Tuesday in the 26th Week of Ordinary Time, September 28, 2021

Luke 9:51-56

When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.

“When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.”  This verse helps us to understand an important fact of St. Luke’s Gospel.  Let us note that this Gospel contains 24 chapters.  Of these, the first three chapters speak of the preparations for the Lord’s Birth, his Birth, an episode from his Childhood, John the Baptist’s mission, a couple of verses describing the Lord’s baptism, and then his genealogy.  Chapter 9, 52 through Chapter 24 tell us of the events that covered a few weeks in the last year of the Lord’s life on earth and of his Resurrection.  Chapter 4 through almost the end of Chapter 9 are all we have from Luke on the nearly three years of our Lord’s Public Life, minus his last journey to Jerusalem and all that happened there.  The greatest part of the Gospel of Luke concerns itself with just a few weeks of the Lord’s life.  That is not to criticize the Gospel in any way, but understanding this helps us to see the importance of what Luke does tell us in those few chapters apart from his beginnings and the last stage of his Public Life.  It also tells us of what Luke and those for whom he was writing considered most important: all that Jesus said and did during his last journey, the Last Supper, his Passion and Death, and his Resurrection.  (St. Mark approached the writing of his Gospel in the same way, and seven of St. John’s twenty-one chapters are devoted to what the Lord did just on Holy Thursday and Good Friday).  

“When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, etc.”  The Greek word translated here as “to be taken up” would be better translated as “to be raised up”, as in his crucifixion.  And his days “were completely filled up”, according to the Greek, a figure of speech indicating that there was no more room for any other word or action.  “He resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.”  The Greek says, “He fixed his face firmly to journey to Jerusalem.”  This more graphically tells us that his manner changed, at this point.  He was no longer simply preaching repentance; he was preparing himself and his Apostles for the end.  

“He sent messengers ahead of him.”  These seem not to be any of the Apostles, but some of the disciples.  They would have announced the Lord’s coming as that of a king or conqueror.  And indeed, he comes as the conquering Messiah who will ultimately take Jerusalem — not by force of arms, but with his mercy.  “On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there.”  As the Lord was traveling from Galilee to Judea, it would be difficult to avoid Samaria.  The messengers would have preferred not to enter a Samaritan town, where they almost certainly would not be welcome.  Still, the Lord came to save all and so all would have the opportunity to know him and to accept him or reject him.  “But they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem.”  We can understand this verse spiritually as: hardened sinners do not listen to the Lord because he wants to lead them to heaven.  The sinner does not want to be told he is a sinner and that he has to live a different way lest he die.  The promised glories of heaven mean little to those resolved to sin, interested as they are only in short-term gain.

“When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, etc.”  The Lord Jesus called the sons of Zebedee the boanerges (cf. Mark 3, 17), Aramaic for “sons of commotion” or, according to St. Mark, “sons of thunder”.  The reason for our Lord doing so seems clear from their desire “to call down fire from heaven to consume them” [the Samaritans].  These two must have preached with great fire and been prepared for action at any moment.  Knowing this helps us to understand why Herod chose to put James to death (cf. Acts 12, 2-3).  Their impetuosity overruns their good sense, here.  Rather than waiting to see what Jesus will do in response to this rejection by the town, they want to force their own solution on their Lord.  We do this too.  “Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.”  We are not told what Jesus said to them, and so he may have made his rebuke of them short though sharp.  The Lord never punished anyone for walking away from him or rejecting him.  He simply let people go their way, or walked away himself.  We see this in Luke 4, 30, when the people of his own town tried to kill him: “But he passing through the midst of them, went his way.”  And as happened after Jesus had fed the five thousand and explained to them that they needed to eat his Body and drink his Blood to be saved: “After this, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him” (John 6, 67).  In his mercy, the Lord lets them go or departs from them in peace so that they might have time to think, to repent, and to come back to him.  We see this most of all in how he allowed his Apostles to flee when he was arrested, and even to intervene for them so that they might not also be arrested.  And then, on Easter Sunday, he returned to them.