“Behold, WE Are Going Up To Jerusalem”

St. Luke 18:31-43

In the Name of the Father and of the d Son and of the Holy Spirit.

St. Luke 18:31  Then [Jesus] took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man will be accomplished.”

Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord…  Sometimes when Holy Scripture is read, the most important things in a reading are not necessarily the biggest and most difficult words.  Notice that in today’s Holy Gospel our Blessed Lord does not say, “Behold, I am going up to Jerusalem.”  There is a reason for that.  The journey to Jerusalem is not about Him; it is about us, it is about you.  Jesus does not go to Jerusalem for His own sake; He goes there for your sake.

Jesus is not out to prove anything.  He is not trying to win anyone’s affection or demonstrate what kind of God He is.  He is not going for His benefit.  Our Lord Jesus is going up to Jerusalem for one reason and one reason only: to bear your sin and be your Savior.  To be sure, He does all that needs to be done in Jerusalem.  There is nothing there for you to do.  But He is not going there alone.  We are going with Him.  And so He says, “Behold, WE are going up to Jerusalem.”

Let us make sure we rightly understand Our Lord’s statement.  Jesus is not challenging us.  Just as He is not out to prove anything, neither does He demand or even suggest that we must prove something to Him.  He is not saying, “Come with Me, if you can.”  Neither is He inviting us to go along for the ride, or simply to watch what He is about to do.  Jesus does not need an audience in order to suffer our sin to death and to overcome death and hell.  In fact, in the end, He doesn’t have much of an audience anyway.  So He is not saying, “Come with Me so you can watch what I do.”

In the same way, Jesus is not asking for our support or for us to lend Him a hand.  Our God and Lord Jesus Christ is quite capable of enduring our hell and taking on our demons without us cheering Him on.   So He is not saying, “Come with Me, and be there for me.”

Finally, Jesus is not saying, “Come with Me so you can learn to do what I do.”  We are to follow His pure example, but not by doing what He did.  Only He can go to the cross and pay for our sin; we cannot possibly do that.  We follow our Jesus and walk in His footsteps when we hold to His Word in the same way He held His Father to His Word.

So then, what does Jesus mean when He says, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem”?  He means simply this: “You are coming with me.”  It’s not a threat.  It’s a statement of fact.  In effect He says, “In My body, in My flesh and in My bones – that is where you are.  For this is not My death to atone for My sin.  Neither is it My sacrifice for My benefit.  But I suffer your death, I carry your sorrows, I endure your hell, I undergo your suffering, I atone for your sin, I bear your grief.”  So it is not, “I am going,”  but, “Behold, WE are going to Jerusalem.”

Now please notice the direction.  It is not us trying to get there; it is not us trying somehow to get to Jerusalem or get to the cross.  It is that the Lord brings us along.  Not alongside, but along within His very body.  And so we are there.  But we are there not because we somehow imagined ourselves there or transported ourselves back there or by our emotions got ourselves there.  You are there when they crucify the Lord simply and profoundly because the Lord Jesus puts you there by taking you into His flesh and blood.

I mean, if they are coming after me I can only assume that normal membership is dropping and cheap cialis generic they are going to lower tiers than they might have to share. Due mastercard cialis online to these expectations males compare their own performance with porn stars and feel disappointed when they are AT work. generic cialis from india There are many women who are consuming this product. The other problem with taking these drugs is that the medication is available in a liquid jelly form, ideal for men who do not like confronting and purchase generic viagra see for source discussing the problem to any person. Willingly and freely Jesus unites everything that you are into everything that He is.  For Jesus will not be sacrificed for this or that thing you did or said or thought.  Jesus is sacrificed by His Father for you – for everything that you are: your body, soul, and spirit.  So when He goes to Jerusalem, you are in His flesh.  And you are in His flesh when He is delivered to the Gentiles and mocked and insulted and spit upon and scourged and killed.  And since you are united in His death, you are also united in His resurrection.  Even so, when He rises from the dead on the third day, you are in His flesh.

There is yet another side to this journey to Jerusalem.  In Jerusalem, they put Your Jesus to death.  In Jerusalem, the devil taunts your Jesus.  In Jerusalem, God the Father Himself comes after your Jesus with the full force of His anger and wrath.  And you are there not just with Him but also within Him.  Oh, to be sure, you are safely tucked into His flesh so that you do not go through the fullness of what Jesus endures for you.  But neither should you be surprised if you are bruised when Jesus dies.  For He is not there by Himself.  You are with Him; you are in Him.  And it is not His cross that He bears; it is yours.

Our Lord said, “So do not marvel if the world hates you.”  If the world hates you, you know that it hated Jesus before it hated you.  The world would love its own.  Yet because you are not of the world, but are with Jesus in Jerusalem, therefore the world hates you.  If they persecuted Him, they will also certainly persecute you.  So you will suffer many things for the Lord’s sake, just as He suffered the wrath of God and the fury of hell for your sake.  But do not lose heart, dear fellow redeemed, for He does not say, “You are going to Jerusalem” but “Behold, WE are going up to Jerusalem.”  That means you are not alone; Jesus is with you.  He is taking the brunt of the blows that the devil, the world, and your own flesh strike against you.

Now, when Our Lord says, “Behold, WE are going up to Jerusalem,” He bids you to take up your cross and die with Him.  He invites you to live His life of suffering.  He urges you to remain in Him as He takes the route from hell to heaven, from death to life.  For the suffering of Christ is your blessing.  His death is your life.  So to be united to Him means to be united to His suffering and death.  St. Paul says, “If we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.” (2 Tim 2:11-12)

All of that is in the little word “we.”  Jesus packs all of that into the sentence, “WE are going up to Jerusalem.”  Granted, that is hard to see, impossible to imagine, and hard to believe.  In fact, you can barely believe it.  But you do believe it thanks to the Spirit who delivers Jesus into you in the same way that He delivered you into the flesh of Jesus.  For that is how we are there and that is how we go with Jesus.  Not by our own power, not by our own resolve or determination.  No, it is by the Spirit we get to be in Jesus when He goes up to Jerusalem.  By the Spirit, you are in the “we” when Jesus says, “Behold, WE are going up to Jerusalem.”

Again, this is hard to believe.  For we would rather do for ourselves; we would rather make our own way to Jerusalem, we would rather make our own way to the cross, to heaven, and to God.  Is it any wonder, then, that when Jesus speaks these words, the disciples “understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.”

And yet our Lord opens their eyes, just as He opened the eyes of the blind man.  And by the Holy Spirit, our Lord also opens our eyes not just to show us mercy, but also to remind us where He locates His mercy, where His mercy can be found in a sure and certain way; it is found surely and certainly in His flesh and blood which He sacrificed on the cross, and which He even now feeds into you for your strength and comfort in His Supper.

And then, by His Spirit in the Blessed Sacrament – then and only then are we with Him and in Him as He goes up to Jerusalem.  Here is where Jesus meets us face to face, flesh to flesh, and gives us of Himself in order that we may be in Him and He in us.

That means we are never alone; we are never forsaken; we are never without His real, physical presence especially at the times when we need Him most.

Our Lord Jesus takes us with Him and we take Him with us – to suffering, to the cross, to the grave, and to the resurrection.

In the Name of the Father and of the d Son and of the Holy Spirit.