Forgiveness over Judgment

Hello everyone.

Here is my post in the New Year.  I hope the new year is going well for you. I want to continue my exegesis of Luke 9.  In my previous we looked at how Jesus taught his disciples about waht greatness really meant, but they didn't understand his lesson.  Today we will look at something else that disciples were not understanding from Jesus.  He had preached to love enemies (Luke 6:27) and had taught them in Luke 6:37, “Don’t judge and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned.  Forgive and you will be forgiven." In Luke 9:51-56, a couple of the apostles do some judging and some comdemning, without the forgiving. Here is my translation: 

51 As the days for Jesus to be taken up drew near, Jesus set out resolutely to go to Jerusalem. 52 He sent messengers ahead. They went into a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival. 53 However, the town would not receive him, since he was on his way to Jerusalem. 54 Seeing this, two of his disciples, James and John, said, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from Heaven and burn them up?” 55 But Jesus turned to them and rebuked them, 56 and they went to a different village. 

It appears that we see, from this point on in Luke, a change in Jesus’ ministry.  Verse 51 says that the time for Jesus to be taken up was drawing near. And so he set out for Jerusalem. In the Greek it says that Jesus πρόσωπον ἐστήρισεν (prosōpon estērisev) to go to Jerusalem. Πρόσωπον means ‘face.’ and ἐστήρισεν is a form of the word that means to cause 'to be  inwardly firm or committed, confirm, establish.' So a literal translation would be something like, “he set his face to go to Jerusalem.  It is an expression that we would likely not use our modern vernacular. So, I translated it as, “Jesus set out resolutely to go to Jerusalem.”

It is important to understand that Jesus knew what awaited him in Jerusalem, suffering and death, but then resurrection. He turned his face toward suffering and death and he was resolute, determined to go toward it. So, the rest of Luke is the story of Jesus as he marches resolutely to the Cross. 

Now, Jesus starts this journey in Galilee and goes through Samaria, the shortest route to Jerusalem.  Most Jews, because of their disdain for Samaritans, would go around Samaria, even though it would take more time to do so.  Jesus was never afraid to go against the social convention of his time, and went straight through Samaria rather than around. 

The first village that Jesus came across would not receive him.  This is not all that surprising, since a Samaritan village would not want a large group of Jews coming into it.  Why would they? The assumption of the Samaritans would be that this group would come into town and look down on them. Who would want that? 

This riles up two of Jesus' disciples. James and John, two of Jesus' closest disciples, want to call down fire from Heaven to burn the whole village up.  (Calling down fire from Heaven does have an OT precedent. Elijah called down fire from heaven on the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18.) Also, we see with this request that Jesus has given the apostles considerable power.  They were not asking Jesus to call down fire from Heaven, they were going to do it. (Mark 3:17 records that Jesus had nicknamed these two, the Sons of Thunder. perhaps for good reason.)

But, one has to wonder what these two have been seeing for the three years that they spent wandering around with Jesus.  Had they ever seen Jesus do anything like this? If Jesus ever called down fire on a village in anger, the Bible doesn’t record it. I doubt that the disciples had ever Jesus doing anything like it.  In fact, Jesus doesn’t seem angry with the Samaritans, at all, instead his anger seems directed at his disciples who want to burn down villages. 

Despite the fact that these Samaritans have rejected Jesus, the apostles who are calling for swift judgment on the town are wrong.  This is not Jesus’ style at all. They may have forgotten Jesus' teaching in Luke 6:37, but Jesus had not.  They were quick to judge and quick to condemn.  Jesus was quick to forgive. Rather than advocate violence to the Samaritan village, Jesus simply moves on to another village. Jesus had, after all, set out resolutely on a mission of forgiveness, not judgement. 

May we all be more Jesus (forgiving),and less like those who would call down fire from Heaven (judgmental). 

Tom