Jesus! Here’s a good example of how misdirected you are in making your mission happen. You know what you are walking into, and yet you just keep going. And you want people to follow you into that?

Even your less than best friends tried to warn you. Those priests told you to get out of there because King Herod wanted your tail hanged. Ok, while there may have been some truth in their tipping you off, getting you out of their territory may have been to their advantage, too. Passover, the biggest festival of the year, was right around the corner. With throngs of people in Jerusalem, they knew you might do something radical in the Temple again. So steering you away looked smart from several angles.

The Original Fox News

But noooo, you had to call out Herod and personally invite this trouble you’ve been courting for three years. “Go tell that fox…,” you say, revealing how sinister you knew him to be. Just a little common sense advice here: calling powerful people negative names is kind of like drawing a line in the sand. You’ve pretty much told him you’ll go on with what you’ve been doing, and no way he is going to control of that.

Granted, healing people and ridding them of whatever possesses them makes for good press and poll ratings. But you see, it takes away from those who want to be in charge. Can any decent despot risk that?

Yeah, so you keep at it, speaking truth to power we call it today. And you make it clear that you have no intention of diverting from your purpose at any time, today, tomorrow, or even the third day after that. In your world, three days out could be forever, like some kind of kingdom that won’t end. It’s evident compromise and diplomacy are not in your tool box.

But then, Geeze, you bring up how the people’s prophets meet their demise in Jerusalem, like it’s some kind of crowning glory. (Oh yeah, didn’t Herod have your best man beheaded?  You guys never seem to end well.) So it’s pretty clear, you’re asking for it.

Is that how the good leaders do it? Tell the world they’ll die for them, give up their own lives for the people? The mission, the cause is most important. You’ll battle anything in sight that oppresses, enslaves, keeps people poor and weak. That’s wonderful, but once you’re dead, what good will that do them? What’s your contingency plan? You going to come back and start again?

It's almost weird though how next you almost dissolve into a puddle, crying over the very place that’s going to turn against you in the worst way. You know the ugly part of Jerusalem’s history, how it caved for centuries to foreign cultures and religions. In many respects, it looked no different from the pagans the Jews had driven out, looking the other way when people turned to fertility rites of prostitution and infant sacrifice. When warned by the prophets of coming consequences of destruction and exile to foreign countries, the people killed the messengers. Again, why you going down there?

This Mother Hen is No Chicken

But then, Tough Guy that’s going to face down Herod the Horrible, you get all soft in your dribble. Though word has it Mother’s Day likes this scene. You wish you could be like a mother hen gathering her little chicks under her wings in protection from the big bad world. 

Like you really want to save the world. Sweet. “But you wouldn’t let me,” you sob.

Maybe that’s the real conflict here. You’d do anything to make the world right, change people’s lives. The healings and proclamations of Good News were only precursors to how far you’d go for this place, this world. You’d take on the worst of them, of us. You seem to think only by your standing in the place of their evil, our lostness, can people turn, reverse how they live.

“Your house is left to you empty…you’ll never see me again.” Rejection has its intended effect. And more. You’ll be gone. Sorry. We all knew it was coming.

At least until that third day.

Wait. What’s that coming up ahead?

“Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”



Luke 13:31-35

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The Trouble with Jesus: Considerations Before You Walk Away by Constance Hastings

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