With Luke 19-21 we reach the final stages of Jesus ministry and are back where we started: Jerusalem, and the temple. It is no accident that Luke begins his gospel with the action happening in Jerusalem and, as we shall see, it is certainly no accident that he takes us back there in these final chapters. The story we have tracked over the past month or so reaches a climax – all the threads that Luke has slowly been weaving start to come together. We will have to wait for the unveiling of the final tapestry but in these chapters all the jigsaw pieces which Luke has been carefully introducing and positioning, fall into place.

Chapter 19 sees the wonderful story of Zaccheaus which in many ways acts as a summary of Jesus’ ministry. In this story we see all of the themes we have tracked throughout Luke’s Jesus story. Again Jesus is turning the world upside down; the status of the despised tax collector is reversed, rich Zaccheaus is made poor, the poor are made rich. We meet again Jesus’ use of Abraham and Son of Man language to challenge the narrow nationalism and legalism of the religious elite. And finally we see Jesus proclaiming salvation outside the cultic obligations of the temple. In 10 short verses, the Zacchaeus story brilliantly sums up Jesus’ ministry.

We then move onto the strange parable of the returning King. This is crucial passage to understand as it sets the scene for what comes next. I don’t know about you but whenever I have heard anyone explain this parable it has always been in terms of God coming back at the end of history to judge the faithful. Those who have done well (the shrewd bankers, traders and hedge-fund managers of this world!) will be rewarded, and those who haven’t used their gifts to the best of their ability will be judged. Herein lie the roots of a good Protestant work ethic!

But this interpretation jars a little with what has gone before. As we saw last week, Jesus was acting as a prophet, just like Jeremiah or Ezekiel, calling God’s chosen people to repentance before they were judged. Why then would Jesus suddenly flip and start musing about the end of history? This parable fits in much better as a parable about the imminent return of the King. And who is the King? We don’t have to wait long for Luke’s answer in Jesus’ triumphal entry to Jerusalem.

This parable is about Jesus the King coming to judge Israel; coming to judge those who have been given much but who have chosen to hide it away from the likes of Zacchaeus. The parable is almost certainly a play on the parallels with Archelaus, the older brother of Herod Antipas, going to Rome to be confirmed as king only to find a delegation of Judeans lobbying against him. Jesus is making the point that this time the true King is arriving, not one of the corrupt Herodians but the true King of Israel - making his rejection all the more awful. Jesus seems to be saying ‘will you treat me as you treat the hated Herodians?’

However, let’s not jump ahead. First Jesus enters Jerusalem triumphantly to the praise and acclaim of all the people. You get the sense that he finally gives in and allows the disciples and the people to proclaim him Messiah. Jesus, in fact, actively encourages the crowd to see him as a Messiah; he arrives at Passover time when most Jews expected the Messiah to appear, he associates himself with Zechariah’s prophecy by arriving on the back of a donkey (see Zech 9.9 – if you have time, reading Zechariah as a whole is well worth it as it gives a great insight into these chapters), and he allows the disciples to sing Psalm 118, a Psalm of victory over evil.

But this is a bittersweet moment, as 19:41ff shows. In the end, this was not a moment of triumph but the final evidence that Israel had not understood Jesus’ message. He was not to be a military Messiah. He had come to suffer, but Israel continued to pursue a vision of ugly nationalism and forsake her covenant with Yahweh to be a blessing to all nations. So God’s visitation will result in judgement not mercy. No wonder Jesus wept.

Luke then has Jesus immediately entering the temple. This would have come as no surprise to the Jews of the time, because the ideas of Messiah and temple were inextricably linked. It was widely expected that the Messiah would rebuild the temple. Just have a read of Zechariah, or Malachi or Haggai. Or read 1 Maccabees 10 to see that the first thing Simon and Jonathan do is rebuild the temple.

The temple was much more than an ancient Buckingham Palace. The temple was where God dwelt; it was literally where heaven touched earth. Israel’s whole self-understanding as God’s people emanated outwards from the holy of holies. (A guy called Greg Beale has written really helpfully about the importance of the temple throughout the bible, from the garden of Eden – which if you look carefully is a prototype temple – right through to the final chapters of Revelation. You can follow this argument here).

So it was natural for Jesus, who entered Jerusalem as Messiah, to go straight to the temple. However, what happened next was totally unexpected. Far from renewing the temple as the place of God’s presence (something the Jews were desperate for), Jesus effectively proclaims its bankruptcy. He drives out the sellers, bringing the whole workings of the temple to a grinding halt (without animals bought from the sellers, no-one could offer sacrifices). Jesus, in the best symbolic traditions of the Old Testament prophets, was announcing judgement on a corrupt temple system and by extension on a corrupted Israel who had forsaken God’s covenant and, instead of being a house of prayer for all nations, had become a dens of thieves and robbers.

If this message was not clear enough, Luke then has Jesus, in no uncertain terms, condemning the temple hierarchy for the rest of chapters 20 and 21. And finally comes the proclamation that Jerusalem will be surrounded by armies and trampled (21v20ff).

And so by the end of chapter 21, Luke has got to the point where Jesus has finally laid all his cards on the table. He has accepted the title of Messiah. He has condemned the religious hierarchy completely. He has even condemned the temple itself. Jesus has effectively proclaimed that the old was passing away, but as yet had given no indication of what was to come. We are on the brink; something has to give. We should remember that at this point, all options were still open to Jesus. The people were with him and full of revolutionary fervour. However, as we will see next week, Jesus chooses the path of rejection and suffering over glorious revolution.

Reflection:

Do our ideas about God imprison Him (or Her?) and lead us to miss ‘the time of his visitation?’ (19:44)

Do we see anything of ourselves in Israel’s stubborn refusal to be faithful to God’s covenant to be a blessing to all nations? Are we a ‘house of prayer for all nations’ or the faithless servant who hides his money in the ground?