Luke 9:18-27

Transcript

00:00:00:48 – 00:00:23:51
Clint Loveall
Hey, friends, welcome to our sorry, the video messed up video. We had some technical issues we continue to try and figure out so we are putting this out there. Hope that it’s helpful. Thanks for checking it out. If you are new with us, we are grateful. Otherwise we will be back live on regular schedule at 2:00 and we will try that again in the coming days.

00:00:23:51 – 00:00:45:41
Clint Loveall
So we are in chapter nine today, verse 18, a pretty significant moment for the Gospel of Luke, true in all the gospels. Luke’s version of it is pretty brisk, pretty condensed, but there’s a lot here. So verse 18, Chapter nine. Once when Jesus was praying alone with only the disciples near him, he asked them, Who do the crowds say?

00:00:45:41 – 00:01:12:27
Clint Loveall
I am the answer, John the Baptist. But others, Elijah and still others, One of the ancient prophets has arisen. He said to them, Who do you say I am? And Peter answered, The Messiah of God. So probably work backwards here. The phrase the Messiah of God is words that, you know Messiah is also the word Christ. Messiah is the Hebrew version of the Greek word Christ.

00:01:12:27 – 00:01:37:22
Clint Loveall
Both of those mean anointed one. So Peter’s proclamation is essentially you’re the one that is going to be sent. You’re the one who comes from God. Interestingly enough, Peter gets that after giving Jesus the information that we’ve seen before. If you look back in verse seven of this same chapter, Herod is reflecting on who this person Jesus might be, and he gives the exact same options.

00:01:37:22 – 00:02:01:08
Clint Loveall
John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets, almost word for word restatement of that. And yet we find out through Peter’s words that all of them are not accurate, all of those are not enough. And Peter declares him the Christ. And Michael, in the other versions of this text, there’s sort of this celebration, that moment, there’s this declaration and moment, I think typical of Luke.

00:02:01:08 – 00:02:17:08
Clint Loveall
He keeps it very much more to the point. It’s it’s much more condensed and he leaves it. Interestingly enough, he will continue to unpack it. But in this case, at least, he lets the Messiah of God be the closing words.

00:02:17:13 – 00:02:46:24
Michael Gewecke
Right? And there’s a little bit of background to that. I think it’s important for us to know right from the start up. First is this way that this question is phrased is meaningful, It’s certainly important as we have it in our English translations. Who do the crowd say that I am? Who do you say that I am? This is one of the core questions of the Bible because of the way that this is introduced.

00:02:46:24 – 00:03:25:06
Michael Gewecke
If you go all the way back to our study of Exodus and the idea that God introduces himself to Moses as the I am here, Jesus is asking an identifier question. What is the name, the role, what what do people attribute to me? And here, when Peter answers the Messiah of God, it is both a breakthrough in the story of Luke, and it’s also not quite the whole way, which is a fascinating, I think, kind of thing that’s happening here, is that this is a step forward in our recognition of the disciples growing awareness of who Jesus is, that he’s not just a prophet, but he’s the anointed one.

00:03:25:06 – 00:03:50:36
Michael Gewecke
He’s the leader who got his promise through all the ages. But there’s also a sense here that in Luke there’s not a whole lot about Peter, there’s not a whole lot about the Declaration itself. Like you said, it’s very simple. It’s in many ways bearer and that leaves open the possibility that’s going to come later in the text as we see more and more greater understanding of who Jesus is as the disciples grapple with.

00:03:50:36 – 00:03:59:44
Michael Gewecke
He’s not just the one who sent, but he’s the one himself. He’s the I am. And that’s the amazing many layered ness to this text.

00:03:59:49 – 00:04:26:15
Clint Loveall
And Luke has a way of kind of weaving these themes together that is interesting. I think, you know, Luke takes teaching and Declaration and Miracle and kind of mashes them together. And as we move to the next section, we really see a good example of that. Jesus is going to continue to kind of explain to the disciples what it means now that they’ve declared him the Messiah.

00:04:26:15 – 00:04:50:39
Clint Loveall
Now that Peter has put that word out, Jesus wants to explain to them what that means. So verse 21, He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying The son of man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. So this is a fascinating part of this story.

00:04:50:43 – 00:05:12:09
Clint Loveall
There is this call to secrecy. This is especially prominent in the gospel of Mark, but we see evidence of it in the other gospels. It’s Jesus way of saying it’s not time for people to know that yet it’s not the right moment. So keep that to yourself. We’ve seen we’ve seen a little bit of this already as Jesus has tried to keep the some of the miracles quiet here.

00:05:12:14 – 00:05:33:39
Clint Loveall
It’s his identity, essentially the truth of his identity. And people will have to see that, especially in the cross and in the resurrection. So he tells the disciples, you know, they don’t need to hear that yet. It’s not time for that yet. And then Jesus begins to explain what it means to be the Messiah. And we know this story.

00:05:33:39 – 00:05:59:20
Clint Loveall
So it’s not shocking to us. But this is exactly the opposite of what you would expect if someone was told you were the Messiah of God. What you wouldn’t expect them to say is that means I’m going to suffer. That means I’m going to be rejected. That means I’m going to be killed. You would not ever equate those realities with the reality of being the anointed one and again in the other in the other gospels.

00:05:59:20 – 00:06:21:42
Clint Loveall
Michael, that prompts a discussion. They are not argue, but they they have a hard time believing that Luke wants to stick to the teaching. Luke wants to stick to the reality of this story so he doesn’t go there. But it still is to be. If you if you read this honestly, it should be a surprise because that’s not where you should expect this conversation to go.

00:06:21:46 – 00:06:45:34
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, no, that’s exactly right. We wouldn’t expect this to be the outcome of the one who is the anointed one. And I think Luke is very honest in many ways with the reader to make the case that here Jesus is making a point to tell his disciples what is going to happen, even though He knows full well it will surprise them.

00:06:45:39 – 00:07:12:50
Michael Gewecke
And I think for us, the reader, as Luke has recorded this, it’s a kind of assurance that this wasn’t all an accident made up later, that the disciples didn’t sort of hatch an idea after the crucifixion here, that Jesus is laying out the roadmap that he knows exists before it even happens. And this provides for us the awareness that the disciples have heard this, even if they didn’t entirely know what it means.

00:07:12:50 – 00:07:37:55
Michael Gewecke
And I think that’s an actually a really genius way to lay this down for us to understand that Jesus isn’t having these things happen to him, but rather he’s had already anticipated them. And then it helps to understand then that Jesus is also in in his continued life and growth, doing this as a form of his power and not his weakness.

00:07:37:55 – 00:08:09:54
Michael Gewecke
And I think while he’s just called the Messiah, is strike King, that he now calls himself in verse 22, the son of man, emphasizing the humanity, emphasizing the reality that he’s taken on flesh, that he is, that he’s human. And I think that that is a unbelievable kind of small note that while Peter is getting more and more of who Jesus is, Jesus here is very humbly reminding them of what that is going to require of him.

00:08:09:54 – 00:08:16:57
Michael Gewecke
And that is, I think, a poignant maybe even in some ways a dark foreshadowing of what we’re going to see.

00:08:17:02 – 00:08:46:57
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think it is. And I think it functions that way in all the gospels. I think what is interesting is where Luke takes that immediately as he goes from the identity of Jesus and the reality of Jesus to the character of discipleship that Luke really puts mashes these things together. In other words, who is Jesus is the overriding question, and what does it mean for people who know that is the immediate follow up?

00:08:46:57 – 00:09:09:11
Clint Loveall
And so as we move into verse 23, he said to them all, if anyone wants to become my follower, let them deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me for those who want to save their life or lose it, those who lose their life, for my sake, will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but they lose or forfeit themselves?

00:09:09:16 – 00:09:37:01
Clint Loveall
Those who are ashamed of me and of my words of them, the son of man will be ashamed when he comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and of the Holy angels. But I tell you the truth, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God. So really interestingly, Michael Luke spends almost as much time on the question of what it means for us that Jesus is the Messiah than the actual question.

00:09:37:15 – 00:10:02:47
Clint Loveall
Who is Jesus and Luke does us, I think, a real favor in making sure those two questions never get detached from one another, how we live, what we have to do. The the nature and the character of our life is always connected to the answer Who is Jesus And and Luke, I think, makes that especially clear among the writers.

00:10:02:47 – 00:10:31:23
Clint Loveall
It’s in all the gospels. Please don’t mishear that. But Luke just explicitly connects them. Who am I? I I’m the Messiah. You call me the Messiah. That means suffering for me and glory, ultimately. And for you it means what it means humility. It means service. It means being willing to lose your life and following me, taking up your cross daily.

00:10:31:28 – 00:11:00:05
Clint Loveall
It means not being ashamed of the son of man. And ultimately it means for some of them, seeing the glory of the Kingdom of God in their lifetime, which is probably a reference to the idea of the risen Christ of Easter. But I just I love Michael the way that Luke connects these things so seamlessly and goes instantly from Jesus identity to our discipleship.

00:11:00:05 – 00:11:03:16
Clint Loveall
And I think he really I think he really does that well.

00:11:03:30 – 00:11:38:49
Michael Gewecke
We might miss the gravity of that point plan if we don’t share the early church’s experience of being in a position where it would be easy to be ashamed, it would be easy to deny the resurrection and and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The earliest Christians as they struggled and they took very, very faltering steps for the myths, systemic persecution and being sought out and removed from their families and and ridiculed for quite frankly, being a horrendous religious cult.

00:11:39:00 – 00:12:01:17
Michael Gewecke
These Christians are hearing now, in Jesus’s words, as Luke records it, that Jesus himself, at the moment of which Peter calls him the anointed One, the leader, the one chosen by God, the one who going to do the work of bringing the Kingdom of God to bear. And this is the one who’s going to suffer. And so do not be surprised when you yourselves are called to carry your cross.

00:12:01:17 – 00:12:26:31
Michael Gewecke
Don’t be surprised when you yourself find yourself humiliated and find yourself the servant not being greater than the master. And Clint, this is a beautiful kind of almost sermon being delivered from the revelation moment, and it’s a sermon delivered by Jesus himself, anticipating what Christians would need to hear and connecting it to that, to His own Lordship and to his own mission and what he plans to do.

00:12:26:42 – 00:12:46:48
Michael Gewecke
This is not accidental dental. The reason has been composed. It’s told in this way to make sure that we can see what the disciples saw, that Jesus was a human, the Solomon willing to take on suffering for those who would follow him, and that those who would follow would bear the same in their own lives.

00:12:46:49 – 00:13:15:15
Clint Loveall
Right. And I don’t want to overdo this, but again, because we’re familiar with the overall story, it can get missed. Imagine what the expectation of the day was for the Messiah and the Messiah’s followers. It was for the Messiah to conquer and overthrow, to take possession of land and deal with those who had taken it from them. And for the followers it was victory, it was glory.

00:13:15:19 – 00:13:49:07
Clint Loveall
It was a reinstatement, a rejuvenation mission of Israel. It was a recapturing of the past. It was conquest. And instead, what do they hear that the Messiah of God will suffer and that the followers of the Messiah will deny themselves, will live lives of self-denial in which they daily take up their cross and they seek something bigger than their life.

00:13:49:12 – 00:14:20:58
Clint Loveall
Because to gain the whole world and lose your soul is of no profit. To lose yourself, even having everything means nothing. And so Jesus here presents this entirely upside down moment, this upside down teaching for these disciples. And again, because we know something of Jesus, it doesn’t sound shocking to us, but nothing could be further from what the people expect.

00:14:21:03 – 00:14:24:13
Clint Loveall
Then these words that Jesus delivers.

00:14:24:18 – 00:14:48:18
Michael Gewecke
Some of that is that we have not pinned our hopes and dreams on that Messiah. Some of that is that we don’t experience the kind of pain and generational struggle and longing for freedom that the people of Israel had waited for. We don’t have the kind of chill that runs down our spine when we hear the word messiah.

00:14:48:18 – 00:15:19:46
Michael Gewecke
But what you need to know is that this is a word loaded with meaning. The people’s hopes and dreams are pinned on this very promise that there will come a person who will relieve the people of the back breaking weight of the oppression that is upon them. And hear what Jesus just said. He said, You will carry on your back, the cross, you will bear the weight of suffering and struggle and turmoil.

00:15:19:51 – 00:15:47:58
Michael Gewecke
That is the worst marketing for a religious group that could possibly exist. No one goes and makes an ad campaign that says, Join us. We are going to experience suffering together. You’re going to struggle with whether or not to proclaim faith in the group and you’ll be ashamed. Like Clint. I think we miss the gravity of these words that the one who will suffer is the one who says suffering is a part of this process.

00:15:47:58 – 00:16:12:14
Michael Gewecke
And that is not a marketing request. It’s not a evangelistic kind of tone. It’s an honest appraisal of the way that the universe runs. It runs that the Messiah will bear the weight of suffering and pain. He will literally lose his life. But in doing so, he will save all of us. He will save our lives. And that’s the beauty of what’s happening here.

00:16:12:27 – 00:16:28:37
Michael Gewecke
Peter gets it on some level and Jesus is going to begin building on top of what he has just professed and say. It’s even more than that. It’s even more than that. And Luke’s going to continue to show us Jesus doing that as this book continues, I think.

00:16:28:51 – 00:17:18:52
Clint Loveall
And I think that’s well said, Michael, because that’s especially apparent in Luke’s presentation. I think the proclamation of Messiah is not the mountaintop, it’s the bottom. It’s it’s the starting place. It is from that proclamation that one begins to understand what it means that Jesus is Messiah, what it means to try and follow the Messiah. And that’s a life of temperance, of of denial, of not chasing worldly gain, not chasing the wrong things for meaning and for for existence and for life and for standing in the truth of the kingdom and seeing the glory of it, even in the face of death.

00:17:18:52 – 00:17:39:36
Clint Loveall
And so there’s just there’s a lot here. As usual, Luke has presented it really well. I hope there’s something in it. These are very close to the core words of the gospel, and so I hope there’s something in it that will speak to you, maybe for the cross you’re carrying in this particular season. The word of hope, a word of encouragement.

00:17:39:41 – 00:17:43:45
Clint Loveall
We hope there’s something in it that helps you along your own journey.

00:17:43:49 – 00:18:00:41
Michael Gewecke
That’s a good summary and only to tease our conversation tomorrow, which we’d love to have you join. This is indeed not the top of the mountaintop. That experience is going to come tomorrow, so we hope that you’ll join us as we jump into the next part of Luke’s telling of Jesus’s life.