Conversations with the Pastor
Day 10 He Comes As He Came
Our passage for consideration today is Luke 19:28-41.
What if, when Jesus came into Jerusalem that day, he was actually riding as a King into the battle; not as a King who was coming home in peace after the war was ended? What if he was riding on a donkey so that he could reverse the attitudes of the people or for the element of surprise? And what if the surprise was that he was ready to go to the cross and the grave for humankind?
Maybe he was coming for war. He had left the home land in glory with his Father to fight our battle for us. He had not yet returned to the Father. Jesus said to Mary (when she realized that he was not the gardener but that he was actually the Christ), “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. (I just arrived for the battle.) But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
Was Jesus really coming home in peace or was he heading out to Jerusalem to start something, a war? Was he going out to “…bring fire to the earth”? Jesus said, “…and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law (Luke 12:49-53) This does not sound like peace.
What kind of king is this that made the Pharisees think that he was creating such division among his own people? Jesus himself said to the Pharisees once, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? … But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man? Then indeed the house can be plundered. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Matthew 12:25-30)
And what if Jesus’ death and burial represented a kind of binding of the earthly strong man? Or what if it means a binding of the things or powers that keep us from freely giving making ourselves available to Christ?
The truth is that Jesus was planning a war against the things that bind us, against the kingdom of Satan and not simply trying to ruin his own people. He said in that same passage above that “if you are not with me”. This could mean that there some of them who were not yet of the household of God and therefore Jesus was not destroying his own household. Somewhere in our journey there has got to be a joining with Jesus or a becoming a part of the family of God or the household of God. If this does not happen we could be included in the “whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” category.
Jesus is the King who had left his Father’s home and lived on earth so that he could wage a war against Satan, and by association, those who are not with him (Jesus) but are a part of Satan’s entourage. Jesus set an example of leaving his family to become a part of us. We may need to leave whatever we are attached to and become a part of him Jesus. The Apostle Paul says, “…though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross”
Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:6-8). What if we became part of the body of Christ? Could that mean that we too, who might have given up our earthly encumbrances, would be honored along with Jesus Christ and experience a better quality life, or a more abundant life?
And what if we do not attempt to accept our welcome into the body of Christ would we be left out of the benefits of being Christian; i.e. of living better quality lives, or more abundant lives?
Jesus came to give us a ‘hint’ of God and to journey as a King to wage a war against Satan and the kingdom of Satan so that the household of Jesus might be free to live better quality lives. As Maxie Dunnam stated, “Christ has made the way clear, and we are to walk in it by faith. When we fail to take that seriously, we invite judgment.” Jesus came to wage war so that we can have peace. Walk in the peace that passes understanding and may your heart and mind by kept in the knowledge and Love of Jesus the Christ.
