Luke 14:25-33

09072022 – Luke 14. 25-33

Jesus never regarded “a LARGE FOLLOWING” as necessarily “a GOOD SIGN.”

For one thing: you did not need an advanced degree to know WHO were some of the people in “those crowds.”

Jesus was positive that in those large and massive crowds, you could find peppered throughout: “Pharisees,” “Sadducees,” “Scribes,” “Temple Priests,” “some followers of John the Baptizer,” “members of the Sanhedrin or the council of 70 elders,” “ a handful of  Roman soldiers,” “the sicarii,” or the assassins, or the bandits, who kidnapped, and murdered, and then there were the  “religious and political zealots of every kind and persuasion.”

It was a MIXED BAG of people to be sure.

While ALL people ARE important, Jesus was more than aware that some of them had their own secret and HIDDEN AGENDAS.

Perhaps the biggest group of all – were the PLAIN and SIMPLE EVERY DAY FOLK who presumably lived their Jewish lives by following WHAT they had always done.

These were the Jews who observed the SABBATH, who observed the HIGH HOLIDAYS and the FESTIVALS, who made the required and necessary PILGRIMAGES to TEMPLE, who observed the JEWISH FOOD LAWS, the Jewish RITUALS, who followed the dictates of the TORAH, in a kind of simple and plain way, these folks BY FAR would have made up the majority of people following, walking behind him.

Jesus seemed INTENT – “on more than one occasion to THIN OUT the crowds that followed him.” If, that even be possible.

They were POOR and IMPOVERISHED.

“The little they had” – was constantly being TAKEN FROM THEM, and they truly lived from HAND TO MOUTH.

There was WAY TOO MANY people in the crowds. And Jesus felt sorry for ALL of them. They just did not get it.

Many FOLLOWED him from village to village to village. TIRED and EXHAUSTED.

And God HIMSELF “only KNEW” WHAT their REAL agenda was.

To Jesus’ mind, “a large following” probably meant that a lot of those folks “DID NOT KNOW what they were doing” and would follow practically anyone that would feed them.

Some came hoping to see A MIRACLE or two. Some came to be HEALED. But most had heard about his FEEDING of the MULTITUDES…So many who followed, came with their physical HUNGER. He did not want them hurt.

So, he would turn periodically and address the crowds. Luke tells us, he did so on at least SIX OCCASIONS.

They could not envision. They did not understand that he was headed to Jerusalem. They could not comprehend or wrap their heads around it that he would be “handed over” into Gentile hands.

He was going there to die.

There was no way they could fathom all the political manuevering that was about to go on and take place.

He actually feared for MOST of them. The journey would be too long, too hard, to arduous.

So the attempt was made to deter them, to dissuade them if at all possible.

To get them to turn back. They did not KNOW what they were getting into.

To do so, his sayings were getting HARDER and HARDER. His words MORE HARSH and more DIRECT.

It was important that they hear it from him. It was important that HE SAY something.

To be “under the sign of the cross” was to be “under the sign of death.”

It meant to live in such a way, as to MAKE CLEAR that you have PUT TO DEATH the things of THIS WORLD—including family, and loved ones, and even the few possessions that one might possess, this crazy world and its addiction to power, its adoration of only the beautiful and successful, its cut-throat ways of climbing to the top, its glorification of violence, and its love of intimidation, and war. All of it has to be put to death.

To live under a cross-bar was to engage in a form of “living death,” of “sacrificial living for the sake of others” and of the kingdom of God. Nothing else made sense.

How do you make them understand and comprehend that a cross is looming… a cross beam is coming?

You may not be able to see it now, but it is imminent? It is ever-looming. And its hate casts a pretty large shadow.

A shadow that Jesus did not want these people to be caught in or under.

He needed to PROTECT THEM, to CARE for them, to LOOK OUT for them, to save them from what lie ahead.

Yes, his words were hard and strange. It was not what the people expected him to say.

First a few turned back, then MORE added to their numbers…and all Jesus could say, was Amen. Thy will be done.