Luke 13:31-35

Courage 
​ 
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
 
How many of you know this prayer?
 
Of course, most of you do.
 
It is the serenity prayer. Probably first authored by American Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in the 1930s, it became widely known through its adoption by Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1940s.
 
It remains to this day a prayer taught and learned by those who struggle with addiction.
 
Last time we had occasion to discuss addiction, in our consideration of the theme “temptation.”
 
We saw how Jesus, in the wilderness with the devil, overcame temptation where we often fail.
 
But we also saw that we need not despair when we fail, because Jesus is on our side. He is for us and not against us.
 
Because he knows what it is like to suffer when tempted, he is merciful. And because he overcame temptation, he became our merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, always living to intercede for us. He became our mediator, pleading our case, acting as our advocate.
 
Through him we have the forgiveness of our sins and peace with God whenever our consciences disturb us.
 
In this life, we will always need him as our mediator, because none of us is ever perfect. But when we fall, we are not to stay down, but we are to get right back up again.
 
And that takes courage.
 
If we return to the substance or the behavior to which we are addicted, especially if we’ve succeeded in resisting it after a long stretch, we lose heart.
 
We may say to ourselves: “these forces that oppose me and my progress in recovery are too strong for me. I’m powerless against them. They defeat me every time.”
 
In the desert, Jesus encountered forces that opposed him and his mission, but they did not defeat him. The devil was not able to derail him from his mission.
 
Yet opposition to him and his mission did not cease. It continued, as we see in our Gospel lesson for today, the Second Sunday in Lent, dedicated to the theme of “courage.”
 
Jesus has been spending time among the people in the region of Galilee, healing, blessing and restoring them. But here as elsewhere he encounters opposition, as we’ve already mentioned.
 
Only in this instance, it has a human face in the person of King Herod, the ruler of Galilee.
 
We have seen Herod before. This is the same Herod who threw John the Baptist into prison and later had him beheaded.
 
Now the Pharisees come to warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him, too.
 
It is not clear what their motivation is. Based on what we know about them from the Gospels, we can hardly assume that it’s heartfelt concern for Jesus’ safety.
 
On the contrary, the Pharisees oppose him at every turn, even to the point of wanting what Herod wants.
 
Jesus may be as innocent as a dove, but he is as wise as a serpent. He suspects that they’ve been sent from Herod to spy on him.
 
The evidence to support this interpretation lies in the name he calls Herod. “You go tell that fox.”
 
Now it is not exactly a compliment, but neither it is an insult to call a person a “fox” back then.  
 
Jesus is merely calling him what he is. In sending the Pharisees out to Jesus, probably having coached them to feign concern for his welfare, Herod’s intent is to gather intelligence.
 
No doubt, he’s given them careful instructions to return with a full report, so that he can plan his next move. In this way, Herod is showing himself to be as sly and as crafty as a fox.
 
But this does not deter Jesus. No threat from Herod can intimidate him. He has a mission, and there is no power on earth that can prevent him from accomplishing it.
 
Opposition, especially from powerful and influential people, can make us unsure of ourselves and our cause. They engender doubt in us. We think: If they don’t support this cause, could I be wrong in supporting it?
 
We should not imagine that Jesus is immune from feelings of discouragement, since, as one of us, he feels everything we feel.
 
Only in this instance, Herod’s opposition serves only to strengthen his resolve. Jesus shows a determination to do God’s will regardless of personal cost.
 
Parenthetically, we see this same determination in the Apostle Paul, as our first lesson reveals.
 
Many of you will recall that Paul wrote the Letter to the Philippians from jail.
 
That fact alone shows us that he faced opposition to his cause, opposition from the enemies of the cross of Christ.
 
But that did not deter him, Even prison itself did not prevent Paul from spreading the gospel.
 
He’s firm in his resolve to complete the mission God gave him. And here he appeals to the Philippians to imitate him, and stand firm in the Lord.
 
When we face opposition, we too have to stand firm.
 
It is worth nothing that this theme appears everywhere in Paul’s letters.
 
“We should not grow weary in well doing, for in due time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9).
 
“We should always give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because we know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58).
 
“God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them” (Heb. 6:10).
 
And if we think that what we do is insignificant, because we are few, with few resources, we should recall the words of Jesus, that even if we give a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who believe in him, we will certainly not lose our reward (Matt. 10:42).  
 
That Jesus is firm in his resolve is indicated in a figure of speech he uses in his reply to the Pharisees.
 
“Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my course” (Luke 13:32). 
 
He immediately refers to it again, even more cryptically. “Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33).
 
This cannot be meant literally, because there are many more than three days before his  arrival in Jerusalem.
 
What then is he saying?
 
The expression reflects a Jewish way of referring to a period of time that is filled with importance. That which is to be done is this period is so important that it has to be done in the order in which it is meant to be done.
 
It cannot be otherwise, despite the forces that conspire to oppose and resist it.
 
With the words, “it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside Jerusalem,” Jesus reveals his awareness of his own prophetic calling.
 
And Jerusalem, the holy city, the place of greatest exposure and danger for him, is the place to which his calling beckons him (Stephen I. Wright).
 
We mentioned earlier that those who struggle with addictions need courage. Addiction counselors say that the substance or behavior to which a person is addicted often serves as an escape, keeping the person from having to face what is hard, unpleasant, or even painful. 
 
Jesus resolutely faces what is hard, unpleasant, and painful. He does not attempt to escape it.
 
How can he? The task that he has—it has been given to him; it is not one that he has given to himself.
 
Within the words “I must be on my way” and the “it cannot be” lies the sense of the divine will, to which Jesus must conform his own.
 
That will is drawing Jesus into the painful heart of a paradox, which onlookers and disciples will not be able to understand. 
 
And that paradox is this: that the God who has willed and commanded the work of healing and restoration somehow also wills him to suffer the fate of a prophet. He saved others, but he cannot save himself (Luke 23:35; Stephen I. Wright).
 
These are the words of those who gazed up at him as he hung on a cross. In the Jerusalem that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, the cross awaits Jesus.
 
There are tears in the eyes of Jesus, but they are not tears for himself. They are tears for the city that will violently reject him.
 
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
 
In this remarkable image, Jesus speaks of his frequent yearning to protect and nurture Jerusalem’s people, as a hen her brood, a yearning which they have spurned (Luke 13:34).
 
The image reveals the heart of Jesus.
 
You know what gives someone courage they never knew they had? It is love.
 
It is worth noting that in the Bible, the opposite of fear is not courage, but love. “Perfect love casts out fear.”
 
I heard one young theology student once say: “love comes to us dressed as courage.” 
 
Did Jesus goes to Jerusalem, to face his opponents who are determined to kill him, because he wanted to demonstrate to them his supreme courage in the face of danger?
 
No. He went because of love.
 
We all have heroes--people, past or present, we deeply admire. One of my heroes is Etty Hillesum.
 
Etty was a Dutch Jewish woman who lived during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
 
Her diaries and letters, written between 1941 and 1943, reveal the heart of a young woman who chose to confront hatred and unconscionable suffering with love and compassion.
 
In 1942, Etty voluntarily went with the first large group to be taken to Westerbork, the transitional camp where Dutch Jews were gathered before they were sent to Auschwitz.
 
She worked at the camp infirmary there for a year, motivated by love to stay even when she had opportunities to escape.
 
The following excerpt reveals her heart. Sick in the infirmary, she wrote:
 
“When I woke up just now I was parched, reached for my glass of water, and, grateful for that one sip, thought to myself, ‘if I could only be there to give some of those packed thousands just one sip of water.” 
 
Again, she writes:
 
“whenever yet another poor woman broke down at one of our recognition tables, or a hungry child started crying, I would go over to them and stand beside them protectively…force a smile for those huddled, shattered scraps of humanity.”
 
Her writings reflect her determination to affirm the value of life, even amid the deepest darkness that sought only to deny value to it.
 
Her determination is reflected in these words:
 
“And I want to be there, right in the thick of what people call ‘horror’ and still be able to say: life is beautiful.”
 
Etty remained compassionate and hopeful until her own death at Auschwitz in 1943.
 
Courage? Undeniable. But love—that is what fueled her courage. 
 
Courage arises when love compels us to act despite our fear.
 
It has been said that courage is not the absence of fear, it is the refusal to be controlled by fear.
 
And I would add: And the engine that powers that refusal is love.
 
Jesus loves Jerusalem, even though going there will mean only death for him.
 
Doesn't his tender care for his rebellious people, shown in the striking image of a hen gathering her brood under her wings, illustrate his love?
 
Yes, but for us even more it shows us God’s love, which comes to us dressed as grace. 
 
In opposition to our opposition, God sets his own grace.
 
In his Letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul writes:
 
God demonstrates his own grace to us in this: “that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son (Rom. 5:6-10). 
 
Rejecting that grace proves disastrous. This is true now as it was then. “See your house is left to you.”
 
God does not force anyone to stay under the shelter of his wings. God gives us freedom to respond to his offer of grace.
 
We are responsible for the house we build, live in, and care for.
 
God will leave our house to us, so that we will know. God will leave our house to us so that we will have the freedom whether or not to receive his love (Chelsea Harmon).
 
This is the prophetic warning, both then and now.
 
But the gospel lesson does not end on a somber note. There is hope.
 
Even if God’s people do not receive their Messiah, this will not always be so. Jesus belongs in Jerusalem; he is the legitimate king of his people.
 
Even if God’s people reject their king today, there is the hope that in the future they will receive him with the acclamation “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”
 
It is on this promise that we have to set our hope. For the reception of the king means life for the world and for all creation. Amen.