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Jesus Set His Face To Go To Jerusalem

            What do you think Jesus looked like?  Most of us have a mental image of the Lord from pictures we’ve seen since childhood.  How could we miss getting some image pressed on our mind with a statue like that front and center?  Twenty centuries ago there were no video cameras, no camera phones, and no photography studios.  So, we really don’t know what Jesus looked like.  But that’s OK because what he looked like isn’t important.  The important issues about Jesus are who he is, what he did, and why he did it.

            Those truths leap out of the passages we are exploring today from Luke’s gospel in chapter thirteen.  This may not seem like the most explosive portion of the Bible to you.  At first blush it’s nothing more than a brief dialogue between Jesus and his enemies.  To catch the impact, we have to know where this fits into his ministry.  Two and a half years of his three-year ministry had passed.  Opponents were breathing down his neck, hot on his trail.  He had spent most of those two and a half years up north in Galilee with occasional visits to Jerusalem.  But in the last six months before he died we witness two truths while reading this gospel account – intense training of his close followers and deliberate, slow-but-sure movement toward Jerusalem.  Jesus knew that the time had come.  The cross was looming larger.  To avoid premature arrest and death, he hung around the territory east of the Jordan River.  Luke is the writer who records many of his teachings during those final months.  As this last portion of his ministry was about to begin, Luke informs us, “Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem”(Luke 9:51), literally, “Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  We may not know what he looked like, but that passage says a lot about what Jesus came to do.  Let’s look deep into the eyes of our Lord and see that Jesus Set His Face To Go To Jerusalem.

With an unflinching purpose

            If you never heard about the Pharisees before and started reading this account, you might get a favorable impression of them.  At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said, to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else.  Herod wants to kill you.”   You might think, “Nice guys, those Pharisees!  Looks like they wanted to help Jesus out, protect him from trouble.”  Don’t get too excited.  They weren’t looking out for Jesus.  In fact, just the opposite.  The Pharisees were out to get him because he had repeatedly exposed their me-first teaching and pointed out their sin.  But they couldn’t muster enough opposition in the region where Jesus was now teaching, a territory under the jurisdiction of Herod (son of the Herod who killed the babies of Bethlehem).  Jesus enjoyed a measure of popularity and privacy there.  So, the Pharisees wanted him out of there and in Jerusalem.  There they’d have allies and a much better shot at him.  Herod may have wanted Jesus out of the picture, but that threat was not as great as the Pharisees said it was.  They were the ones who wanted him dead.

            But Jesus’ time had not yet come.  “Go tell that fox …”  Pretty gutsy to call the king a sly, cunning fox.  But such bold language showed who was really in control.  Herod may have had power, but Jesus had more.  Herod and the Pharisees could scheme all they wanted, but they wouldn’t take his life till he was ready to lay it down.  And listen to this, “I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.”  He had power to do miracles.  “I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day – for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem.”  He had power to determine the right time, his time.  There is an interesting passage in the book of Isaiah.  The Savior was speaking in prophecy, “Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced.  Therefore I have set my face like flint”(Isaiah 50:7).  Flint is a super hard stone.  He had set his face to go to Jerusalem with an unflinching purpose.  Can you see his face?

            God wants to live with us and in us.  But before he can do that, he has to do something for us and to us – clean out all the filth of sin inside.  You can run, but you can’t hide.  Just ask Adam and Even.  Don’t hide behind excuses, “I’m too busy to think about my relationship with God.  I can give God a couple hours on Sunday and maybe another hour on Wednesdays during Lent, but that’s it.  Think about him every day?  Serve him every day?  No way!”  Remember the poster of Uncle Sam recruiting soldiers?  “Uncle Sam wants you!”  Well, Jesus has an intense, penetrating look right into your soul.  He sets his face on you with an unflinching purpose.  He wants you – in his kingdom and in his service.

With unbounded patience

            If the story stopped here, we might get a warped view of Jesus.  His determined look might be interpreted as that of a stern drill sergeant, “I’m going to get you, and then look out!”  But there’s more in those divine eyes.  When Jesus visited his friends Mary and Martha, Martha complained, “I’m scurrying to make dinner, but Mary is just sitting here listening to you.”  What did Jesus say?  “Martha, Martha!  Only one thing is important” (Luke 10:41-42).  Do you hear the tenderness, the affection, the compassion, the love?  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” Do you hear the tenderness, the affection, the compassion, the love?  But can you believe it?  Love toward Jerusalem?

            “Jerusalem” means “city of peace.”  That’s where God showed his presence to the Israelites of old.   That’s where the Israelites could see, “God is with us.  God lives among us!”  But what happened?  They set up idols in his house.  They closed their hearts to his love.  They pushed God out even though he called them in through the prophets.  With centuries and centuries of that kind of behavior, how would you expect God to react?  By all rights, even one act of defiance should have brought fire from the sky onto their heads.  But time and time again God had compassion on them.  Instead of lightning bolts he came with warm rays of love and gentle showers of mercy.  Instead of fire flaming from his holy nostrils, he turned his face toward them in compassion.   The history of that nation recorded in the Bible offers a beautiful gold chain of unbounded patience.  Now look at Jesus.  He knew what was in Jerusalem.  He knew the city of peace wanted to tear him to pieces.  Yet, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”  With hawk-like talons Satan was swooping down on their nest.  Jesus wanted to gather and protect them.  Look at his face.  Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem with unbounded patience.

            Jesus was on trial and being moved from one courtroom to another.  Peter was in the courtyard having viciously sworn, “I don’t know Jesus, and I could care less.”  Remember the look of tender compassion from Jesus?  He looks at us and says, “I know you’re ashamed of doing again and again what I told you is wrong.  I know you’re embarrassed about not standing up for me when others dragged my reputation through the mud.  I know your conscience bothers you for giving your friends the impression that your faith is private and that their ungodly ideas are OK.  But I bathed you in my blood and coated you with the Teflon of my mercy so that you won’t get scorched by God’s anger.”  Can you see his face?  Jesus is looking at you and me and saying, “I forgive you.”  Oh, the unbounded patience he has for us – in spite of our sinfulness.

With an unmistakable promise

            If a baby bird fights against its mother’s protection, forces its mother’s wings aside, and purposely jumps from the nest to a bare branch in full view of the hawk circling above, what happens?  Hawk lunch.  Does that mean the mother’s wings didn’t offer protection?  No!  It means the baby bird forfeited what was offered and suffered the consequences.

            Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem with an unflinching purpose and with unbounded patience, but what happened?  “You were not willing!” The majority of people in Jerusalem jumped out of the nest and set themselves in full view of Satan circling above.  The result was not a pretty sight.  Forty years after Jesus rose from the dead, Jerusalem was destroyed.  “Look, your house is left to you desolate.”  But that wasn’t the real destruction.  Real destruction is spiritual and eternal for those who spit in Jesus’ face.  To them he said, “I have set my face to go to Jerusalem.  Here is an unmistakable promise – You will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ .”  The next time they’d see him would be Judgment Day.  Then they would be forced to bow before his holy glare.

            Jesus once told a story about a king who left town, put his servants in charge of his estate, and made a promise in Schwartzenegger fashion, “I’ll be back!”  Some were faithful.  Some were unfaithful.  On the king’s return the unfaithful servants heard, “On your knees!  Bow before me for punishment!”  Those who loved the king were delighted to see him and gladly bowed, “Welcome home!”  Jesus made an unmistakable promise here.  “I’ll be back!”  What will his face look like on Judgment Day?  Those who reject him will see only his stern judgment.  Those who believe in him will see his tender smile.  Trust his promise of forgiving mercy.  Rely on his love.  You will see him smiling at you from ear to ear, and you’ll be singing his praises, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

            A little boy was drawing a picture of God.  Mom said, “You can’t do that.  No one knows what God looks like.”  The boy replied, “They will now.”  What did Jesus look like?  His physical features are not important.  What’s important is that he is real, and what he did for us is real.  He set his face to go to Jerusalem to save us, and now he sets his face on us.  So, when people ask you, “How come you’re smiling?” you can tell them, “My face is simply reflecting the way Jesus looks at me.  He has set his face on me, and he’s smiling.”    Amen.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (http://www.gracedowntown.org/) on February 28, 2010

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Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

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