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(44) Faith in the Lord (Luke 7:1-17, 17th May 2009)
(45) Bewildered by Christ (Luke 7:18-28, 21st June 2009)
(46) When men become children (Luke 7:29-50, 28th June 2009)
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Building upon Jesus' important sermon in chapter 6, Luke moves on to illustrate Jesus' words from actual incidents. He writes firstly about a centurion wanting Jesus to heal his servant who is near to death. Because the centurion is a Gentile he assumes Jesus will not meet him, and so sends a delegation of local Jewish leaders instead. They ask Jesus to help because the centurion “loves their nation”, as seen in his gifts to their building fund! In their words these men illustrate Jesus' preaching in 6:32 onwards: people happily do good to those from whom they get a payback! These leaders lack the truly loving heart which God desires. But in contrast, the centurion shows himself a real believer. He honours God, is compassionate, does good to enemies, is humble and shows total reliance in Jesus' words. Jesus praises him: he's not found such faith in Israel! Which also indicts the Israelites because they have failed to recognise Jesus and are more caught up in material things – the very attitude Jesus warned about in 6:24-26. Jesus, then, is dividing people, as prophesied, but the shocking thing is that here the believing person is a Gentile! (A foretaste of what is going to happen in Luke's second book: Acts.) But then to demonstrate further the reality of Jesus' sermon, Luke tells another story about rescue from death. Near Nain, Jesus comes across the funeral of the only son of a widow. Although crowds are present, no-one expects Jesus to be able to help. But moved by compassion Jesus intervenes, once again using just words to defeat death. As a result the people are overawed by him, considering him to be a prophet – maybe like Elijah who similarly raised a widow's only son from death (1 Kings 17). In this amazing miracle Jesus shows his power over death; something which is enhanced by the way he touches the coffin and thus breaks through Israel's prohibitions against such actions (Num 19). Jesus is the truly holy one who cannot be contaminated by death! However, whilst the event is very positive, it also exposes further sad truth about the Israelites: they lack faith. Where the centurion called Jesus “Lord” and believed in his power before it was used; they only say “prophet” and that after the power has been displayed. Also, they claim God has come to help them but show no humility about their failure being the cause of the problems they're in. These people lack the faith in Christ as saviour which should be at the heart of Christianity. Christians must live relying upon Christ. Every day we must built up our trust in him. And we need to speak of him to others, that they would be attracted – by God's grace – to this wonderful saviour, as the centurion was.
(1) What do you do, each week, to remind yourself of Jesus Christ and why you trust him with your life? How can you do this better? (2) If you are a believer, do you ever spend time thinking about your future resurrection to eternal life? If not, why not?
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In chapter 3 John the Baptist preached of Christ that he would bring a fiery baptism upon Israel, as he flooded the land with the Holy Spirit. This would burn away all those who were unready for the Lord (3:16). However, John now hears (7:18) that Jesus is doing good to people whom John would assume are under God's judgement, like a Gentile centurion (7:3) and an Israelite family with no more sons to inherit their land (7:12). This news leaves John bewildered and wondering if Jesus is the Christ (7:19) – where's the fiery judgement? Of course, as readers we know from 6:20-49 just what Jesus is doing. Jesus has explained how his growing kingdom will exist alongside the kingdoms of this world, for a while. This will bring trouble to Christians because of the world's antagonism towards God (6:22). However, Christians must respond by doing good to their enemies: maintaining contact, even when it brings further trouble. Christians must live in a kingdom of love (6:27-36), which inside the kingdom means not behaving in a judgemental way (6:37-45). Jesus' behaviour at the start of chapter 7 is simply an outworking of his preaching in chapter 6. John, however, cannot see that and so Jesus sends a reply (7:22) where he quotes all the good he's doing. But how will that help John? It will help because he knows from Isaiah (eg 35:5-6; 26:19) that these are just the good deeds he should expect to see Christ. John therefore doesn't need to feel let-down by Jesus (7:23) but rather recognise that before the fiery judgement falls (when the Romans sack Jerusalem in 70AD), first God will show mercy to one final generation of Israelites by displaying to them his wonderful kingdom of blessing, ruled over by Jesus, and by giving them time to repent. But after Jesus sends back this reply, he then turns to the crowds to make sure they've not misunderstood his discussion with John. He reminds them that they know from his conduct (7:24-26) that John is clearly one of God's prophets – indeed the one highly honoured by preparing the way for the coming of the Lord (7:27). So John is a great man and Jesus' reply is not questioning that! But even so, John has failed, as yet, to grasp one key thing: Jesus is the Christ and God's kingdom has begun. Which means that even the youngest, simplest believer is in a better position than John (7:28) for he or she – like the centurion earlier – is relying upon Jesus as king. Sometimes Christians can feel like John, asking “where is the Lord?” when the world carries on as it always has. But the Lord is building his kingdom and we must rejoice in what he's doing in his church and people. And we must live obediently: displaying God's kingdom of love.
(1) Do you ever feel the way John did about what the Lord is doing in this world? Does this passage help you to think and pray at those times? (2) What does this passage teach about being “great” from God's point of view? Meditate on Jesus' words in 7:28 and turn them into prayer.
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Jesus has just finished reassuring John the Baptist that he is the Christ whom John preached, even though he has brought mercy to Israel rather than judgement. But now Jesus turns to the crowd and to them he must give a strong warning because not all in Israel have responded well to John's prophetic warnings. Some did: they listened, accepted God's assessment of themselves and were baptised (v29). But others rejected God's assessment, feeling no need of baptism (v30). So Jesus confronts the rejectors declaring these men who sit in judgement upon God, actually to be a group of silly, bickering children (v31). Jesus has seen children in the marketplace for whom no game on offer is ever the right one (v32). Many of the Israelites in Jesus' society are just like that: nothing that God does is able to convince them to turn. John is austere and tough, Jesus is warm and friendly, but the rejectors find reasons to write both of them off – neither messenger from God is good enough! (v33,34) Their problem is that neither John nor Jesus just pats them on the head and praises them for being good people; so they won't listen to either of them. Here is the danger of having a proud and judgemental spirit – it becomes a fixed habit which leads us away from God as we spend our time condemning others. Jesus calls his people not to be like that (6:37). And then to show us the truth of Jesus' words, Luke recounts a real-life incident involving a judgemental Pharisee called Simon. To link us into the story, Luke quotes a seemingly odd statement from Jesus about “wisdom's children” (v35) which actually makes a straightforward point. Wisdom refers to Jesus himself (who is described elsewhere as having and giving wisdom eg 2:40; 21:15) and Jesus is saying that those who learn from him end up with lives which show how right his words were; their lives prove he comes from God. Which is precisely what the woman in the story displays. She follows Jesus into a Pharisee's home and washes his feet in a remarkable way (v36-38). The judgemental home-owner condemns her because she fails to live as he does, and then condemns Jesus for allowing her touch (v39). But Jesus, although he knows her many sins (v40-43), praises her faith and loving deeds, and grants her forgiveness (v47-48). Meanwhile Simon, whose sins may be less, is seen as unforgiving and inhospitable (v44-46). So of the two of them, it is the woman who gains God's peace (v50). All this confirms Jesus' words: the “children” who learn from him, expose and prove the reality of who Jesus is (v49). This story teaches us to root out from our hearts the “nothing is good enough” attitude and make sure we live by Jesus' words, or we will lose God and his blessings.
(1) Consider others who are trapped in their sins with a heart which rejects the Lord. Are their lives full of love, joy and peace like the woman in the passage? (2) Run through the things which the Lord has forgiven in your life. Look back even over the last 24 hours – what has needed forgiveness? Give thanks to God.
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