Sermon Tone Analysis

We’ve been in since the beginning of the school year, and we’ve seen Jesus continuing on his way toward Jerusalem—a journey he began all the way back in chapter 9. He’s taking his time getting there, because he’s regularly stopping on the way to teach and to heal the people who have come out to see him.

31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

32 And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.

33 Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’

34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!

How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

35 Behold, your house is forsaken.

And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”

We’ve been in since the beginning of the school year, and we’ve seen Jesus continuing on his way toward Jerusalem—a journey he began all the way back in chapter 9. He’s taking his time getting there, because he’s regularly stopping on the way to teach and to heal the people who have come out to see him.

Le héros

We haven’t spoken much about the context of this journey, other than saying he’s making his way toward Jerusalem.

But at this point, because of what he says in today’s passage, we would do well to stop for a minute and consider what it must have been like to do this.

Imagine you know that at the end of the week, you’re going to begin treatment for cancer.

You’re going to get sick, you’re going to lose weight, you’re going to lose your hair, and it’s all going to begin on Friday.

But until then, you still have to go to work.

You have to talk to clients, or lead meetings, or deal with your team, knowing all the while that there is a very dark period in your life looming just over the horizon.

Imagine how hard it would be to do what you are supposed to do—and to do it well—knowing that something like that is waiting for you.

How would you stay concentrated?

How would you stay focused on the task at hand?

How would you muster the presence of mind to be kind to others?

This is the sort of thing that Jesus must have been going through, only to an extent unknown to any other human being.

In making his way to Jerusalem, Jesus wasn’t just on his way to a rough patch in his life.

He was going to Jerusalem to die, and he knew it perfectly well.

(He’s already said as much to his disciples.)

And he knew what kind of a death he was going to suffer.

He knew Isaiah’s prophecy about him in , which said:

3 He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

Anon, 2016.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Every step he took towards Jerusalem was a step towards an agonizing and very slow death on the cross.

Every step he took towards Jerusalem was a step towards his having to bear all of the wrath of God against the sins of his people.

As one commentator said,

“It would rightly be regarded as undue cruelty to a condemned criminal if each day he was moved a foot closer to the gallows.

But this was Jesus’ daily experience as he deliberately chose to go to Jerusalem.”

Hughes, R.K., 1998.

Luke: that you may know the truth, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

This isn’t just the context of today’s passage, but of every passage we’ve seen since the beginning of September.

But the context gives particular weight to what he says here.

If you remember, Jesus has just been speaking to the crowds, exhorting them to strive to enter through the narrow door (v.

24).

He has told them that people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God (v.

29).

If you remember, Jesus has just been speaking to the crowds, exhorting them to strive to enter through the narrow door (v.

24).

He has told them that people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God (v.

29).

All the while, Jesus’s enemies were paying no attention to what he was saying, but only trying to trap him, to trip him up in his mission.

And that’s what we see beginning in v. 31.

He’s not going to say a lot, but in these five verses, he’s going to send three different messages, in which he highlights his determination to accomplish his mission.

people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.

A Message to Herod (v.

31-32)

31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

32 And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.

31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

Now, we need to take a minute to remember what happened earlier in the story.

Herod was king over the Jews at this point, a puppet leader left in power by the Romans, who were occupying the territory.

Herod had recently suffered a bit of political damage, after he executed John the Baptist.

If you remember, John had spoken out against the fact that Herod was sleeping with his brother’s wife, Herodias, and Herodias wanted John dead.

(Herod was actually fond of John.)

So she sent in her daughter to do a dance for Herod and enchant him, and Herod foolishly told her that anything she asked, he would give to her ().

At her mother’s prompting, she asked for the head of John the Baptist.

So Herod reluctantly had John executed.

This cost him a good deal of political capital with the people, because they loved John.

So he didn’t want to make the same mistake twice: if possible, the people on the whole were even fonder of Jesus than they were of John.

So then why then would Herod want to kill him?

And why would the Pharisees—the group of men who hated Jesus more than anyone—try to warn Jesus about it?

They wanted him dead.

Most commetators agree that given these facts—that Herod wouldn’t have wanted to kill Jesus himself, and the Pharisees wouldn’t have wanted to stop it, and the way Jesus responds to them—we should understand that the Pharisees and Herod were working together here.

It was an empty threat, meant to force Jesus to go somewhere else, where he wouldn’t be Herod’s problem anymore, and where he wouldn’t bother the Pharisees anymore.

They want Jesus out of their hair, so they cook up this threat and this warning to get him to go anywhere but Jerusalem, where Herod lived and where the Jewish temple stood.

But of course, Jesus won’t be deterred.

And to show his determination, he takes his gloves off and comes out swinging.

32 And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.”

To call someone a “fox” at that time was to suggest that the person was completely insignificant: it was an expression of complete and total contempt.

Herod is the only person in the gospels whom we see Jesus treat with contempt.

Later on, when he arrives in Jerusalem and stands before Herod to be questioned, Jesus doesn’t say a word to him—he won’t even stoop to address him.

As Leon Morris said, “When Jesus has nothing to say to a man that man’s position is hopeless.”

And it shows in the answer he gives to the Pharisees.

He says, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.

In other words, “Nothing you can say or do will convince me to go anywhere but Jerusalem.”

No attempts at manipulation, no scare tactics, will be successful here.

He will do his work, he will accomplish his mission, and Herod’s attempts to stop him are as pitiful as a pebble thrown at a tank by a little child.

Why?

Because going to Jerusalem, and being killed in Jerusalem (if Herod really had it in him, which we later see he doesn’t) was the plan all along.

This isn’t just a question of Jesus’s determination; this is a matter of divine sovereignty.

Jesus wasn’t just heading to Jerusalem despite threats to his life; he was going to Jerusalem to die.

And he would not be killed by the likes of Herod.

Jesus is the one who would give his life; no human king had the power to kill him.

As Jesus said in :

18 No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.

This charge I have received from my Father.

A Message to the Pharisees (v.