The first was that I was standing so close to history. Here I was right next to the bone box of someone who was present when Jesus was being led to the Cross. The second thing that struck me was that I even knew who Simon of Cyrene was. Despite the long, cruel march of history as it quietly erases the names and memories of billions of people, here in this passage we have two rather unimportant men in the annals of history whose names and memories will never be forgotten. Their lives merely intersected with Jesus’ life for a moment and they will, in some respects, live forever. It surely is a fitting reminder and picture of what happens to those who lives are connected with the death and life of Christ; they will inherit the eternal life of the age to come.
As we read through the account of the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, we have to begin to wonder how many times someone can be found innocent of the charges against him before he is released. Pilate already found no basis for any death penalty to be brought against Jesus and sent him to Herod who found Jesus to be disappointing and worthy of being mocked, but not someone worthy of his attention or of even being put to death. As Jesus was brought back to Pilate again, Pilate seems to sense somehow that this man was no danger. Jesus was not the kind of wild-eyed revolutionary that was a danger to Rome, yet there was such a pressure on him from the chief priests and those loyal to them, that Pilate was hesitant to let people go. He cared, in the end, more about his own political position than he did in finding any sense of justice for Jesus. He would have preferred to let Jesus go, but there were bigger and stranger forces at work here. A man who had been found innocent three separate times would still not go free. He deserved freedom, but that was not his vocation according to God’s will.
Pilate’s somewhat cowardly and compromising solution would be to severely flog Jesus with the metal-tipped leather flogs used by the Romans. He would exact some blood from this innocent man and be done with it. Surely he thought that would appease everyone and he wouldn’t have to put to death this man in whom he clearly must have saw something that stirred him in his soul to know that he was much more than an expendable human being who could be put to death without a second thought.
The crowd was determined to have more than just a little blood in punishment. They wanted Jesus completely out of the picture. It was such a stark contrast to warm and kingly reception that was given to Jesus a week earlier when he arrived in Jerusalem that it has led some to propose that this crowd was a smaller mob that consisted more of those loyal to the chief priests and teachers of the law, while the crowd that greeted Jesus and welcomed him into Jerusalem consisted more of the common people. Luke, nor any of the other Gospel writers, give any clear indication of this, though. That is a plausible explanation that explains some things but it is still likely that to one degree or another, the fickle nature of crowds had been turned from being caught up in the hype of Jesus’ arrival to being part of the frenzy to kill him as a false prophet.
The religious leaders were so desperate to have Jesus killed that they reacted quickly to Pilate’s suggestion of punishing him severely and then letting him go. They immediately appealed to a tradition that is little attested to outside of the Gospel accounts. Evidently the Roman governors, or at least Pilate, had taken to letting one prisoner go free as a small token of peace during the Jewish people’s most important holiday, Passover. Letting Jesus go was simply unacceptable. Rather than have that happen, they would prefer to let the revolutionary Barabbas go. This man was involved in an insurrection of some kind and had taken a life. He was involved in the very kind of violence that they were trying to charge Jesus with. The crowds chanted for the release of Barabbas, and as they whipped themselves further into a frenzy of hate and bloodlust, they began to accost Pilate with cries of crucifying Jesus. Crucifixion was the most shameful and dehumanizing death that Rome had to offer. It was illegal to crucify Roman citizens and was a punishment that was generally reserved for traitors and rebels. This is what they wanted for Jesus.
It is a fascinating detail that Barabbas’ name literally means “son of a father.” He was a nobody; he would have been long ago forgotten and lost to history if he had not had his life forever connected to Jesus. He was just the son of a father. He could have been anyone of us. Barabbas was guilty of rebellion and murder, no one seemed to deny that. He deserved death on a cross. And yet the crowds wanted Jesus, who was charged with the types of crimes that Barabbas had committed, but was completely innocent, to die the death of shame on the cross. Don’t miss the significance of the fact that Jesus was going to the cross to die the death and take the punishment that rightly belonged to this son of a father. Barabbas would be the first, but certainly not the last, to have Jesus take the punishment that was rightly his. He could be us, for certainly we are the sons (or daughters) of a man and worthy of death, only to see Jesus step into our place and bear our iniquities upon himself (Isa. 53:4). Jesus had said that he would be numbered among the transgressors (Lk. 22:37) and now he was surely suffering the fate that should have belonged to the man who was being set free. Barabbas was gaining life and freedom, despite his lack of deserving any such thing, because Jesus would die in his place. We find that when we respond to Jesus in faith and enter into his life at baptism (Rom. 6:1-10), that he has died in our place as well.
Luke has already given us so many scenes in which Jesus was found in the company of tax-collectors, outcasts, and sinners. He has been seen with sinners. He has allowed sinners into his presence and enjoyed table fellowship with them. He has let sinners anoint his feet and has even entered into the home of sinners but now he will do precisely what Isaiah had predicted so long ago in Isaiah 53. “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth” (v. 9). He would die the death of a sinner, a violent insurrectionist.
Pilate well knew that Jesus deserved no such death. He had the power in his hands to let Jesus go, but he valued his own tenuous political position more than doing what was right. He had stared truth in the face and blinked. Jesus followed God’s will and marched obediently towards his own death. He would lose his life, but in the end he would save it (Lk. 9:24). Pilate, on the other hand, would do the will of the religious leaders rather than God (v. 25). He would seek to save his own life, but in the end, he would lose it (Lk. 9:24).
As Pilate sent Jesus to his death, Luke tells us that Simon of Cyrene was plucked from the crowd. Normally a prisoner that was being led to his own death would carry the cross beam that would be placed on the pole to form the cross on which he would die. Luke doesn’t tell us exactly why Jesus needed Simon’s help to carry the cross, but it doesn’t take much imagination to conclude that the exhaustion from praying in the garden, going without sleep, a particularly savage beating, and a barbaric whipping all combined to leave Jesus weakened. Just as Barabbas was a picture of what Jesus would do for us, so is Simon a picture. Jesus had told his disciples that “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9:23) and that we could not be his disciple without following behind him with our cross (Lk. 14:27). This is precisely what Simon would do. He would pick up the cross and follow Jesus and serve as a picture example of what we are called to do as we reverently and obediently lay down our lives, pick up the cross, and march behind Jesus to our own deaths, to the only place where we will truly find life.
There is no way that Simon or Barabbas woke up that day knowing what would happen to them. They could hardly have imagined that they would be caught up in events that would lead to their names being forever memorialized in the annals of history. Their names will never be forgotten and their stories will never fade away. Our names may never be remembered like theirs have been, but when we embrace the fact that the man of peace died a violent death in our place and that we may truly follow him, carrying our cross, we find that we can become part of the ongoing story of God’s people and his kingdom in ways that will continue to ripple on throughout history and that it will matter in ways that we can never imagine.
Devotional Thought
Carrying your cross in those days meant that you were completely losing control over your own life and marching to your death. Are you truly living a life that could be characterized by following behind Jesus while carrying your cross? Have you given total control of every area of your life to God’s will? Take a sober look at your own life. Does it look more like the picture that Luke has given us of Pilate, who bowed to the will of the religious leaders rather than God, or more like Simon who followed behind Jesus carrying his cross?
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Luke 23:1-12 Commentary
1Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. 2And they began to accuse him, saying, "We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ,[a] a king."
3So Pilate asked Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied.
4Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, "I find no basis for a charge against this man."
5But they insisted, "He stirs up the people all over Judea[b]by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here."
6On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. 7When he learned that Jesus was under Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time.
8When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform some miracle. 9He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. 11Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. 12That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies.
Dig Deeper
One of the great movies of the 1980’s was the classic war movie “Red Dawn.” The movie had to do with an invasion of the continental United States by the Soviet Union and the Cubans. The plot of that movie seems a bit campy these days, but at the time, especially as a kid, it seemed almost like a documentary. We watched that movie, completely engrossed with it, because we were constantly told that we could find ourselves in a similar situation at any time. As the movie opens and the Soviet-backed Cuban army takes over a town in the American West, a group of teenagers hides out in the mountains after grabbing supplies and weapons. Eventually they become a rather significant force of guerilla fighters that serve as a great thorn in the side of the occupying forces. Throughout the movie, there is a great deal of back and forth scenes between the American teenage guerilla fighters and the Cuban military leader who desperately wants to stop them but they never actually meet. The tension continues to mount between these two sides, especially between Jed, the leader of the Americans and the Cuban leader. They finally meet near the end of the movie in a climactic battle scene. The Cuban general finally encounters Jed and has an opportunity to kill him, but he doesn’t. Jed is not what he thought he would be. He realizes that Jed and all of these feared guerillas are just a bunch of kids. He also sees that Jed is mortally wounded and simply poses no threat so he chooses to walk away. There had been enough killing and he would not participate in any more.
Obviously, the parallels between that movie and the encounters here between Jesus and Pilate and Herod are not exact, but there is an important similarity. The tension has continued to build up throughout the Gospel of Luke, pointing to the confrontation between Rome, as represented by Pilate, and the Jewish leadership as represented by Herod. And now that encounter has finally come. But like the Cuban general, Pilate and Herod will find that their assumptions about their opponent were quite mistaken. They had many things about their enemy wrong. He was not what they expected. Perhaps he was not as worthy of death as they once thought.
The scene of Jesus’ trial shifted dramatically from the Sanhedrin as they hastily took him to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. The entire assembly of the Sanhedrin (at least all those that were present) were apparently rather unified in their desire to be rid of Jesus. To do this, however, they needed the power and authority of Rome. They simply did not have the power under Roman rule to put Jesus to death, so they needed Pilate to do it for them.
As they brought him before Pilate, they leveled three specific charges. The first charge was that he was subverting the nation. The word rendered “subverting” can also be translated “perverted.” The point is that Jesus was leading the people astray and stirring them up. This was a fairly formal and serious charge for the Sanhedrin that would have been casting Jesus as a false prophet. Both the basis of this charge and the sentence for such actions are rooted in Deuteronomy 13 which calls for the immediate execution of such false prophets. Yet ironically, it was both Moses (Ex. 5:4) and Elijah (1 Ki. 18:17) who were charged with stirring up the people (using nearly identical language as used here for Jesus, although that is obscured somewhat by the TNIV’s rendering of those passages) and leading them astray. But in both of those cases the accuser was one who was opposed to the purposes of God and it seems that Luke has made it clear that the Sanhedrin fell into that category.
The second charge was that Jesus opposed payment of taxes to Caesar. Because part of Pilate’s role was to ensure that the collection of taxes went smoothly, this charge would have peaked his interest. This was something that Jesus was clearly not guilty of (Lk. 20:20-26), but it was a charge that could endanger his life if Pilate took it seriously. The first charge, quite frankly, held no interest for Pilate. Whether or not Jesus was a false prophet and was subverting the religious fidelity of the nation carried little importance for Pilate and for Rome.
The third charge, similarly to the second, carried an accusation that would have perked up the ears of Rome. Jesus, said the Sanhedrin, was claiming to be the Jewish Messiah, the king of Israel. If he was claiming to be a king, Rome would have well known and understood that many of the Messianic hopes of the Jews would be to throw off the shackles of the Roman Empire. So any talk of someone being the true king of Israel, and subsequently the world according to the Jewish belief, meant that the one claiming to be Messiah would need to be quickly killed before Israel got any ideas of revolt.
Pilate was a vicious and harsh ruler that would have had no problem putting Jesus to death if it helped him or made things easier but he was also in a difficult political situation and could not afford another sticky political situation to blow up in his face. It is significant that once he met Jesus he just saw no basis for such charges. Perhaps Pilate didn’t even know what it was, but there was something that told him that Jesus just was not that kind of leader. There was nothing for Rome to be concerned with. But, he didn’t need problems with the Sanhedrin, nor did he need them telling Rome that he wasn’t handling Rome’s interests well. It might be more difficult for Pilate to let Jesus go. In hearing that Jesus was from Galilee, then, a beautiful situation presented itself. Herod was the ruler of Galilee and happened to be in Jerusalem at the moment. Sending Jesus to Herod would accomplish three things. The first was that he couldn’t understand the charges of the Sanhedrin against Jesus but maybe Herod, who lived in Galilee, could find a basis for a charge. The second thing was that it nicely passed the buck of responsibility onto Herod and away from Pilate. And the third advantage was that it was a respectful political gesture towards Herod that would have created good will and would garner Pilate a badly needed political friend.
Luke has been steadily building the tension between Jesus and Herod, who has been looming in the background throughout his Gospel, especially since 13:31 when we were told that Herod wanted Jesus killed. His reasons at that point for wanting Jesus dead are not clear but Herod was, Luke tells us, fascinated by Jesus. It is very possible that Herod thought that a meeting could be a fascinating showdown on the level of Moses coming into the court of Pharaoh. He, no doubt, built the meeting up in his mind and was expecting Jesus to perform Mosaic type miracles. A desire that was surely only increased by constantly hearing of the reports of Jesus’ great works and miracles throughout Judea. Herod had built up this incredible Exodus-like showdown in his mind and quite possibly in an immature child-like fashion was looking forward to it, seeing himself as the powerful Pharaoh type who would be able to bring the great miracle worker down where Pharaoh had failed with Moses.
Herod was surely disappointed. Jesus, like Pilate found, not a great miracle working, violent and dangerous Messiah type but a man who would only reply to questions of his being king with a sentence that literally should be translated as “you say that I am,” but a phrase that language experts point out would have been understood to mean something like “you could say that, but not in the way you think.” This was not a revolutionary. This was not the showdown that they were expecting. This was more like Isaiah’s suffering servant who “was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isa. 53:7).
But Herod, as did Pilate, found no reason to charge Jesus with anything that would lead to his death. In Herod’s eyes, Jesus was disappointing, yes. But there was nothing there that Herod found to be a threat. What he thought was a great adversary was something altogether different. Herod did seemingly show his immaturity and petulance, however, as he listened to the vehement accusations of the chief priests and the teachers of the law. Herod certainly wasn’t impressed by Jesus so he mocked him. If Jesus was going to be a sad little nothing of a man that wanted to make such grandiose claims, then Herod would take it upon himself to humble him. Herod, in essence, attempted to bring Jesus to his knees. The irony for Luke’s readers is almost overwhelming in its sadness. Here was the true king of the world, the one who would be vindicated as the true Messiah, the one before whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess as the true Lord, who was being treated as a joke.
It’s a powerful reminder, however, that those that reject and mock Jesus should not be hated, mistreated, or disrespected. Jesus was mistreated and mocked but never responded in anger or in kind. He stood quietly before his captors and let their dehumanizing behavior speak for itself. Perhaps he wasn’t what Pilate and Herod were expecting but this is exactly what it looks like when the reconciling power of God was unleashed into the world. It is a quiet, dignified and controlled love that never responds in anger or hatred. It is to this kind of love and control that we are called to embrace and show to the world.
Devotional Thought
When Jesus was confronted by those that wanted a good argument or showdown with him, he responded only with dignified control and felt no need to defend or justify himself. Does that sound like your response in difficult circumstances? Be determined today to learn from Jesus’ example here and apply it to your own situations and circumstances. How might your responses in some scenarios look different if you followed Jesus’ example?
3So Pilate asked Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied.
4Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, "I find no basis for a charge against this man."
5But they insisted, "He stirs up the people all over Judea[b]by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here."
6On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. 7When he learned that Jesus was under Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time.
8When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform some miracle. 9He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. 11Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. 12That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies.
Dig Deeper
One of the great movies of the 1980’s was the classic war movie “Red Dawn.” The movie had to do with an invasion of the continental United States by the Soviet Union and the Cubans. The plot of that movie seems a bit campy these days, but at the time, especially as a kid, it seemed almost like a documentary. We watched that movie, completely engrossed with it, because we were constantly told that we could find ourselves in a similar situation at any time. As the movie opens and the Soviet-backed Cuban army takes over a town in the American West, a group of teenagers hides out in the mountains after grabbing supplies and weapons. Eventually they become a rather significant force of guerilla fighters that serve as a great thorn in the side of the occupying forces. Throughout the movie, there is a great deal of back and forth scenes between the American teenage guerilla fighters and the Cuban military leader who desperately wants to stop them but they never actually meet. The tension continues to mount between these two sides, especially between Jed, the leader of the Americans and the Cuban leader. They finally meet near the end of the movie in a climactic battle scene. The Cuban general finally encounters Jed and has an opportunity to kill him, but he doesn’t. Jed is not what he thought he would be. He realizes that Jed and all of these feared guerillas are just a bunch of kids. He also sees that Jed is mortally wounded and simply poses no threat so he chooses to walk away. There had been enough killing and he would not participate in any more.
Obviously, the parallels between that movie and the encounters here between Jesus and Pilate and Herod are not exact, but there is an important similarity. The tension has continued to build up throughout the Gospel of Luke, pointing to the confrontation between Rome, as represented by Pilate, and the Jewish leadership as represented by Herod. And now that encounter has finally come. But like the Cuban general, Pilate and Herod will find that their assumptions about their opponent were quite mistaken. They had many things about their enemy wrong. He was not what they expected. Perhaps he was not as worthy of death as they once thought.
The scene of Jesus’ trial shifted dramatically from the Sanhedrin as they hastily took him to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. The entire assembly of the Sanhedrin (at least all those that were present) were apparently rather unified in their desire to be rid of Jesus. To do this, however, they needed the power and authority of Rome. They simply did not have the power under Roman rule to put Jesus to death, so they needed Pilate to do it for them.
As they brought him before Pilate, they leveled three specific charges. The first charge was that he was subverting the nation. The word rendered “subverting” can also be translated “perverted.” The point is that Jesus was leading the people astray and stirring them up. This was a fairly formal and serious charge for the Sanhedrin that would have been casting Jesus as a false prophet. Both the basis of this charge and the sentence for such actions are rooted in Deuteronomy 13 which calls for the immediate execution of such false prophets. Yet ironically, it was both Moses (Ex. 5:4) and Elijah (1 Ki. 18:17) who were charged with stirring up the people (using nearly identical language as used here for Jesus, although that is obscured somewhat by the TNIV’s rendering of those passages) and leading them astray. But in both of those cases the accuser was one who was opposed to the purposes of God and it seems that Luke has made it clear that the Sanhedrin fell into that category.
The second charge was that Jesus opposed payment of taxes to Caesar. Because part of Pilate’s role was to ensure that the collection of taxes went smoothly, this charge would have peaked his interest. This was something that Jesus was clearly not guilty of (Lk. 20:20-26), but it was a charge that could endanger his life if Pilate took it seriously. The first charge, quite frankly, held no interest for Pilate. Whether or not Jesus was a false prophet and was subverting the religious fidelity of the nation carried little importance for Pilate and for Rome.
The third charge, similarly to the second, carried an accusation that would have perked up the ears of Rome. Jesus, said the Sanhedrin, was claiming to be the Jewish Messiah, the king of Israel. If he was claiming to be a king, Rome would have well known and understood that many of the Messianic hopes of the Jews would be to throw off the shackles of the Roman Empire. So any talk of someone being the true king of Israel, and subsequently the world according to the Jewish belief, meant that the one claiming to be Messiah would need to be quickly killed before Israel got any ideas of revolt.
Pilate was a vicious and harsh ruler that would have had no problem putting Jesus to death if it helped him or made things easier but he was also in a difficult political situation and could not afford another sticky political situation to blow up in his face. It is significant that once he met Jesus he just saw no basis for such charges. Perhaps Pilate didn’t even know what it was, but there was something that told him that Jesus just was not that kind of leader. There was nothing for Rome to be concerned with. But, he didn’t need problems with the Sanhedrin, nor did he need them telling Rome that he wasn’t handling Rome’s interests well. It might be more difficult for Pilate to let Jesus go. In hearing that Jesus was from Galilee, then, a beautiful situation presented itself. Herod was the ruler of Galilee and happened to be in Jerusalem at the moment. Sending Jesus to Herod would accomplish three things. The first was that he couldn’t understand the charges of the Sanhedrin against Jesus but maybe Herod, who lived in Galilee, could find a basis for a charge. The second thing was that it nicely passed the buck of responsibility onto Herod and away from Pilate. And the third advantage was that it was a respectful political gesture towards Herod that would have created good will and would garner Pilate a badly needed political friend.
Luke has been steadily building the tension between Jesus and Herod, who has been looming in the background throughout his Gospel, especially since 13:31 when we were told that Herod wanted Jesus killed. His reasons at that point for wanting Jesus dead are not clear but Herod was, Luke tells us, fascinated by Jesus. It is very possible that Herod thought that a meeting could be a fascinating showdown on the level of Moses coming into the court of Pharaoh. He, no doubt, built the meeting up in his mind and was expecting Jesus to perform Mosaic type miracles. A desire that was surely only increased by constantly hearing of the reports of Jesus’ great works and miracles throughout Judea. Herod had built up this incredible Exodus-like showdown in his mind and quite possibly in an immature child-like fashion was looking forward to it, seeing himself as the powerful Pharaoh type who would be able to bring the great miracle worker down where Pharaoh had failed with Moses.
Herod was surely disappointed. Jesus, like Pilate found, not a great miracle working, violent and dangerous Messiah type but a man who would only reply to questions of his being king with a sentence that literally should be translated as “you say that I am,” but a phrase that language experts point out would have been understood to mean something like “you could say that, but not in the way you think.” This was not a revolutionary. This was not the showdown that they were expecting. This was more like Isaiah’s suffering servant who “was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isa. 53:7).
But Herod, as did Pilate, found no reason to charge Jesus with anything that would lead to his death. In Herod’s eyes, Jesus was disappointing, yes. But there was nothing there that Herod found to be a threat. What he thought was a great adversary was something altogether different. Herod did seemingly show his immaturity and petulance, however, as he listened to the vehement accusations of the chief priests and the teachers of the law. Herod certainly wasn’t impressed by Jesus so he mocked him. If Jesus was going to be a sad little nothing of a man that wanted to make such grandiose claims, then Herod would take it upon himself to humble him. Herod, in essence, attempted to bring Jesus to his knees. The irony for Luke’s readers is almost overwhelming in its sadness. Here was the true king of the world, the one who would be vindicated as the true Messiah, the one before whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess as the true Lord, who was being treated as a joke.
It’s a powerful reminder, however, that those that reject and mock Jesus should not be hated, mistreated, or disrespected. Jesus was mistreated and mocked but never responded in anger or in kind. He stood quietly before his captors and let their dehumanizing behavior speak for itself. Perhaps he wasn’t what Pilate and Herod were expecting but this is exactly what it looks like when the reconciling power of God was unleashed into the world. It is a quiet, dignified and controlled love that never responds in anger or hatred. It is to this kind of love and control that we are called to embrace and show to the world.
Devotional Thought
When Jesus was confronted by those that wanted a good argument or showdown with him, he responded only with dignified control and felt no need to defend or justify himself. Does that sound like your response in difficult circumstances? Be determined today to learn from Jesus’ example here and apply it to your own situations and circumstances. How might your responses in some scenarios look different if you followed Jesus’ example?
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