Father Stephen De Young: We’ll get started here in just a minute, we’re at the beginning of Luke chapter nine. We actually stopped on a chapter break last time. Just very quickly, we’re still basically where we have been for the last few weeks in terms of what’s going on. Jesus is ministering in Galilee with his twelve disciples and then with other large crowds that have sort of been following him around. They’ve been using Capernaum, which is a city on the coast of the Sea of Galilee, sort of a base of operations, a place they return to. And then Jesus has been traveling around, preaching in the various villages and preaching to the crowds that follow him and teaching them as well as healing people, casting out demons. We’ve seen a number of those miracles as we’ve gone through, and so that’s pretty much where we pick up again tonight. That is continuing still in that same place probably as we go tonight there’s going to be a little bit of a transition, or the beginning of one, depending on how far we get in the overall story.

But unless anybody has any leftover questions or remarks or old allegations or anything else, we’ll go ahead and get started, in Luke, chapter nine, verse one:

Then†He called His twelve disciples together and†gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases.

So a couple of things already to reemphasize there: notice once again that we talked about the fact that St. Luke was a physician. Notice once again, and he’s done this throughout his Gospel, he distinguishes between demonic possession and diseases.

As we’ve talked about before, sort of the general modern take on reading the Gospels as well as most other ancient literature is well, people at that time were just kind of primitive and they didn’t understand science and they didn’t understand medicine and so somebody would have epilepsy or somebody be sick or.. and “Oh, he’s possessed by an evil spirit!” Well as we’ve seen going through the Gospel of Luke, that’s not the case. They know the difference between somebody who’s suffering from a spiritual problem and someone who’s suffering from a physical problem. They know that they’re not the same thing. We’ve seen some people who suffer from both, but they know the difference.

They had an understanding of science that was in many cases very different than ours, but they did have a concept of science. I mean Aristotle lived close to between 350 and 400 years before this. He wrote his treatises “On the Parts of Animals” and “On the Parts of Plants”, where he was doing dissections on animals and plants and seeing how living organisms work. Again, it was not the same as ours. But it’s not that they had no concept of the idea that there were physical laws, that mathematics was involved, the human body as an organism also functioned the way animal bodies functioned.

We know more, but they didn’t know nothing. And so we need to be humble enough to realize that our predecessors, especially at this point in history, the Roman Empire were not as primitive or maybe we’re not as advanced would be a better way to put it, we’re maybe not as sophisticated as we’d like to think. In many cases, many of them were more sophisticated than a lot of folks are today.

So, St. Luke here again makes that distinction. But notice, Jesus gathers the twelve together and gives the power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases. Well, what does that mean? If the sheriff deputizes you, that means the sheriff is the one who has authority in that area. So if Christ is able to give the disciples authority over all demons and over all diseases, he’s able to give them authority over the spiritual realm and the physical realm. For Him to be able to give that, he has to have it, right? So this is yet another place where if we read closely, St. Luke is clueing us in, that this isn’t just Jesus has magic powers, right? Or Jesus just happens to be a prophet who God works miracles through. He’s telling us Jesus possesses authority over the physical world and over the spiritual world. And that’s why Jesus is able to do these things. It stems from his authority. Meaning these miracles we’re seeing are “Not just, wow, that’s impressive, but these miracles are clues. They’re telling us who Jesus is, namely that he’s God.”

So he gives them this authority. Then verse two:

He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. †And He said to them,†ìTake nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor bag nor bread nor money; and do not have two tunics apiece.”

So he sends them with two jobs, number one, to preach, and number two, to heal people. Preach the kingdom of God and to heal people. Now, you may remember those two things when we were going through the Old Testament are always talked about together, right? Remember the passage from Isaiah that Christ read at the synagogue at Nazareth at the beginning of his ministry? The spirit of the Lord is upon me. Preach good news to the poor, preach the Gospel, and then secondly, to give sight to the blind, to free captives. So these things are tied together. The physical manifestations, the miraculous manifestations, are signs of the spiritual reality. And when we look into the Gospel of John, that idea is going to become very important. Because St. John doesn’t talk about miracles. St. John talks about signs, refers to the signs that Jesus works.

But so, the sign that now spiritual freedom from the dark powers that have oppressed people of Israel, the sign to them that God has returned to them, the sign to them that the Kingdom has come is that the blind could see, the lame walk, the deaf can hear. Remember, that’s the answer a couple of chapters ago that Jesus gave to the two disciples of St. John the Forerunner or St. John the Baptist, that came to him. They came to him and said, “Are you the guy? Is there another guy?” Remember we talked about they tried to sort of orient themselves in terms of what was happening, and he said, “Go and tell St. John,” The answer to St. John was, “What do you see? The eyes of the blind are open, the lame walk”.

So, these healings are the sign that the Kingdom has come. And we talked about last time, Jesus didn’t do these to prove who he was to people. Remember the people who didn’t believe, he threw him out before he raised Jairus’s daughter. It’s not to sort of prove who he is. “Oh, you don’t believe I’m the Son of God? Well, watch this.” He never does that. In fact, when people come to Him and say, well, hey, if you’re the Messiah, then show us something, he always refuses. So it’s not to prove to people who he is, but the person who knows the Scriptures the person who’s close to God should see these things happening. And based on knowing the Scriptures, knowing what Isaiah wrote, knowing what the other prophets wrote, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, should see those things and say, okay, this is… the time has come.

Interlocutor: My question is this: when they go to the preach the gospel, as I understand they still are confused as to who Christ is. Therefore, can you give me an example, other than the miracles, what would they say? “Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand?” What would they stand up and teach? Would they teach from the Torah, or would they teach from what Jesus has taught them, and do we have any information on what they were teaching?

Fr. Stephen: Well, we don’t have any direct information, but you notice the wording, it doesn’t say that they preach the gospel. The word gospel doesn’t appear here. And it’s not that St. Luke doesn’t use that word. He uses that word a lot. And when we get into the Book of Acts, the second part, Luke and Acts are volumes one and two, right? When we get into the Book of Acts, he’s going to be very clear that what the apostles and St. Paul, what they’re proclaiming is the gospel, right? He’s going to use that word a lot. But you notice he doesn’t use that word here yet for exactly the reason that you were just talking about. They’re not entirely clear, and as we go forward tonight, we’re going to see how unclear they still are. The disciples are still a little unclear on who Jesus is or what Jesus is about to do.

But what they’re doing is they’re proclaiming the Kingdom of God, that it’s here. So they’re proclaiming it verbally, they’re preaching it, and then by healing people, that’s why the healings go together with it. They’re showing that the Kingdom of God is here.

But yes, they’re still unclear as to how exactly Christ is going to be victorious and establish his kingdom. They’re still kind of unclear on that as we’ll see here going forward. So, notice also when he sends them out, he tells them to not take anything. This is kind of counterintuitive, right? If you were planning on going on a journey, you’d want to take… but he says don’t take a staff, don’t take a walking stick, don’t take a bag. Don’t take anything, any supplies, don’t take any food, don’t take any money. This all sounds kind of counterintuitive. It says do not have two tunics apiece. Meaning don’t even bring any extra clothes. Don’t bring a change of clothes. Now this is especially counterintuitive when you think about where he’s sending them. Where are they still? They’re in Galilee, right? So Jesus has been traveling around to these villages. Now he’s sending them out to these villages. This isn’t like today where you hop on a plane and you get to the Hilton somewhere. You go down to the gift shop and buy a new razor and buy some deodorant and buy a toothbrush, right? It’s not like, “Oh, I could just go get what I need once I’m there. I don’t need to bring a carry-on.” They’re peasants already, but they’re now going to these peasant villages where they don’t have anything. They don’t have anything. Let’s continue before I comment further:

Whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. And whoever will not receive you, when you go out of that city,†shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them.î So they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.

Here they use the term gospel because what Luke is doing is he’s equating the gospel… The gospel isn’t just any good news, right? Winning the lottery is good news. A great sale at Kroger is good news. This is the particular good news that the kingdom of God is here. So basically, what he’s saying is you’re going to go there with nothing. When you walk into a town, anyone invites you to stay with them, shows you hospitality, accept it, you go there, eat whatever they give you to eat, stay with them, and then when you’re done staying with them, leave and move on to the next town. And if nobody will take you in, then just kick the dust off your feet and keep moving.

So why would he go about it this way? St. Paul is going to comment on this later. And remember, we’ve got to kind of keep in mind always that Luke and Acts are parts one and two. Acts isn’t a sequel, right? This is planned out, right? It’s a two-part work. So, what we see St. Paul doing and he makes this point also in his letters, is that he doesn’t show up and take money for his preaching. Right? There’s no money. He goes there with the clothes on his back. You get a job working, usually making tents which involve a lot of sewing. You get some job doing manual labor, work with his hands, then preach for free, then move on to the next town. If they threw them out of town, he’d move on to the next town.

So, by sending them out in this way, it should be a sign to the people that they’re preaching to of what the kingdom of God coming means. Because remember, at this time, most of the people in Galilee or Judea, when they heard that the kingdom of God was near, the kingdom of God was coming, what did they think was about to happen?

Interlocutor: War with the Romans.

Fr. Stephen: Right, “Oh, good. God’s coming back. He’s going to take out these no-good Romans and the rest of these pagans, set us free. We’re going to have them as slaves. We’re going to have all their money. The worm is about to turn. We’re going to be on top, right? We’re going to be the ones with the power.” Now, we know we’re living after the fact, right? We’re familiar with the New Testament. We’re familiar with what Jesus is going to do, but that’s not how it’s going to happen. That’s not the way that God is going to choose to redeem and save the world, but it hasn’t happened yet for them.

So, the fact that the person who shows up proclaiming that the kingdom of God is here, and that the moment is now, and that the Messiah is come isn’t coming to you wearing armor with a sword saying, “Okay, guys, everybody signed up for the militia. We’re heading to Capernaum to take on the Roman garrison.” They’re not trying to raise an army. They’re not coming and offering them money to serve in the army. They’re not coming to them from a position of strength, to rally the troops. The exact opposite. They’re coming to them from a position of weakness.

And this is a signifier of how it is that Jesus is going to redeem the world. He’s going to redeem the world by suffering and dying, not by killing and conquering. And so that’s why he sends his messengers out in a way that fits the message. So there’s not hypocrisy between what they’re preaching and how they’re living and how they’re presenting themselves and who they are.

Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by Him; and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead,†and by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the old prophets had risen again. Herod said, ìJohn I have beheaded, but who is this of whom I hear such things?î†So he sought to see Him.

Now, when it says he sought to see him, don’t think Herod had some great conversion. That’s not what this is about, right? What you should notice here is the kind of fear and paranoia… we know that St. John the Forerunner, St. John the Baptist, had condemned him for marrying his brother’s wife. So at least from the perspective of St. John the Baptist, it didn’t matter what kind of Supreme Court judges he was going to appoint. If you’re an immoral person, then you’re an immoral person. That’s it. So Herod, of course, had responded by killing him.

And so, he’s hearing rumors. He’s hearing what Jesus is doing. He’s hearing this is also a clue as to what they were preaching, that people would associate what they were preaching with what St. John the Forerunner was preaching. So, the word is coming back, he’s preaching the same thing. So he thinks “Oh did St. John come back somehow? Or is this Elijah?” Right? Remember we talked about before how there was this prophet Elijah would come before the Messiah? Well, maybe this is Elijah, maybe this is one of the other prophets has come back. This isn’t hope and expectation in Herod’s voice. This isn’t Herod, like, excited, “Oh, this is great. That guy I murdered is back from the dead.” This is fear, this is concern. So, the reason he’s trying to see him is, number one, to try and figure out who he is. That number two, probably to kill him too, as we’re going to see rolling up here.

Interlocutor: Why would he kill someone if he just keeps coming back?

Fr. Stephen: Well, maybe the second or third time is the charm. Part of what we’re supposed to see here is a contrast. Why does Herod come up here? Why is this mentioned here in the context of him sending the disciples out without anything? We’re supposed to contrast the two. Herod is sort of a king, I mean, he’s a tetrarch at this point he’s sort of middle management, but he’s still a king of a sort. He’s got power, but what kind of power and authority does he have? What does he have that he can really do? Violence. That’s it, right? He could have somebody flogged, he could have somebody killed. That’s pretty much it, right? That’s the best he can do. And what’s his concern here? Well, if people are coming back from the dead and the worst thing you can do to somebody is to kill them, you’re in some trouble, right? Because that means you lose. The best I could do is kill you and people are coming back from that, so I got nothing.

So, there’s a contrast here between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus, who has real power and authority and gives it to his disciples, but who comes with nothing in a position of weakness and offering the kingdom to Herod, who is quote unquote, a “king”, only has this one power of violence. And it’s now finding out that he has no real power at all in the grand scheme of things.

And the apostles, when they had returned, told Him all that they had done.†Then He took them and went aside privately into a deserted place belonging to the city called Bethsaida. †But when the multitudes knew†it,†they followed Him; and He received them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who had need of healing.

So once again, we’ve seen several times, Jesus tries to go off on his own with the disciples, but the crowd gets word of where he is, figures it out and they all come out to see him. He can’t stop them.

And remember who it is, who these multitudes are. This isn’t Herod, these aren’t the wealthy people, these aren’t the religious leaders, as we’ve seen, they have no interest in Jesus and what he’s saying. These are the poor, the peasants, they’re all dropping everything and just following him, desperate to get to him and hear what he has to say.

When the day began to wear away, the twelve came and said to Him, ìSend the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions; for we are in a deserted place here.î

So, the sun is getting ready to set. It’s late at night. The disciples were probably kind of hoping for some… they were trying to go off privately. They had these stories to tell about what happened while they were out preaching. But the crowd shows up. Jesus is preaching and healing, and preaching and healing. Starting to get dark. They say, “Okay, let’s wrap this up. All right, let’s wrap this up. Lord, send these people off, let them go find a place to stay for the night. They can come back tomorrow morning if they want to.”

But He said to them,†ìYou give them something to eat.î And they said, ìWe have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people.î For there were about five thousand men.

Now that, “Unless we go out and buy food”, was not like, “Hey, I can swing through the drive-thru on the way home”, right? Because there’s 5000 people. As we’ve seen, the disciples, just like these people are poor, there’s no way they were going to go buy food for 5000 people. So that’s kind of sarcastic, right? We’ve got five loaves of bread. And when you think loaves of bread, obviously this isn’t sliced bread from the store, but it’s not even loaves like we have for our church bread. This is most likely sort of unleavened bread. This is sort of like a tortilla or a flatbread, right? They got five of those, they have two little fish. So that’s not even really going to feed twelve people, right? Thirteen with Jesus, not really going to feed thirteen people, let alone 5000. So they’re kind of sarcastically saying, “Look Jesus, we don’t have enough food for us unless you got some way for us to go buy 5000 people dinner, this isn’t happening.”

Then He said to His disciples,†ìMake them sit down in groups of fifty.î†And they did so, and made them all sit down. Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He†blessed and broke them, and gave†them†to the disciples to set before the multitude. So they all ate and were†filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them.

So a couple of things here, notice he just sent them out with no money, no food, no change of clothes, no nothing, right? They went on these journeys and they were all taken care of, right? God provided for all of them. They come back from this with all these stories to tell and Jesus says, “Okay, well we got to provide for these people.” And they’re like, “Oh, what are you talking about? We can’t do that.” So once again this is a picture of the disciples sort of not getting it, not getting it immediately after Jesus sort of made the point to them, right? Look, God will take care of you, God will take care it. And, of course the point having been made several times already that Jesus is God, doing the “God-things” that God does, but they’re not clueing into it.

Now, notice also when we’re talking about things God does, what was one of the main things, as the people of Judea and Galilee looked back on their history. What was the biggest event in their minds in their Old Testament history, right? It was the Exodus out of Egypt, Passover and the Exodus. And when they were wandering in the wilderness, when they were wandering in the desert, remember what the disciples say at the beginning. This is a deserted area, literally says this is a desert. It’s a desert, there’s no food. But when Israel was in the desert with no food, God sent them food, he sent them bread from heaven.

So once again, we have this great multitude of the people of God in a deserted place out in the wilderness and God provides food for them. So Jesus here is doing one of the things that God does.

Also here, it’s really easy to read past this, because we read verse 16 and we sort of say, “okay, Jesus prayed before they ate,” but the language that’s used is very specific that says he blessed and broke them. This is the same language we’re going to see in St. Luke’s Gospel and in the other Gospels where it’s described of what Jesus does when he institutes the Eucharist at the Last Supper, at the Mystical Supper, he takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, gives it to the disciples and says, this is my body. So what we have here is sort of a bridge for us reading it after the fact, and of course St. Luke wrote it after the fact.

For us, looking back at it after the fact, it’s sort of threefold:  we see Jesus doing what God does, what God did in the Old Testament, in providing for his people, for their nourishment. We see Him doing it in the gospel here for his followers. And we see sort of implicit this prophecy of how he’s going to do it into the future in terms of providing spiritual food, feeding our spiritual lives in the church. So all three come together here in this passage, and you see at the end, there’s not only enough for everybody, but there’s more than they started with. They get to the end, twelve baskets full of four pieces of bread. You’re not going to get that out of five loaves. You’re not going to get that out of five loaves. So there’s more than they started with. There’s enough for everyone, and they end up with more than they began with.

Now, I have to say, this passage, if you watch, again, the History Channel or the National Geographic Channel is getting just as bad, and since Lent is about to start, will start with the Jesus documentaries. Again, there are a number of modern scholars who, of course, don’t believe in miracles, but who for some reason want to keep this passage anyway. It’s one of the things I’ve never quite understood. I understand if you don’t think Jesus was God, so you just say, oh, the New Testament is a bunch of nice stories. I don’t understand trying to keep the New Testament as an important and inspiring book when you don’t believe it’s true. But that’s just sort of cognitive dissonance to me. But one common thing you will hear now when they talk about the feeding of the 5000 here is they will say, “Well, no, see, it’s not a miracle. It’s that all these people, these 5000 people, they saw what Jesus was doing, that Jesus only had this little bit of food, but he was sharing. And so that made them feel bad because they all secretly had food with them. And so when they saw Jesus sharing his food, they said, ‘oh, you know, I should share my food too.’ And so they all got out their food and shared their food with everybody, and that’s why they ended up with so much food. It’s not a miracle.”

Now, first of all, if that was the message that this text was trying to send, Jesus could have just told a parable about sharing, right? It’s not that sharing is a bad thing, right? We were hopefully all taught to share in kindergarten. Sharing is a good thing to do. But that has nothing to do with, I think, as we just saw when I was talking about the passage, it has nothing to do with what St. Luke is doing in this passage. St. Luke is talking about God providing for people, God providing for people, specifically making provision for people through Christ. God continuing to feed and nourish our spiritual lives. That’s what St. Luke is talking about. He’s not talking about share your food when you have extra. “I’ve got two PB and J’s and my buddy, he left his lunch at home, so I’m going to give him my extra PB and J”, right? As nice as that is, you don’t need the Bible to tell you that that’s not what St. Luke is trying to tell us.

You can believe what St. Luke says or not, but trying to turn the spiritual truth St. Luke is trying to convey into a segment on Sesame Street doesn’t make a lot of sense. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

You got to be in or out, right? You got to be either hot or cold. One of the two, you’ve got to pick. Either you believe it or you don’t.

“And it happened is he was alone praying,” So now this is Luke. He’s presenting these in sequence. So, he feeds the people. They go on their way because night falls. Jesus goes off on his own to pray.

And it happened, as He was alone praying,†that†His disciples joined Him, and He asked them, saying,†ìWho do the crowds say that I am?î  So they answered and said,†ìJohn the Baptist, but some†say†Elijah; and others†say†that one of the old prophets has risen again.î

Where did we hear that before? A few verses ago. That’s what Herod was hearing. That is apparently what the crowds were saying. So this is what Herod hears, this is what the disciples are hearing from the people’s discussion in the crowds.

He said to them,†ìBut who do you say that I am?î

Now why is this important? Why is Jesus asking this? Well, remember when he explained the parable of the sower, these twelve, this inner circle,

these are the ones who Jesus is trying to teach these things plainly. He tells the parables when he’s talking to the crowds. But this is inner circle, they should know more. They should have a better idea of who he is. They should have a greater understanding than the general public, hopefully. And these are, as we just saw, the people who Jesus is sending out to proclaim who he is to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom to the world and who after his resurrection he’s going to send out as apostles to the whole world.

So, it’s pretty key that these people at least understand who he is, not just have some vague idea. Well maybe he’s Elijah or maybe St. John the Baptist come back from the dead. I mean they should know that one’s not true because they’ve seen the two of them together, right? They saw St. John and they saw Jesus at his baptism, so they should at least know that one’s not right. But Jesus says, “Who do you say that I am?” He’s testing, “Okay, where are we at? Where’s your understanding at? Are you starting to get this?”

Peter answered and said, ìThe Christ of God.î

Christ remember, is just the Greek Christos, which is the Greek of Messiah, meschiach from the Old Testament, means the anointed king. This tells us where at least Peter is at now, right? Peter says you’re the Messiah of God. Now, as we’ve seen, he should have had a little more than that, than just the Messiah, because Jesus has been doing things that prophets don’t do that kings don’t do. He’s been doing things that only God does. But at least Peter is at that point, Peter’s at the point where he says, “You’re God’s Messiah.”

And He strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying,†ìThe Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.î

This is not the response they were expecting, right? What Peter is probably hoping for was something more like, “Yes, you’re right, and here’s our battle plan. Here’s how this is all going to happen.”

Well, Jesus does lay out his battle plan and he does lay out how this is all going to happen. But it’s kind of the opposite, kind of the opposite of what Peter would have been expecting. He tells them not to tell anybody. Why does he tell them not to tell anybody? Because what’s going to happen when the word gets around that he’s the Messiah?

Interlocutor: He’s a dead man.

Fr. Stephen: Right. Everything he then goes on to describe is going to happen to him, right? So he tells them not to tell anyone because that time isn’t yet, this is all going to happen, but it’s going to happen at the proper time. Jesus still has some ministry here to do before that comes. So he says, “Don’t go spreading that around, but here’s what’s going to happen. Here’s what the Messiah is going to do. He’s going to suffer. He’s going to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes. So all the Jewish religious authorities are going to reject him and he’s going to be killed, and then he’s going to be raised on the third day.”

Now, the “suffer many things”, they kind of had a framework for. If you look at David, King David, spent many years on the run from Saul, had a lot of troubled times, but then comes to the throne, right? Remember, the Messiah is David’s son. So David sort of the pattern. “Okay, well, suffer many things… Okay, we’re going to have some battles to fight. That, we can follow.”

“Rejected by the elders of chief and scribes.” Now this is where it would start to get more concerning because part of the way they were viewing the Messianic era, they read the prophecy of Ezekiel very literally, Messiah is going to come, set up his kingdom. He’s going to cleanse, purify, build a new temple like the one in Ezekiel, he’s going to restore the true worship of God. Well, if that’s the case, then the priests and the Pharisees, the teachers of the law. These people should be his constituents, right? These are the people who he’s going to be working with to fix things. These are the righteous people who we look up to spiritually. And Jesus is saying, “No, they’re not going to want anything to do with the Messiah.” So now we’re at a point of tension with their expectations.

Then we get to “And be killed”. This is definitely not in the program we’ve talked about before. There were a lot of people who showed up in the years leading up to this and the years after it, culminating in the Bar Kokhba rebellion at the beginning of the second century, when the Romans wiped out Jerusalem, literally wiped it off the map, who showed up claiming to be the Messiah and rallied popular support and did their thing. And the way all those ended up was, usually the Romans ended up killing him, whoever it was who had claimed to be the Messiah, including Kokhba. Romans, come in, wreak a lot of destruction to try and make a point about rebellion, the people of Judea, and they kill whoever it was who showed up claiming to be the Messiah.

So the mark of a failed Messiah, the mark of bogus Messiah, is, he ends up getting killed by the Romans. Jesus is now saying, “Yeah, I’m the Messiah, don’t tell anybody, by the way, I’m going to get rejected by all the religious leaders and killed by the Romans.”

This would be sort of like if someone came to you and told you they were running for President and you said to him, “I think you’re the next President of the United States”. And he said, “You’re right, don’t tell anybody that. But here’s the thing, I’m going to lose the election,” right? So this is how they would have understood it. “Wait, what? You just said you were the Messiah and now you’re saying, aren’t you sort of saying you’re not?”

And then in terms of being raised on the third day, they had no context for, right? They had no understanding of what that was going to be.

Then He said to†them†all,†ìIf anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross†daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?†For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be†ashamed when He comes in His†own†glory, and†in His†Fatherís, and of the holy angels.†But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God.î

So, in context, when Jesus says to them, “You need to take up your cross and follow me”, it means something very specific because Jesus has just said he’s about to get killed by the Romans. That’s where this adventure is headed, to be getting killed by the Romans. And he says, “If any of you want to be my followers, if any of you want to be my disciples, you need to come die with me.” Not a very good halftime speech, right? “We’re going to lose, and I want you all to follow me and lose big!”

Well, this is the reality Jesus is telling them. And when he says to whoever wants to save their life will lose it. He’s saying, “If you turn back now. If you don’t follow me to the cross and defeat an apparent failure to try to save your own life. To try to save what you have. What you’re going to end up doing is you’re going to end up losing your life. Not your physical life here on this earth. But real life. Eternal life. Trying to save the one. You’ll lose the other. But if you follow me and you’re willing to give up this life here on this earth, then you’ll save your eternal life.”

And then he emphasizes that further when he says, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but lose his soul?” Not just save your life, but let’s say you became Caesar somehow magically, right? If you become Caesar, but then die and go into condemnation, destruction, in our common parlance now, if you die and go to hell, right, as Caesar, what good was it to you that you were Caesar?

So it’s not just you shouldn’t cling to your life here as the Galilean peasant. Even if you were the top of the heap in this world, it wouldn’t be a good trade for the Kingdom of God, which is what Christ is offering. Which is what Christ has offered.

And that’s why he adds this at the end: “I tell you truly, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Kingdom of God.” Because he’s just said, we’re about to all get defeated, we’re about to all get killed, but the kingdom of God is near and you’re still going to see it. And so again, we tend to sort of belittle, why don’t the disciples get it? Why couldn’t they figure this out? Well, from their perspective, Jesus is telling them very contradictory things. “Yes, I’m the Messiah and I’m bringing the Kingdom of God, but by the way, I’m going to get killed by the Romans and so are you. But the kingdom of God is still going to come and you’re going to see it”, right? This is why they don’t understand. This is why they don’t understand because it seems to them it’s contradictory.

After the cross and the resurrection, it clicks and they go back and then they understand it retroactively. But at this point, they don’t understand what Jesus is doing.

And of course, they’re also… “For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his own glory and his fathers and the holy angels.” So he brings in not only the idea of the Messiah establishing the kingdom, but also of the Last Judgment, also of the judgment at the end.

So all of this serves to sort of put the dilemma to the disciples of whether what they’re expecting and what they think they want is a kingdom on this earth, right? What they think they want is for some descendant of David to come and overthrow the Romans and set up a kingdom. That’s what they think they want. What Jesus is trying to show them here is that’s not what they really want. Because let’s say you were one of the thousands of Israelites who lived while David was king, while Solomon was king. Probably the greatest period of Israel’s history, right? Kingdom was still united, wealth, commerce all over the world. People had a good way of living. And if they died a sinner, what good did it do them?

Yeah, they had 50, 60, maybe 70 good years, right? Relatively good years, I’m sure bad things happened to everyone then too, but relatively good years. And then what good did it do them?

So yeah, being a Galilean peasant under a Judean king would probably be a little nicer than being one under the Roman Empire. But what Jesus is offering when he talks about the kingdom of God is something much bigger and much greater than that. Much bigger and much greater than that. Because there’s been a fundamental misinterpretation of the Old Testament before Jesus comes, because everyone’s thinking the problem is the Romans, and before that, the problem was the Greeks, and before that it was the Persians, and before that it was the Babylonians, before that it was the Assyrians, before that it was the Egyptians. That’s the problem, these Gentiles.

But if they were really reading the Scriptures closely let’s just start with the first book. What’s the real problem? Sin. Sin is what gets them out of the Garden of Eden. Sin is what gets them thrown out of their land. It’s not that the Assyrians were more powerful, it’s that they were wicked and sinful, and so God threw them out of the land. Remember when we were reading the prophets, God makes that very clear to them. It’s not that the Babylonian gods are more powerful than I am. It’s not that Babylon is a better military than you, because what did we see when the Assyrians laid siege to Jerusalem? God killed 200,000 of them in one night. Siege over.

God says, if you’re doing what’s right and you’re following me, you’ll defeat overwhelming odds, like when he brought them out of Egypt. The greatest superpower in the world at the time was Egypt. They were a bunch of slaves and God brought them out of there. So, it was their wickedness that got them exiled. It was their wickedness that brought them under the oppression of the Greeks. It was their wickedness and not trusting in God that brought the Romans in.

Remember when you read in Maccabees, the way the Romans got into Judea is they made a peace treaty with the Romans. They made a pact with the Romans to protect themselves from the Greeks, which God had specifically commanded them not to do. He had said, “You have faith in me and I will protect you. You don’t go making deals with pagan countries.” Well, they went and did it anyway because they didn’t trust God, they trusted Rome more than they trusted God. And it was a bad idea to trust Rome at that point in history, right? So they invited the Romans in. It was their fault. So the real problem, the real problem is Israel’s sin collectively and the people’s sin individually. That’s the problem that has to be dealt with. That’s the problem that has to be dealt with, because you could bring in a change of administration, it’s not going to do any good if that doesn’t change, because you’re just going to end up with the King of Judea or of Israel, like Ahab or any of the other countless wicked kings. Who are going to tax the people and oppress them just like the Romans did.

Sin is the problem that has to be dealt with and that’s the problem that Jesus is dealing with. He’s dealing with the problem of sin and the problem of death. And that’s why he brings up here the resurrection and he brings up here judgment. What you need to be able to do is you need to be able to stand before God’s judgment seat and not be condemned. That’s what you need. And you need a kingdom that will last forever because it’s not subject to death. That’s what you need. That’s what you really want and that’s what Jesus is offering. But to receive it, they’re going to have to be willing to give up the things in this world that they previously thought were important. You have to be willing to give up wealth, power, even the little bit of wealth and the little bit of power that they had, what the disciples were we talking about. They’ve got to be willing to give it all up and ultimately give up their lives in order to receive something better, which is the kingdom of God. So that’s the point Jesus is trying to make with them here.