[Propertalk] Gospel sermon tips - Luke 13:31-5 Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Jerusalem sits just below Mount Scopus the mountain of the watch keeper in a forty-two inch per annum rainfall. The Judean wilderness to the east sits in a four inch per annum rainfall area. Between these two areas and in the evangelical triangle in Galilee bounded by Capernaum, Bethsaida and Chorazin, Jesus acted out his whole ministry moving comfortably from the side of the range to the other and from the extremes of heat and cold one experiences in the desert and the lakeside.

Until I went to live there I had no idea at all that Jesus most probably went to His crucifixion in the bitter cold of the end of winter. St. John reflects on the Jerusalem winter in 10 V. 22 and in Mark Gospel we read of Peter warming himself by the fire as he waits for his own egotistical denial of his Lord.

http://day1.org/884-jerusalem_at_the_end_of_modernity_part_ii

Bishop John Bayton, 1996 
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The lament over Jerusalem in 13:34-35 seems to be out of place. Jesus is still in Galilee in Luke's narrative. He does not arrive at Jerusalem until 19:41, when he weeps over the city; an event located some six chapters later in Luke's chronology. Matthew's placement of the lament is more fitting for anyone who seeks to construct a chronology of Jesus' ministry, for he places the lament at 23:37-39 after Jesus' entry into the city (21:10). 

But Luke's placement of the lament makes sense within Luke's overall purpose. It helps to develop the narrative by appearing nearly half-way between 9:51 and 19:41, sustaining the tension, and leading up to the tragedy that is to come in Jerusalem.
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"Who or what is the 'Jerusalem' of the day in which one lives? Is it the political and civic sphere? Is it the religious sphere? Or is it both?"

http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=2/28/2010#

Arland J. Hultgren, 2010 
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..."some Pharisees" (v. 31), in perhaps the only favourable mention of them in the gospels

http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/archive/clnt2m.shtml

Chris Haslam
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Verses 31-32: "Herod ... that fox": Herod Antipas is also mentioned in 3:1, 19-20 (the imprisonment of John the Baptizer); 9:7-9; 23:6-10 (Pilate sends Jesus to Herod and is questioned by him). He had already had John the Baptist put to death. 

http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/archive/clnt2l.shtml

Chris Haslam
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N.T. Wright draws on the image of a "farmyard fire" as the threat to the hen's babies, when "those cleaning up have found a dead hen, scorched and blackened, and live chicks sheltering under her wings. She has quite literally given her life to save them. 

http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/february-28-2010.html

Kate Huey
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The wonderfully graphic declaration in 13:34 is extraordinary: it speaks of being like a hen seeking to gather chicks throughout Jerusalem's history. It cannot refer to Jesus' short ministry. How can he speak as though he has been regularly present in Jerusalem over centuries? The context indicates that each prophet has been an embodiment of the hen gathering her chicks. 
After the actual destruction in 70 CE, the time when Luke is writing (possibly in the 80's), people would hear it as a reflection on that event as God's judgement. Then the rest of the verse is a prediction of Jesus' return to Jerusalem as Messiah. 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord', from the psalm of ascents, Ps 118:26, applied originally to any pilgrim, but came to be used in particular of Jesus (as it is still in the canon of the eucharist). It is used of Jesus at his entry into Jerusalem (see Luke 19:38 - indirectly), but here it refers to Luke's vision of a messianic kingdom of Jesus based in Jerusalem, once the time of the Gentiles has passed (21:24) and God restores the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6), in fulfilment of the promises given voice in the Lukan infancy narratives.

http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/LkLent2.htm

William Loader
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