Lent 2-Feb. 28-St. Luke 13:31-35

‘Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.’ (Ps. 19:14) Amen.

‘Grace, mercy and peace will be with you, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.’ (2 John 3) Amen.

‘At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”’ (V. 31)

All of you here, who are parents, or for that matter have owned a pet, know what is going on here. This scene is one of impenitence in the group of the Pharisees. Parents know about what is happening here. You have all had children refuse to do something, or not do, that you know is bad for them.

You have warned them and warned them against whatever the behavior is, but finally, the child needs to learn on his own. That child, though it may hurt, needs to learn the hard way. This happened for Rachel and I just a few weeks ago.

In our case it was a minor thing. John had licked one of the iron railings on the front of our house. With the cold temperatures, his tongue and his lips stuck. We had warned him several times not to lick things. He did it anyway. While we got the water needed to release his tongue easily, all the while warning him not to pull away. You all know what he did. He pulled away on his own.

We tried and tried telling him not to do this but he had to learn the hard way.

Even today, in the same way, God warns you and me and all men just as He did all those years ago with the Pharisees and other unrepentant people. Yet, they had to learn the hard way. The problem for them was, and for you and me is, the hard way is permanent. It is eternal death, from this consequence; there is no turning back.

So, Jesus warns them. ‘At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”’ (V. 31)

This warning of the Pharisees is two-faced. Though they may warn Jesus of other’s plots to kill him they are all the while planning to do the same. It does appear to be a new role for these men, but in actual fact, it is no different in the end. This warning was a real warning and not made up. Herod did want Jesus dead because Herod had earlier put John the Baptist to death and feared that Jesus was John come back to haunt him. Yet, we see our Savior and God’s boundless love for all men. Even as they plot to kill Jesus themselves, He is one more time trying to bring them to repentance.

‘“Yea, Father, yea, most willingly
I’ll bear what Thou commandest;
My will conforms to Thy decree,
I do what Thou demandest.”
O wondrous Love, what hast Thou done!
The Father offers up His Son!
The Son, content, descendeth!
O Love, how strong Thou art to save!
Thou beddest Him within the grave
Whose word the mountains rendeth.’ (TLH 142:3)

‘And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away form Jerusalem.’’ (Vv. 32-33)

Jesus in these verses tells the Pharisees what is about to happen. In this veiled way, tells His enemies that he knows of their plot and they are doing exactly as is needed. Yet, Jesus reaches out to those who would kill Him with the Gospel of free forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus still does the same thing for the unbelievers of this world. He even does this for me and you.

Jesus does this for you when, through the power of the Holy Spirit, He brings you to repentance. Whether that is through your own conscience or through the words of the liturgy as we just confessed or through other means. Jesus through His preachers and His Church is still calling a sinful dying world to repentance and faith.

In Jesus’ words to the fox Herod we are told that Jesus goes willingly to His death on the cross. Jesus is telling Herod in the phrase, “today and tomorrow and on the third day” that His work would continue for a certain period of time. Jesus would go willingly to His death, but it would be on the Father’s schedule. That death would not occur when Herod decided, or incidentally, when the Pharisees decided. This response to the warning that Herod sought to kill Jesus would have hit the Pharisees just as hard.

These men were being told, in no uncertain terms, they are not in charge. The Father, Who had sent the Son, Jesus, to preach His message of peace and repentance and the forgiveness of sins is in charge. He determines when things occur and no one else. No sparrow falls to the ground without His knowledge (see Saint Matthew 6:25, 26), and thus allowance.

Jesus is not compelled to this end of His journey nor is Jesus somehow caught out and forced to die because He was outwitted. Rather, Jesus is pointing out to the Pharisees here that He as the final prophet and the Messiah is above and independent of the plots and schemes of both the Pharisees and of Herod.

‘Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away form Jerusalem.’’ (V. 33)

What the Greek means and is not always carried over in translation is not just that it cannot be for a prophet to perish outside of Jerusalem. This is a proverbial saying. What is really meant is that the idea that Jesus would die outside of Jerusalem is not accepted. It is inadmissible. A severe indictment of Jerusalem, after all, this is a city whose name means “city of peace”. God sent His message of peace by the prophets.

‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”’ (Vv. 34-35)

The city of peace kills those sent to it by the true God, the God that is worshipped in Jerusalem! We see a reference here to what the Gospel of John tells us all about. There we are told of multiple visits by Jesus to Jerusalem during His years of ministry. Even as is true today, Jesus urgently desired the salvation of His wayward children. Jesus tried repeatedly to bring these hardened people to faith. Today Jesus reaches out to a lost and dying world through the work of His Church to bring that same old gospel message of rescue and salvation to a world that is ignorant of its need for such rescue. Today Jesus reaches out to you and me to sustain us in the faith and keep us returning to Him for that forgiveness that we daily need.

We are sent on this rescue mission that we may not arrive too late.

‘Of death I am no more afraid,
New life from Thee is flowing;
Thy cross affords me cooling shade
When noonday’s sun is glowing.
When by my grief I am opprest,
On Thee my weary soul shall rest
Serenely as on pillows.
Thou art my Anchor when by woe
My bark is driven to and fro
On trouble’s surging billows.’ (TLH 142:5)

In this lament of Jesus here, He is comparing His actions, both during His ministry but also previously through the prophets, to those of a hen who protects the chicks beneath her wings. There is a hawk set to destroy the chicks and she would gather them so as to protect them. So also, God has been acting the part of the hen seeking to protect the chicks from certain destruction. The devil is the hawk seeking to destroy us. Jesus would gather us under His wings that we might be protected by His life. Contrary to expectation, some of the chicks refuse to be gathered in by Jesus and willingly wait for their destruction.

Even the Israelites, Jesus’ own nation, did not want this. He wanted this people to be his own, even as they belonged to him. Yet, they would not. The words of Jesus are of the most tragic order. He states, ‘and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken.’(Vv. 34-35) These people willingly allow themselves to be destroyed, and strangely, this is done not unknowingly. Their own prophets and Jesus had many times warned them of this. Yet, they would not. Instead, they seek to and succeed in destroying the One sent to rescue them from their sins.

But, then, it is the hardest thing of all for the human mind to admit to this. And so it is that faith is a miracle created in us by the Holy Spirit. It seems like pure madness to admit that something like forgiveness and rescue is what any of us need. Yet, all of us are here. The real miracle is that anyone is in this church at all! The greatest miracle is that faith exists in the world at all. By all rights, we should be no different in our response to the Gospel as these Pharisees. The Christian message of faith in Christ for the free forgiveness of sins and rescue for sin death and the devil along with the rewards of everlasting life and the forgiveness of sins is the most contrary to reason message of all (Romans 3:23; Ephesians 2:8, 9). Praise God that you believe this! Praise God that He creates faith in each of you.

Praise the Christ with those on Palm Sunday, ‘“‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”’ (V. 35; see also Psalm 118:26)

In Jesus’+ Name. Amen.