We modern
people use the Bible very differently than did early Christians. For starters,
they didn't have a Bible other than what we call the Old Testament. And what
would later become the New Testament was not meant to tell the story of Jesus.
The letters and the gospels were written for Christians who already knew Jesus'
story. They were written to help people understand those stories better, and
often they were written to address concerns in a particular congregation.
That means that when people first read the section from Luke that is today's gospel, they knew very well what it meant that Jesus "set his face to go to Jerusalem." They knew exactly what awaited Jesus there. The author of the gospel is reminding them that all the events reported in the coming pages happen against the backdrop of Jesus purposely moving toward Jerusalem and the cross.
I take it from Luke's gospel, the letters of Paul, and much else in the New Testament, that those early Christians struggled as much with the cross as I do. That's especially true in light of Jesus calling us to embrace the way of the cross, even to take up our own.
In today's verses, we learn than a Samaritan village doesn't receive Jesus "because his face was set toward Jerusalem." I'm not 100 percent sure what this means, but I assume that Jesus' focus on Jerusalem and the cross makes them think Jesus won't be doing any neat tricks for them.
I know how they feel. I want Jesus to do stuff for me, and when he's all fixated on the cross, I don't really want to be around him. I don't much care for talk of needing to deny myself, lose myself, take up my cross, and so on.
That means that when people first read the section from Luke that is today's gospel, they knew very well what it meant that Jesus "set his face to go to Jerusalem." They knew exactly what awaited Jesus there. The author of the gospel is reminding them that all the events reported in the coming pages happen against the backdrop of Jesus purposely moving toward Jerusalem and the cross.
I take it from Luke's gospel, the letters of Paul, and much else in the New Testament, that those early Christians struggled as much with the cross as I do. That's especially true in light of Jesus calling us to embrace the way of the cross, even to take up our own.
In today's verses, we learn than a Samaritan village doesn't receive Jesus "because his face was set toward Jerusalem." I'm not 100 percent sure what this means, but I assume that Jesus' focus on Jerusalem and the cross makes them think Jesus won't be doing any neat tricks for them.
I know how they feel. I want Jesus to do stuff for me, and when he's all fixated on the cross, I don't really want to be around him. I don't much care for talk of needing to deny myself, lose myself, take up my cross, and so on.
In his
meditation for today, Richard Rohr speaks of "the path of descent,"
of how we are transformed only through the act of dying and rising. He writes,
"As a culture, we have to be taught the language of descent because we are
by training capitalists and accumulators. Mature religion shows us how to enter
willingly and trustingly into the dark periods of life. These dark periods are
good teachers."
But I keep
asking Jesus to make things better for me. And I think that Jesus has abandoned
me when things are bad for very long. I guess when it comes to "the
language of descent," I'm a pretty slow learner.
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