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- [D.A. Carson] The passage before us today begins with some very
interesting words. They seem innocuous at first, but they control
the rest of the Gospel of Luke.
We read, "As the time approached for Jesus to be taken up to heaven,
Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem." Now the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, order some of the events in Jesus' life slightly differently.
They prefer topical arrangements or mere sequence at some juncture or other.
But what Luke does is early on, already in 9:51, set Jesus' face
toward Jerusalem. So everything from this point on, from 9:51, finds
Jesus on the way to Jerusalem, and therefore to the cross. We read,
"As the time approached for Jesus to be taken up to heaven."
But the way he's taken up to heaven is by being lifted up on the cross, then buried
in the ground, then rising again the third day, and then spending time with his
disciples for 50 days before he goes up to heaven. And all of this takes place
in events around Jerusalem. The most significant events in all
of human history take place on a little hill outside Jerusalem almost 2000
years ago. Now in Luke's presentation, this means that everything from here
on, 9:51, falls under the shadow of the cross to which Jesus is pressing.
And this movement toward Jerusalem is brought up in text after text.
For example, in 13:22, "Then Jesus went through the towns and
villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem." 19:28, "After Jesus had said
this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem." A little farther on,
"As he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it."
So all the movement is toward Jerusalem. And everything that takes place now takes
place under the shadow that still lies ahead. And after that, then you come
to these three brief clips that talk about the cost of following Jesus.
But it's not the cost of following Jesus as a teacher in Galilee, or the cost
of following Jesus when he's a powerful healer. It's the cost of following Jesus
on the way to the cross, on the way to his resurrection,
on the way to glory. So that's when we read these three clips.
Somebody says, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replies,
"Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay
his head." In other words, Jesus was not here in order to build up a
palatial retirement home somewhere. He's on the road. He's not only an
itinerant preacher, he's an itinerant preacher on the road to Jerusalem.
Which is why elsewhere if you're going to follow Jesus, you have to
learn to take up your cross and follow him. Or again, Jesus says to another man,
"Follow me." The man says, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."
It seems like a decent filial thing to do, an honorable thing to do.
But Jesus says in words that sound harsh at first, "Let the dead bury their
own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." That is to say,
the kingdom that Jesus is bringing in by going to death is the very undoing
of death. By his death, he will make death die. And those who follow Jesus
must be sold out to the crucified and risen Lord, so that even familial
responsibilities take, as it were, a second tier. Within that framework,
Jesus raises the family elsewhere to a very high pedestal. But no pedestal can
stand over against the supreme authority of Jesus on the road to Jerusalem,
where he overcomes death and introduces resurrection life. Or again,
"I will follow you, Lord; but first, let me go back and say goodbye
to my family." Jesus replies, "No one who puts a hand to the plow
and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." Jesus, in other words,
demands exclusive allegiance, exclusive subservience,
exclusive obedience, exclusive faith. And this because he is the God-man, born
of Mary, the true son of God, on the road to Jerusalem to bear our sins in his own
body on the tree, as the Apostle Peter would later put it, and rise again
vindicated to bring with him a great host of men and women drawn from every tongue,
and tribe, and people, and nation, in a new heaven and a new earth.
The home of righteousness with resurrection existence.
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