Hello everyone.
Today's post will finish up Luke 9. We are looking verses 57-62. In this passage two men come to Jesus and declare that they would follow, while another is called by Jesus to follow. We can see from the three interactions that following Jesus is a difficult path. Jesus doesn’t sugar-coat it.
The first of the three accounts that we have here a man says to Jesus, “ I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus' response to man is pretty telling. Jesus does not give a picture of a comfortable path. It is a hard road to follow Jesus. Jesus really challenges the man, as if to say “Are you really willing to follow anywhere?” Jesus spells it out for him. Wild animals have places to go. But Jesus had nothing, not even a place to lay his head down at night. Was he really willing to do this? What this man is looking for is not clear, but Jesus does make it clear that following him is not an easy path.
Jesus calls the next man to follow him. The man makes what seems to be a simple plea, but one that seems to be rejected by Jesus. He asks to go and bury his father. Jesus' response to this seems pretty harsh, especially within the context of Judaism, where one of the most important commands is to honor your mother and father. In Jewish custom, burial of the dead was seen as a major priority, so it certainly became a big family responsibility.
Jesus' response is “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you come and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Here, Jesus is establishing a new priority. His kingdom takes precedence over family responsibilities. Obviously, Jesus is not doing away with the command to honor our parents. But he is establishing that his kingdom takes priority, even over family.
Some have suggested that the man’s father was not yet dead, and that he was wanting to delay following Jesus until his father had died. If this is the case, then the man fails to see the immediacy of Jesus’ call. This may, or may not be the case. If it is, it does help to temper the seeming harshness of what Jesus says to him. The important point is not whether the man's father was still alive, but the priorities that Jesus is establishing.
In the third example, the man, like the first, declares that he will follow Jesus. He merely wants to go and say goodbye to his family. This does not seem to be an unreasonable request. Elisha asked Elijah to be able to say good-bye to his family in 1 Kings 19, before returning to serve Elijah and eventually take his place as Israel’s prophet.
Jesus’ statement does not necessarily condemn this action. Darrell Bock says that Jesus’ reply was to show the would-be disciple what this commitment really involved. “One cannot follow after two things at once.” (Bock, 983) Jesus’ response is, “No one who places his hand on a plow and looks backwards is suitable for the kingdom of God.” Jesus is expressing an important thought. Once we make our decision to follow Jesus, we can never look back at our old life and seek it again, just like a farmer cannot plow a field while looking backwards.
As disciples of Jesus, we look forward, toward Him. But, it is very easy to glorify our old life when following Jesus gets difficult. We can’t look back to it. If our old life seems attractive to us, then we are doing something wrong.
In each of the three stories we are not told how the potential disciples responded. How did they respond to the difficult things that Jesus said? We don’t know. We can know that Jesus does not promise us an easy path, and that in spite of the difficulties, following Jesus is worth it.
Tom
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