Have you ever noticed that movies and TV shows love to construct a snappy ending to one scene—called in the biz a “button?” Many times, the button not only ends first scene but sets up the next, like when in a sitcom the couple is sitting around the living room, talking about the guy’s ex, and the doorbell rings, and whaddya know: the ex is standing on the other side. Or in an action flick the heroes are talking about how quiet things are, and the next thing you hear is the whistling of an incoming missile . . .Well, that’s kind of what Luke is doing here. The last line of the scene previous to this one is “. . . some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last,” one of Jesus’ favorite sayings. Then the very next line,the first of our passage, describes some Pharisees, come to warn Jesus the Herod is out to get him. And Luke makes sure we get the connection by the way he phrases it: he said they deliver their warning at that very hour.That is, at the very time he was pronouncing that the first will be last and the last will be first, the Pharisees appear.
So it’s clear we’re supposed to associate the first who will be last in the kingdom of God with the action of Herod wanting to kill him. And there’s little doubt what Herod’s motive is: he’s definitely among the first, definitely among the powers that be, and he’s worried about somebody running around his “kingdom” saying things like he’s gonna be last. After all, Jesus had been a follower—however briefly—of John the Baptist, the lastrabble-rouser to gain popular support, and Herod had felt threatened enough to imprison John and execute him at the whim of a child. So there’s that.
Then again, Herod wasn’t noted for being the most stable of rulers: this was Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, perhaps the most paranoid man who’d ever lived, and the apple hadn’t fallen too far from the tree. To make things worse, at his death, the current Herod had inherited only a quarter of his realm. That’s the excuse the Romans used for calling him a “tetrarch,” or ruler of a fourth. They wouldn’t let him call himself “king,” doubtless to keep him in his place, but perhaps also because they didn’t trust him. At any rate, Antipas was insecure and paranoid, and constantly on the lookout for threats, perceived or real, and he'd found one in Jesus of Nazareth.
That explains Herod’s being out to get him but what about the Pharisees? Up until this point in Luke’s gospel they’d been portrayed as exclusively antithetic to Jesus and his ministry, as opponents and constant critics of Jesus and his band of disciples. And now they’re shown to be helping him, warning him about Herod’s plan. And that points to a common misconception about Pharisees, that they were implacable enemies of Jesus, out to get him, that they were by and large bad people. This impression isn’t helped by the fact that the Gospels—especially John—tended to emphasize the contentious side of their relationship. But the fact is that Pharisees were among the best of the Jewish people, men you definitely wouldn’t mind your daughter bringing home. And we knowthat there weresome on Jesus’ side, notably Nicodemus, who nevertheless had to sneak around to see Jesus in the dark. Finally, some of the scenes we interpret as life-and-death arguments between Pharisees and Jesus were in actuality scenes of rabbinic back-and-forth; give and take argument was how rabbis often interacted. They learned from one another that way.
That said, it’s also possible that Luke wants us to understand that these Pharisees were part of the problem, that he considers them the powers-that-be amongst those first who would be last. Jesus himself indicates that this might be the case, that he assumes Herod sentthem. After all, he tells them to “go tell that fox” for him, as if they werecoming from him . . . but whatever the case, it’s clear that Jesus is no a-political bumpkin here, he has a keen grasp of the politics of the situation. And he calls him a name that Herod would certainly not appreciate: though like today, the fox was considered wily, it was also a symbol of sneaky destruction, of underhanded down-and-dirtiness. And he makes it clear that Herod isn’t going to deter him from his mission: “ell that fox Listen—and isn’t thatan insolent thing to say to someone in power—“Listen up! I’m casting out demons and performing cures ” And it’s in the same vein of what he told the followers of John the Baptist when they came to question him whether he’s the “one who is to come.” He’s doing the things that one is supposed to do, so who does he think he is? If it walkslike a messianic duck and talkslike a messianic duck . . . he wants Herod to know in no uncertain terms that the time has been fulfilled, the Jubilee—which we’ve seenis a motif in Luke—has finally arrived.
He says he’s performing cures that day and the next, but that on the third day he must finish up, but he’s not talking about ending his ministry three days from that time—we know, in fact, that he didn’t. What he isdoing is pointing to his resurrection, which happens, of course, on the third day after his death. And so here in Luke, unlike, say, Mark, the important thing is the resurrection, and in fact, the whole thing about going to Jerusalem is that he can’t conceive of a prophet being killed outsidethat benighted city. So he knows fully what’s coming when he gets there, but his eyes are on the resurrection, and he has to get himself killed, and it has to be in Jerusalem, ‘cause where else would it be? Jerusalem is the city that kills the prophets who go there, the city that stones them to death. It’s the city that’s the center of a religion that murders those sent there from its god. Jerusalem is the city that eats its own young.
Not unlike anotherpower center in anothertime and place . . . or maybe Einstein and the Buddha were right and it’s the sameone, perhaps Jerusalem and Washington are avatars, eternal echoes of all the power-places around the globe, all the places where the powers-that-be congregate, down through the millennia, around the globe. Babylon, Moscow, Athens . . . Los Angeles, Beijing, Caracas . . . all places where prophets go to be killed, and their dreams along with them. Legislators go to Washington, idealistic and ready to effect meaningful, positive change, and end up dying—sometimes literally—but most times, these days at least, only their dreams and good intentions . . .
And Jesus is going to Jerusalem on his own dime, of his own free will, because of what he knows hasto happen, he has to be killed so he can be resurrected on that third day. And far from turning away from that seat of power, where Herod awaits like some petty, malignant spider, he heads straight into its maw. And though he lays a prophetic pronouncement on them—your house is leftto you—his main thrust is compassion: he likens himself to a mother hen, who longs to shelter Jerusalem’s children under her wings. Far from condemning the city where he will meet his fate, he laments over it, he criesover it, and the episode ends with anticipation of his glorious arrival there, where jubilant crowds throw cloaks and palms in the road to cushion his way.
So on this second Sunday of Lent, we see a Jesus whose eyes are on the prize, but it’s not his death, it’s what happens three days after that. His ministry includes healing and curing and feeding—the blind willgain sight and the oppressed will be set free—but it doesn’t end there. Nor does it end hanging on a tree in the city that eats its young. It doesn’t end with his crucifixion, but what happens after, and thatis no less than conquering death itself.
And here, Jesus has sent a message to that embodiment of death, that avatar of the powers that be: “You telldeath (that old fox!) that my mission—to heal and liberate, to restore and deliver—cannot be denied. They’ll arrest and abuse me, they’ll kill and bury me, but I must be on my way. For on the third day, I will rise, and thenwhat will you do? Death and hate and violence will be vanquished, and that Great Jubilee, that New Exodus, that new day of redemption will arrive.”
The contrast is stunning: the powers that be, bent on domination and subjugation, contrasted with the powers of life,embodied in the one we follow, Jesus of Nazareth. As Paul writes, “O death, where is thy sting, O grave where thy victory,” so it is that here in Lent, while we ponder its primal sadness, while we contemplate our role in the mechanisms of pain and denial, we also look forward to that wonderful resurrection morning, three days later. Amen.
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