24Also a dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. 25Jesus said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. 26But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. 27For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. 28You are those who have stood by me in my trials. 29And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, 30so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
31"Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you[a] as wheat. 32But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."
33But he replied, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death."
34Jesus answered, "I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me."
35Then Jesus asked them, "When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?"
"Nothing," they answered.
36He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. 37It is written: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors'[b]; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment."
38The disciples said, "See, Lord, here are two swords."
"That is enough," he replied.
Dig Deeper“But dad,” my son reminded me, “Burns’ don’t quit.” And there it was. It’s often annoying to be reminded of your own words at a time when you’d rather not here them, but this was actually not one of those times. In fact it was quite encouraging and a little bit funny. I decided about ten years ago that I was no longer going to drink soda because I just didn’t need the sugar and caffeine that are so integral to most sodas. I was explaining to my wife that I was going to quit drinking pop (that’s soda for those that did not grow up in Wisconsin) when my then five-year old son walked in and called me quickly to the standard that I had called him to many times. He knew that he was my son and that he was part of the family, but we always tried to stress to him what that meant. From the time that he was born, or at least when he was able to start understanding things, we wanted him to comprehend that there were certain expectations that came along with him being a Burns. There were just certain standards to being a Burns. There were things that we did and things that we just didn’t do. So, from the time he could understand we would remind him that Burns’ just don’t quit. That’s the way it was. That’s part of what it looked like to be part of this family. Of course when we told him that, we had in mind the idea of giving up on things before they were finished or because they got hard. But his insistence that I shouldn’t quit drinking soda because I was a Burns was at least a good indicator that he had heard that message and stored it away. If nothing else, he knew that being a Burns meant you didn’t quit, even if he had to work a little bit on learning when to apply that standard.
One of the great themes of the gospel of Luke is that of Jesus creating and calling people to be the long-promised family of God. They were called to leave their old groups, their old identities and to come and transfer their loyalty and commitment to God’s new Jesus-shaped family. In the previous passage, Luke described the intimate family Passover meal that Jesus took and gave to his new family as a new meal. Just as Passover called the Jews back to remember what God had done for them in creating them as a people, now this new meal would remind the followers of Christ just exactly what God had done for them to create them as his new family in Christ. It is no accident that Luke has chosen these two conversations here concerning who would be the greatest and concerning Peter’s betrayal of Jesus. Both conversations are built firmly on the idea of being part of this new family. If they are going to be part of the family that just took their first meal together then they need to learn a few more lessons about what it mean to be part of that family.
As committed to the kingdom of God and Jesus’ new family as the disciples wanted to be, they still didn’t perfectly understand the nature of this family. It would not be a normal religious group with a hierarchical leadership structure. It would not be a normal family group with a strong earthly father who held the authority within the group with absolute certainty. They certainly wouldn’t be like the Gentile kings who believed that their subjects existed for the purpose of sustaining the life of the king and his government and country rather than the other way around. Their subjects worked their whole lives to support the lifestyle of the king or emperor who then turned around and tried to convince people that it was the king who was so kindly allowing his subjects the few things that they had. They squashed people with their authority and then told them that they were the benefactors of the people.
They would have to soundly reject all of that if they wanted this kingdom and wanted to be part of the Messiah’s rule in the age to come. The age to come was often described in terms of a great kingdom banquet at which God would be the judge or ruler. Here Jesus says that his apostles would indeed share in that role of judging and ruling in the coming age if they truly understood and embraced the nature of the kingdom that Jesus was actually giving them.
There was no room for any of that self-advancing, self-promoting, self-focused leadership, so arguments about who was the greatest were to completely miss the point. If they wanted to be great in this kingdom family then they would embrace the measure that he was using rather than the one the rest of the world clung to. In this family, there would be none of the idea that the greatest ones sat at the table while everyone else served them. That’s not what leaders in this family would do. No, the greatest in this kingdom would be the servants. Now that would completely turn things on its head.
Leadership in this family would not be like declaring themselves to be the ruling fathers of this new family. The leaders in this family would be like the youngest child in the family. They were the last on the totem pole to receive anything and it was their job basically to serve everyone else in the family. The youngest child had no claim to being exalted in the family. This is the servant leadership to which they were being called. The early church would indeed embrace this type of leadership but sadly by the time of the late 2nd and 3rd centuries, this would slowly begin to change as the church leaders began to exalt their role of authority and position and eventually began to even refer to themselves as the “fathers” of the Christian families This is not what Jesus called for from his family though and it is up to leaders today to be ever-vigilant against becoming the very type of leaders that Jesus warned against. The Christian family just doesn’t do that.
But they also needed to know that a part of being a member of this family is to be persecuted by Satan. It would not all be easy sledding. In fact, the opposition and persecution that come from truly following Christ can often be indicators that Jesus’ people truly are living the kind of righteously defiant lives that our King has called us to (this doesn’t mean, however, that Christians should act however they would like and then claim that any questions concerning our behavior or any criticisms are nothing more than persecution). Jesus wanted Peter to know that he would be tested and he would fail. But when he did fail that didn’t mean that he was a failure. Falling is not failure. Quitting is failure. So when he did fall, that should not destroy Peter’s faith. In fact, he needed to pick himself back up and get about the work of strengthening the rest of the flock.
Certainly Jesus wanted Peter to know of the ferocious storm that was coming their way and he wanted to make sure that their faith wasn’t destroyed when they were battered by the coming storm but there was also something that Jesus was trying to teach them. One of the hallmarks of being part of his family would be the necessary realization that they could not operate or survive at any level on their own strength. They had already seen and accomplished much as they spread the new of the coming kingdom of God. Yet, the danger of that was exactly what was on display in their argument over who would be the greatest among them. There was a very real danger of them relying too much on themselves. Jesus was going to allow them to fail at the hands of the tempter. Peter would deny Jesus. The others would scatter and run. They needed to learn that they could not make it on their own. Peter was so confident that he would follow Jesus even if meant death, but he would have to learn.
Peter thought he would stand loyal and firm and be able to stand up to whatever opposition was coming his way. But Jesus knew he would falter and wanted him to falter. Not because he despised Peter and the others but because he loved them and wanted them to learn the very important lesson that they would need to rely on the Holy Spirit. Following this lesson of temptation and failure, Jesus would urge the disciples to stay in Jerusalem and do nothing until the Spirit came to them in power (Lk. 24:49; Acts 1:4-5). They would need to rely on the Spirit for the challenges to come.
Jesus wanted them to understand that they were about to undergo a time of intense spiritual battle. Jesus himself was walking into the jaws of death and all that the forces of evil could muster up against him and things weren’t going to be much easier for them. The road ahead was long and difficult. The turning point of history was fast approaching them like a freight train and they were still worried about things like who was the greatest among them. They still thought that they could stand up to what was coming on their own resolve and strength. Jesus tried, in verses 36-37, to paint for them a picture of the battle that they were entering into. It would be a long battle and they need to prepare themselves like someone who would be preparing to go to war. Just as Isaiah had prophesied in Isaiah 53:12, now would be the time when the Messiah would be despised, rejected, broken, bruised, seemingly defeated, and “numbered among the transgressors.” Satan was about to deliver his fiercest blow and they just weren’t ready.
In fact, they so completely missed the point that they thought Jesus was speaking literally. If there was a fight to be had then forget getting just one sword, they already had two. They were still thinking in terms of an actual physical battle. Perhaps this was finally the time, they thought, when Jesus would start acting like the Messiah that most of Israel had hoped he would be, one that would defeat the Romans in battle. But that wasn’t Jesus’ point at all. They failed to understand that he was speaking quite symbolically and they were still failing to fully grasp the nature of the family to which he was calling them. The time of their faltering had already started. The time of them learning that they would fail every time if they relied on their own strength and their own understanding was already upon them.
Jesus had warned them, not so that they would avoid failure in the face of the fierce temptation but so that once they did falter, they could look back and remember that Jesus had told them that this would all happen. They could learn the lessons and even understand why they had to go through it. They would learn to rely on the Spirit for everything and to be led by him in all things. They would become the family of God that was led by the Spirit (see Romans 8:14-15). No, he was not trying to avoid the misunderstanding and failure but simply provide them with the necessary information to learn from it after the fact. So, despite the fact that they were still completely missing most of what Jesus was telling them, he ended the conversation in verse 38. The TNIV translation is a bit misleading as Jesus says “that is enough,” which could be taken to mean that the two swords that they produced would be fine for now. Jesus’ response, though, was actually a rebuke and a conversation ender that would be better rendered “enough of this.” They were just not going to understand right then and Jesus would have to go off and face the coming terror on his own, just as Isaiah had prophesied. He would forge on alone.
Devotional Thought
Do you ever find yourself trying to press on under your own strength or understanding rather than humbling yourself in prayer and waiting patiently for the Holy Spirit to guide you on your paths? Spend some extra time in prayer today if you can petitioning God to lead and strengthen you in everything you do. Take some time to consider whether you have been fully relying on God or trying to do a lot of things on your own.
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