When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
52 And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him.
53 But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.
54 And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
55 But he turned and rebuked them.[f] 56
And they went on to another village. 57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
60 And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”
62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
“Has thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,
I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star,
Hast thou no scar?
Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die, and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed me, I swooned:
Hast thou no wound?
No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be
And pierced are the feet that follow Me;
But thine are whole, can he have followed far
Who has no wound nor scar?” (Amy Charmichael)
There is a reason why the world to a great degree views the church as nothing more than a social or cultural gathering point, bringing together people who share certain
things in common…just another human organization. The reason is that the church is filled with men and women, boys and girls who will call themselves Christians, will say they follow the Lord Jesus and will add their profession of faith to Peter’s, but who
have never made the sacrifices that Jesus says are in fact the mark of those who truly believe.
As one author put it, “…there is a heroic element in true Christian living, but only some among the many who call themselves Christians are heroic in this way.”
Now there is also little doubt that we live in a soft day. We Americans in the 21stcentury are shocked at trial and difficulty and so words like Christ
speaks in our text have no point of reference, no real meaning to us. We end up shaking our heads and saying, “I don’t know what Jesus is talking about…” But our problem is that we think too much like Americans and not enough like Christians. We think we have
a right to ease, a right to happiness, a right to pleasure, a right to being safe, a right to entertainment and rest.
Jesus has set his face, resolutely toward Jerusalem. This is just a way of telling us that Christ had the cross and His suffering before His face and would not be
deterred from the path that the Father had set before Him. He sends messengers, those who would go into a town and prepare the people for His coming. The word that is used here for messengers is also the same word as the word for angel. I am not suggesting
that those who went before Jesus were actually angels, the text is clear they were disciples, followers of the Lord, but it is an interesting choice of words.
This Samaritan village rejects Jesus. Interestingly, the village rejected the discipleswho went into the village first. But that is taken as a rejection of
Jesus. To reject the church is to reject the Savior. The language here is a bit confusing but it is a teaching that the Bible is clear to make in many other places. If you reject the church, you reject Jesus. Therefore, the answer to the question, “Can
I be a Christian and not go to church, not belong to a church” or whatever other way the question is put, is a profound NO!
James and John think of all of this and decide that they would like to be in the place of Elijah, the one going before Him. They get it, they see the point, but they
miss the greater point, they miss the mission of the Christ. They think, like Elijah, to call down fire from heaven and wipe these folks out. But that is not the way the fullness of the kingdom advances, that is not what Jesus came to do. The two disciples
display much zeal and although they seem to know their biblical history and have even made some accurate biblical-theological conclusions they have yet to understand the counterculture message that Jesus and the Kingdom brings.
It is possible for us to know theology and to whip all our friends in Bible Trivia and yet to fail to understand our calling. The question is not, do you know about
the life of Elijah and can you explain the typology of his life…the question is, because of these things do you humbly walk with the Lord, love your neighbor, deny yourself and are you seeking, in imitation of our Savior, to gain your life by the cross?
In other words, do we understand the kingdom: evident, not by our words, but by our life? Do we understand what it really means to follow the Lord Jesus? Unlike some
evangelists today, Jesus would have no one come to Him or follow Him under any false pretenses. He speaks about the foxes having holes and the birds of the air having nests, but He has no place to lay his head. What is Jesus teaching us? We know that Jesus
had many friends who cared for Him and would have put him up for the night or for many nights if the Lord desired that.
We are quite confident that he could have and would have stayed with Peter in Peter’s home in Capernaum. In other words, it is very unlikely that Jesus had to sleep
outside, in an alley somewhere, most of the time. Jesus wasn’t a homeless person in the way we think of the homeless today. So, what is His point? Jesus as one scholar put it, “forsook all middle-class security”, that might be getting close to our
Savior’s meaning. Jesus chose a way of life that held no promise to the comforts and securities that most of us hold dear and in fact, see as ‘our right’. He didn’t own a home, he didn’t have any possessions of this world to call his own or to bring Him comfort.
In fact, Jesus’ way was that which was hardest on the flesh and promised persecution, suffering and death for the sake of the Kingdom over which He reigns.
What some have said and I think they are right, is that we best understand these words of Christ as meaning that the place he did not have to lay his head was in the
hearts of the people to whom he came. There was no rest, no warm reception, no thankful people who loved Jesus as the One who came down from heaven. It was in this way that he was most profoundly homeless.
The comment to the man who wanted to go and bury his father before following Jesus, really rocks our boat. It is uncertain if the father was dead already and the man
merely needed to attend the funeral, or if the man was saying he needed to wait until his father died so that he could honor him both in life and in death. Regardless, either of those options would be good ones. It doesn’t make much sense to us to think that
the Lord would forbid a disciple to undertake the sacred responsibility of honoring one’s father. After all, doesn’t the Lord Himself require that of us?
Jesus is making a shocking statement for effect, the same thing He did when He says that anyone who does not hate his father and mother could not be his disciple. Jesus
is telling us that commitment to Him surpasses all other obligations. He wants us to know this: If we are going to follow Him, if we are going to say that we are Christians, not just in word or title, but really and truly followers of Jesus as Savior, then
the claims of the kingdom are absolute and immediate.
We are not being asked to bear with the realization that sacrifices must be made, commitments to the Lord’s way, must be submitted to…that is not what is being taught.
Rather, more than “bearing” with this, we are called to embrace it with joy! Jesus is telling us that this is our glory, this is what gives our lives nobility, this is what makes our living great. We must not be what the culture has sought to make us;
weak, soft people who cringe at the first sign of difficulty or opposition. Rather, we should and must humbly square ourselves and know this is what comes to those who follow Jesus. This is what our calling is, this is what it looks like, it is to be expected.
AND this is the way you adorn the gospel while you live in this world. This is the way to really make your life count, to make your life mean something.
And I can guarantee you, I can promise you, this is what you will want your life to have been, when you cross over that last river, into the eternal city. You should
say to your Lord, “Lord, not for me, the easy way, not the ordinary way of this world. Not for me the simple chores. No. For me, joyfully following in the very steps of the Lord Jesus!”
Have you a scar? Have you a wound? Press on! They are yours forever, a testimony to your love and devotion to the Savior of your soul!
Prayer: Father, I too often shrink back from the sacrifices that would mark my life as belonging to none but Jesus. I am often fearful; fearful of what others might
think of me, fearful of not being successful, fearful of what tomorrow might bring! I know the claims of Jesus are absolute and immediate, give me strength of mind and heart to embrace the life that Jesus so beautifully lived that I too might know the joy
of surrender and the hope of the kingdom of heaven, through Jesus my Savior, Amen.
Hymn: Am I a Soldier of the Cross?