Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. LukeMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Luke
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Luke -- Commentaries
Take, for instance, the very journey which I am speaking of now. Christ
went up to Jerusalem, says my text. What did He go there for? He went,
as you will see, if you look at the previous circumstance,--He went in
order, if I might use such a word, to precipitate the collision, and to
make His Crucifixion certain. He was under the ban of the Sanhedrim;
but perfectly safe as long as He had stopped up among the hills of
Galilee. He was as unsafe when He went up to Jerusalem as John Huss
when he went to the Council of Constance with the Emperor's safe-conduct
in his belt; or as a condemned heretic would have been in the old days,
if he had gone and stood in that little dingy square outside the palace
of the Inquisition at Rome, and there, below the obelisk, preached his
heresies! Christ had been condemned in the council of the nation; but
there were plenty of hiding-places among the Galilean hills, and the
frontier was close at hand, and it needed a long arm to reach from
Jerusalem all the way across Samaria to the far north. Knowing that,
He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and, if I might use
the expression, went straight into the lion's mouth. Why? Because He
chose to die.
And, then, take another circumstance. If you will look carefully at
the Scripture narrative, you will find that from about this point in
His life onwards there comes a distinct change in one very important
respect. Before this He shunned publicity; after this He courted it.
Before this, when He spoke in veiled words of His sufferings, He
said to His disciples, 'Tell no man till the Son of man be risen
from the dead.' Hereafter though there are frequent prophecies of
His sufferings, there is no repetition of that prohibition. He goes
up to Jerusalem, and His triumphal entry adds fuel to the fire. His
language at the last moment appeals to the publicity of His final
visit to that city--'Was I not daily with you in the Temple and ye
laid no hands upon Me?' Everything that He could do He does to draw
attention to Himself--everything, that is to say, within the limits
of the divine decorum, which was ever observed in His life, of whom
it was written long, long ago, 'He shall not strive, nor cry, nor
cause His voice to be heard in the streets.' There is, then, a most
unmistakable change to be felt by any who will carefully read the
narratives in their bearing upon this one point--a resolve to draw
the eyes of the enemy upon Himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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