Resolution

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

March 4, 2007

Text: Luke 13: 31-35

MUST GO

My brother in law says that his mother once told him, in reply to his question about what’s for supper, that they were going to have “must-go.” He asked her, “What’s must-go, a new casserole of some kind?” She said, “No, it was leftovers that must go –they must be eaten or thrown away.”

In a much different sense of the word, Jesus is remembered often using the word “must.”

At age 12, when his parents return to Jerusalem looking for him, and find him in the temple, he tells them, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

 Later, he reminds the disciples that he “must” leave Capernaum and go to other territories because he must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God.

 He tells them that he must suffer; that he must be reckoned with transgressors.

And to Zacchaeus up in the tree, “Come down, for I must go to your house today.”

 After resurrection, as he meets the two on the road to Emmaus, he reminds them that it was necessary (same Greek word) that the Son of Man suffer.

Long before we heard of “purpose-driven” living, Jesus led such a life. Jesus was “fiercely loyal to his Father’s will.” He lived as one who went to Jerusalem and to the rejection and torture and death that comes to him, not as a tragic hero, but as one carrying out his mission. (Frederick Danker, Luke)

Nobody not even King Herod Antipas, that clever fox, is going to keep him away from his rendezvous with the powers of death in the Holy City. He will go there as other prophets have, to speak the truth to the powerful. He will lead his friends there, too. But even their desertion of him in that last week of his life will not deter him.

OBEDIENCE

He is obedient to his heavenly Father. Obedience: a word which has just about left our lexicon. About the only time we use it is when we are speaking of traffic laws. The word “must” also seems quaint. About the only time when we use it is with reference to some legal requirement---as in “your return must be postmarked no later than April 15.”

But Jesus is obedient not out of law, but out of love. Jesus gains strength to be obedient through his communion with God in prayer. It is in this intimate relationship with his Abba that he finds the courage to stay the course.

Jesus says that he “must finish his work.” His work is to tell people about the God’s visitation with them. He must show that it is God’s will that the poor hear good news, the captives go free and the blind see. It is this work that must be finished. And how it breaks our hearts, even now to think of it, his work will not be finished until he cries from the cross, “It is finished.” (John 19:20) It is in Jesus’ death on the cross, and his subsequent resurrection, that the victory of God’s love is made complete, once for all.

“Nevertheless” Jesus says, he must be on his way. He knows who he is and what his assignment is.

In Paul’s letter to Philippians, he describes it this way: Jesus, though in the form of God, did not  look upon his status as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, and was obedient, even to death on a cross.

JERUSALEM, JERUSALEM

Talk of Jerusalem reminds Jesus of the sadness he feels at his rejection by his brothers and sisters of the Covenant People. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” he says, much as a Mother might say to her child, “Robert, Robert, what am I going to do with you?” Four times in the gospel of Luke he says. As he approaches Jerusalem, he weeps over the city.

Then he uses imagery from his heritage: “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”

I can remember seeing a mother hen gathering her chicks up under her, the chicks cheeping and the mother clucking until they are all safe. Such is the nature of God, Jesus says. God’s nature is to gather up and protect his people who always seem to be wandering off. If God is like the hen, we are like the chicks. “God’s help is available to us, we only have to avail ourselves of it. God gives us the freedom to choose between good and evil, and with this, there is accountability.” (Richard Neill Donovan, Sermonwriter.com)

A NEW DAY

The ministry of Jesus was such a contrast to the way things were. As the religious leaders saw it, God was distant, observing from afar, and would someday come with power through his Davidic King and rescue his people. Meanwhile, the law is our guardian and our guide. Remain obedient to the Torah, maintain your distinctiveness as a holy people, and God will recognize us when he comes in his Anointed One.

But Jesus tells them that the Reign of God is now upon them, in his life and work. Today the prophet’s hope is fulfilled in your hearing, he announces. In his radical love for the least, the last and the lost, God’s love is poured out. In his obedience to this new vision, even unto death, God’s love is made available. Can’t you see this? The protecting and gathering love of God, like a Mother Hen’s, is here, now!

Jesus heart breaks for his people. They are blind to God’s presence.

CHOOSE NOW

But the Mother Hen love of God will not use force. In their choosing to reject, the people are left to their own devices.

This is the hard edge of the Good News. There is yet time to repent, to receive the forgiveness of God, to welcome the reign of God and live toward a different future. But we must grab hold.

J.S. Whale describes the love of God offered to us in this image. A mother cat will go to where her kittens are and take them to safety, gently lifting them with her jaws. But the mother monkey will go to where to baby monkeys are, and they must grab hold of the mother monkey and hold tight as the momma runs to a safe place.

All analogies have their limits. But God’s grace so freely given must be taken hold of. Otherwise, it does us no good, and we are left to our own devices.

A friend once summed it up this way. We either accept that Christ died for our sins, or we work it out for ourselves.

Such was the love of God for us, for the whole world, that he gave his only Son for us. Such was the love of Jesus for God and for us that he set his face toward Jerusalem.

Will you let Jesus gather you up as a hen gathers her chicks? Will you find refuge in him?

Will you allow the Risen Crucified One to live in you, and so have courage for the joyful obedience God asks of you?