“Go tell that fox” – Luke 13:31-35

The passage from Luke’s Gospel today is one that I find fascinating as the Pharisees – who have been vilified by Jesus on many occasions – are trying to save his life.  Now it is clear from the Scriptures that the Pharisees – defenders of the faith – never fully grasped the reason for Jesus ministry and mission.  For the most part their eyes and ears remained closed to the message of Jesus.  Yet as much as they were unable or unwilling to listen to the words of Jesus, they were still hoping to avoid having to deal with Jesus in an ultimate way.

The popularity of Jesus and his message was a source of great trouble for the Pharisees as they were unable to give a reasoned response to what he was saying.  And the response of the people in general to Jesus was threatening to undermine the authority that the Pharisees held.

No doubt it was known that the old King Herod had tried to kill Jesus when he was young and the one who now occupied the throne in Jerusalem – also named Herod – would be equally ready to dispatch Jesus as any unrest among the people would no doubt jeopardize his position with respect to his Roman overlords. A peaceful and pliant population was what Herod wanted and needed to keep his position secure and that would also be most pleasing to the Romans.

But Jesus knew that as long as his message did not penetrate to the very heart of the people – to the leadership represented by the Pharisees, Sadducees and the priests of the Temple – if he did not go to Jerusalem and confront those who were still behaving in ways that ran contrary to the will of the One who had sent him, it would mean that his time in the desert resisting temptation, his baptism, his calling of the disciples, his teaching and his acts of healing would all have been in vain.

Whatever threats might come against him – be they from political circles or from religious circles – he knew that the path he was to take now was to lead him to Jerusalem.  We need to understand and appreciate the significance of Jerusalem as the centre of the faith. To celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem was the goal of the nation. To be able to be in Jerusalem, to go to the Temple and make prayers and sacrifices was seen as one of the greatest blessings.  This was the place where the chief priest of the nation resided and was the political, social and religious seat.  Whatever happened in the rest of the country, decisions were made in Jerusalem.  The Pharisees knew full well that if Jesus went to Jerusalem, there would be trouble and trouble was the last thing they wanted.

Given that the political and religious life of the people of Israel had always been intertwined, there was no escaping the fact that to challenge the religious leaders was also to challenge the political leaders. And so Jesus makes two statements here – one which is a direct challenge to the political leader of the people and one which is a direct challenge to the religious leaders.  “Go and tell that fox for me. Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.” Jesus knew well the heart and soul of Herod and he knew him to be a sly, conniving leader who was only concerned for his own welfare.  Jesus knew full well who he was dealing with but he had made the choice not to back down or turn away.

Prophets had been an integral part of the life of the people from earliest times and they were the social and religious conscience of the people. They were often vilified and even killed as their messages convicted the leaders and called them to remember that they were to be the people of God.  Now every prophet was not killed in Jerusalem but Jesus is identifying the religious leadership centred in Jerusalem as the ones responsible for the death of any prophet and as such he – a prophet of God – knows that it is only by going to Jerusalem and confronting the leadership there that he can truly fulfil the mission for which he was sent.

Jesus then recalls to the Pharisees the history of the nation and how God sent prophets generation after generation seeking to restore the people and strengthen the covenant between them and God. He recalls to them how they treated the prophets whose message so often spoke of God’s great love for the people and God’s desire to gather them like a hen would gather its chicks. All God wanted was to bring them peace and hope and life – to forgive them their sins.  And so Jesus makes the fateful decision to go to Jerusalem over the protests of the Pharisees, in the face of the threat to his life posed by Herod.

And so Jesus will take a journey of three days during which time he will cast out demons and perform cures.  Over three days he will touch many lives before moving on to what will be the final steps in his mission becoming the Passover Lamb whose blood will not just cause death to stay its hand for a night but will cause death to no longer have a hold on the lives of the people who will come to believe.

Imagine the courage and the strength it took for Jesus to stand up to the Pharisees and to Herod.  Indeed the courage and the strength to go to Jerusalem knowing full well that in spite of the support of so many, he would be sent to his death.  And yet we will still read about and know the pain, the anguish that he experienced as he lived through those last fateful days.

There are many stories told of people who sacrificed their lives because they were willing to stand against tyranny and evil.  But there is only one who not only stood against tyranny and evil but also whose sacrifice was effective in overcoming the sin that leads people to tyranny and evil.

May we be ever steadfast in our faith and in our lives in this generation that we may give thanks to God for the sacrifice of Jesus – the only begotten Son of God – a sacrifice that grants us freedom from the power of sin and enables us to live this life as redeemed people who know that with God there will be no end but only new beginnings!

AMEN