Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our
Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Following
isn’t always an easy thing to do. Sure,
it’s easy to follow someone to the ice cream parlor, the toy store, or the lake
but I’m talking about those times the leader has called you to follow him into
places that you don’t want to go.
Independence Day is in a few days, think of all the men and women who
followed their leaders into war. As the
mortars are dropping, the guns are blazing, canons booming, and rockets
streaking through the sky, I doubt many of them wanted to be there. But in spite of all these things, they
followed and bravely did their duty.
Jesus
bids us to follow Him, but He leads us to places that we don’t, necessarily
want to go. Earlier, He called His
disciples, “Come, follow me,” they dropped their nets, left their tax booths
and followed but they’re, now in a place where they don’t want to be- Samaritan
country.
Most Jews in the first century made a point
of traveling the long way around Samaria because they considered its
inhabitants unclean and they didn’t want to have anything to do with them. They worshipped on a different mountain,
Mount Gerizim, instead of the temple in Jerusalem. They were the “black sheep” the McCoy to Judea’s Hatfield. The disciples
surely didn’t want to go through there, but when Jesus says, “Come, follow Me,”
the disciples follow Him to places where they don’t want to go
But a little trip through Samaria is
like a trip to Disney Land compared to the place where they will eventually
follow Jesus; this is where following gets hard, going to a place where that
would make the want to spend an eternity in Samaria. In our text, Jesus “Set His face toward Jerusalem.”
“So big deal,” they may have thought, “Jerusalem is the Holy City,
the city of kings, the city of the temple.
Jerusalem is the perfect place to kick those Romans out and free us
Judeans.” But Jesus doesn’t set His face
toward Jerusalem for Him and His disciples to go on vacation, nor does He set
His face toward Jerusalem to usher in a new government and kick out those
Romans. He sets His face toward
Jerusalem for a purpose beyond the disciples’ understanding. He sets His face toward Jerusalem, bidding
His disciples to follow Him to a hill that they don’t want to go so much so
that most will scatter. He sets His face
toward Jerusalem to die. He sets His
face toward Jerusalem to ascend Calvary’s hill with His cross for your
salvation. But after Jesus’
resurrection and ascension, the disciples continue to follow Jesus even to
their own deaths. Several went the way
of their Lord and were crucified. James
was killed by the sword. Paul had his
head removed from him. So, will you
follow Him even when it gets hard, even when it’s inconvenient?
In our text, we have two other examples of
people Jesus calls to follow Him, who want to do seemingly reasonable things. “As
they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you
wherever you go.’ 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.’ To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he
said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Leave the dead to
bury their own dead. But as for you, go
and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ That’s harsh. And if it sounds
offensive to you, to the original hearers, it would have been even more
shocking. In that day the social customs that were considered a person’s
bare minimum duty to a deceased parent were far more involved than the sorts of
things we do today. There would have
been weeks of formal mourning that included wearing special clothes, fasting,
and so on. And if you failed to do
these things, it would have been interpreted as the height of disrespect.
But here Jesus is saying, “Forget all that. Following me is more important.”
“Yet
another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those
at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts
his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”
More tough words. What’s wrong with a little good bye, a going
away party, perhaps? Jesus has set His
face toward Jerusalem and to follow Him is to jump off the bandwagon of all
things that get in the way of faith, go even follow where you may not want to
go. The cares of this world are often a
stumbling block to following Jesus. What
gets in the way of your faith? What
causes you to say to Jesus, “Go on ahead, Jesus, I’ll catch up sometime
later?” Will you follow Jesus when
you’re called a bigot for not embracing homosexual sin? Will you follow Jesus when you’re called
every name in the book? Will you follow
Jesus even when it’s difficult?
Friends, today is the day of
salvation. We follow Jesus to the cross,
where His eyes are fixed. He goes to
Jerusalem with His disciples, who scatter like roaches in the light. He goes for them. He goes for you. The lesson of this text is that the things of
this life all come second to Jesus’ work of salvation for you. What good is it to gain the whole world and
lose Jesus? The world offers many things
but it can’t forgive your sins or give eternal life, that only comes through
Christ and His Jerusalem work. And when
the world turns its on you, Jesus has your back. It hated Him too.
Does that mean that you shouldn’t
bury your loved ones or enjoy your family?
Well, if it’s not a hindrance to following Jesus, of course not. This text isn’t about Jesus prohibiting
burying loved ones or saying good-bye to your family; it’s about following
Jesus who sets His face toward Jerusalem, where we follow no matter the cost,
because He goes for you, for your forgiveness, for your salvation. He and His cross are the center of your life
as a Christian that leads to eternal life.
The things of this world will pass, but what Jesus gives to you through
His cross and resurrection, is for eternity.
We follow Jesus to His cross, and
abide in His Word. And where we fail to
follow, where we do go off on tangents, where we follow so many of the
distractions of this world, we confess our sins, and because Jesus set His face
toward Jerusalem and went to His cross, you are forgiven free and clear. Where we are so often faithless, Christ is
ever faithful.
So, let us fix your eyes on
Jesus. Jesus does His forgiving and
salvation work at Jerusalem so that you would have your Jesus, a focal point. Life presents you with a whole bunch of rabbit
trails, all sorts of things to worry about, all kinds of things to distract you
from the one thing needful– and that is to die and rise with Jesus. Like a sailor setting a course in the storm,
or like a runner pushing toward the finish line, fix your eyes on Jesus. His cross, His resurrection.
His life. His Baptism, Body and Blood. That’s where He leads us. That’s where your life is. That’s where forgiveness is. That’s where He
is for you. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all
understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life
everlasting. Amen.
