(Luke 13:31-35)

Jesus walks towards Jerusalem

There are 24 chapters in Luke of which 15 deal with the final journey towards Jerusalem. Read this passage and you may wonder why it was that 'as the time approached when he was to be taken up to heaven, Jesus set his face resolutely towards Jerusalem (Lk 9:51). In this passage the Pharisees are needling him; he is on edge in his reply and his lament over Jerusalem shows that he is clearly unhappy about what lies ahead. If it is causing him such distress why is he so set on this course of action?

The Pharisees approach to Jesus in this passage is unusual because they appear to be trying to help him. They seem to be warning him against Herod’s ill intentions. Jesus treats them as if they are agents from Herod and sends them straight back. Not only is Jesus’ tone astringent, uncharacteristically so even for conversation with the Pharisees, but also what he says back to them adds insult to injury. For the Pharisees were hardly coming from Herod, so for Jesus to send them back with a message for 'that fox' is the action of a man determined, resolute and even blunt in what he realises that he has to do.

There is usually a certain tension in the encounters between Jesus and the Pharisees. The teaching of the Pharisees and the teaching of Jesus and John the Baptist seemed to have the more in common than the other religious groups of the time. These included: zealousness for God, devotion to the covenant, a desire to save Israel. The Pharisees criticised Jesus precisely on those points at which he seemed to them to be departing from this common ground. They would not have expected a Sadducee, for instance, to observe their rules about table fellowship and ritual cleanliness but they were surprised and shocked when Jesus, whom they seem to have expected would do so, departed from them to eat with publicans and sinners, and with unwashed hands. The Sadducees, the Herodians, and the Essenes: the other sects, which made up the spectrum of religious diversity in Palestine in Jesus' day, receive little or no attention in the gospels.

Jesus is sending a message not so much to Herod as to the Pharisees and by extension to us: he is saying something important about the nature of his work. It includes healing and casting out demons, but it also includes faithfulness in the face of danger and death. His grief is not for himself but for Jerusalem and by extension for the House of Israel who have not recognised him as the Messiah and so will bring destruction on themselves. All his love, that is, divine love itself in human form, cannot help a Jerusalem, which will not be saved. So he goes on his way with only a small band of followers, wanting to be able to lead Israel into a new covenant (to which we have now been admitted through our baptism) and recognising that this might only happen through his death1. It is the work of a prophet - he knows both what he has to do and what the consequences are, and he has accepted both.

Luke shows us here, and in much of his gospel, Jesus 'on the road,' as a traveller on a journey. Lent is a time to see our lives too as a journey, not from Galilee to Jerusalem, of course, but through our earthly lives to our death and our new life in heaven. Seen in that way, our lives parallel Jesus' last trip. In Lent, we are called to make such parallels explicit and intentional, by striving to understand and imitate the mind of Christ, especially on this last journey to Jerusalem2. There is both a promise and a challenge in this passage. The promise is that if there are difficult things that need to be done then God will be alongside us in what we have to do. The challenge to us is that this will not always be easy3.

There is a legend, which says that there was a mouse that was very afraid of cats. She wished she could become a cat, her wish came true and she turned into a cat. Then she saw a dog and became afraid again and wished she were a dog. Her wish was granted and she turned into a dog. Then she saw a lion and she was terrified by his power and strength and wished she could become a lion so that she would not have to be terrified of the lion. Her wish was granted and she became a lion. Then she saw a man with a gun about to shoot her with his gun. You can imagine what happened next. She wished she could become a human and she did. But when she was sitting in her house she saw a mouse and she was scared of the mouse. The little mouse frightened her. The point is obvious - to break the cycle of fear turn to Jesus (www.frtommylane.com)