Read Luke 22:1-23
Spring time in Jerusalem. Festival time. Reunions with old friends. The Passover feast with its wonderful traditional menu. Roast lamb, bitter herbs, unleavened bread. No cook in town wondered what to serve.

If some child balked at eating bitter herbs, he did not get a substitute. His elders used the occasion to teach him why it was called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, why it was celebrated as a high holy day, sacred in Jewish history.

Jesus’ inner circle of friends supposed this Passover would be no different from others. They had eaten the traditional meal, enjoyed the fellowship all of their lives.

Jesus had other plans. He instituted a ceremony at that dinner hallowed as one of the sacred sacraments revered by all branches of Christianity. Jesus, as host, takes the bread, breaks it—and changes forever how we think about God. That unleavened Passover bread became a symbol of His body, broken because He loved us. He takes the cup and does the same thing, turning the wine into a symbol of His blood poured out for us. “There is no one like the God of Jeshurun [Israel], who rides on the heavens to help you…,” said Moses in his farewell blessing (Deut. 33:26). That has not changed. Only the one true God, Jehovah, our Creator, loved us enough to take our penalty. He died for us. God died to set us free.

Read Luke 21:30-38

Jesus said: Don’t get sidetracked. The main point in life is to be able to stand before the Son of Man in the judgment (v. 36).

Predicting coming wars was easy. The thing that sets Jesus’ predictions apart is their detailed accuracy. He says armies will gather around Jerusalem. About 40 years after he spoke, Roman armies captured Jerusalem, but only after a long siege. As many as one million persons may have died during the destruction of the city. Thousands, following Jesus’ warning, fled. Jesus interweaves honest prophecy with pity and compassion for those unable to flee (v. 23).

Then comes a strange combination of thoughts. Jesus says when these awful things take place, look up, because your redemption is near. He even tells a little parable to illustrate His teaching. When the fig tree sprouts leaves, we can know summer is near.

What is Jesus’ point? He is coming back. The crucified, risen, ascended, glorified Lord will return to earth. Whatever the signs listed in vv. 25-26 are, they will be so definite, startling, and terrifying that no one on earth can miss Christ’s return.

A Bible commentator says, “History is a religious drama.” Jesus’ predictions illustrate that principle. Finally Jerusalem had to pay for her disobedience to God’s law and teachings. Life in Jerusalem as it had been for hundreds of years was about to end.

As Jesus said, don’t miss the main point.

Read Luke 21:5-19

False Christs, false prophets, political disruptions, wars, and natural disasters. Jesus ticks them off. They are coming, Jesus warns.

What else is coming? Persecution of Christ’s followers. Sad to say, He warns that betrayal will come from, among other places, those near and dear to us—immediate family, relatives, friends. Jesus counsels taking a settled decision not to worry about defending yourself. “I will give you the needed words and wisdom,” He says (vv. 14-15). Then Jesus adds a strange idea. He says they will hate you because of Me. They will kill some of you. “But not a hair of your head will perish” (v. 18). What is that all about?

Jesus saw the cross coming for Him within that week. Farther away He saw His throne, His coming again in glory. And He says to His followers, “These troubles don’t matter. They are for a little while. I am forever.”

Christ offers life beyond the grave as well as life now. Christ counseled, as some of the old philosophers put it, living under the aspect of eternity. Live your life with the prospect of everlasting joy, in God’s presence forever. What can opponents do with people who believe they can do that? No wonder Christianity has challenged and conquered and spread over the world. In Christianity alone of all religions dwells real hope, both in this life and in the life to come.

Read Luke 21:1-4

“The Widow’s Mite” we call the story in today’s reading.

When that widow got to heaven, do you think she was astonished to find that Messiah Himself had observed her action in the temple that day?

“I just wanted to honor God,” we can hear her saying. It’s not how much you can give; it’s why you give.
The apostle Paul expresses the widow’s mindset when he wrote to the Corinthian church, “For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have” (2 Cor. 8:12). Remember Jacob who promised the Lord one tenth of all the Lord gave him (Gen. 28:22)? The prophet Malachi challenges us to bring our tithes to God, then stand back and watch Him bless us (Mal. 3:10).

God created us. He gives us all that we have, from the next lung full of air to the newest job. Although it all belongs to Him, He lets us be in charge of everything. That makes us God’s trustees, someone managing property for another person. Ask any banker, and he or she will tell you that a trustee is held to a higher standard than an owner. If we owned our money, maybe we could justify using it as we please. But it isn’t ours. As God’s trustees, we need to invest the money He lets us oversee in the ways He directs.

Read Luke 20:41-47

Who is Jesus? Until you settle that question, you will not get far in the Christian life.

Since the kind of faith that receives answers to prayer begins with settled knowledge of God’s character, no more important question arises than our belief about the person of Christ. Is He man, or God? Is He both man and God?

Jesus forces that question upon the teachers of the Law in our reading for today. This is one of several places in scripture where Jesus asks people questions about Himself in pretended innocence. His hearers knew that Messiah was commonly referred to as “Son of David.” He asks these experts in Biblical knowledge to interpret Psalm 110:1. This psalm, ascribed to King David, refers to David’s son, that is, his descendant, as being “The Lord.” The word the psalmist uses is a translation of the Hebrew name for God. So David appears to refer to his grandson (many generations later) as The Lord, David’s God, Jehovah. How can this be, Jesus asks deadpan. As Jesus indicates by His criticism of these persons in vv. 46-47, they were not ready to acknowledge Him as Messiah.

Jesus is God and Man perfectly united in one Person. His Father is God, His mother a human being, a virgin named Mary, descended from a branch of David’s family. Hence He is at once a descendant of King David and David’s divine Lord and Messiah.

Read Luke 20:27-40

Perhaps you have heard the ancient joke about the Sadducees: They did not believe in the resurrection from the dead. So that is why they are sad, you see.

In Jesus’ day the Sadducees were a prominent group of Jewish religious leaders. They rejected the doctrine of the resurrection and refused to accept the existence of angels.

They confront Jesus with a tale about a woman whose husband died. To fulfill the Jewish Law, his six brothers married her by turn. (See Deut. 25:5-6.) Finally all died, leaving no children. They want to know whose wife she will be in heaven.

Do you think these people were sincerely interested in Jesus’ answer to the hypothetical situation they pose? The Sadducees’ trap was that if there is life after death, Jesus must say that she would be the wife of all seven men. This would promote a lifestyle condemned in the present age. Or, He must deny life after death. Either answer was bound to anger one side or the other.

Jesus almost brushes the question aside. He clearly teaches conscious, rational life after death. Marriage as an institution will cease because it will no longer be necessary to replenish the human race. We will recognize each other. Life goes on, immortal spirits clothed with deathless bodies, not bound in heaven by the physical limits of earthly life.

Jesus writes the Christian hope in big letters here. Aren’t you glad?

Read Luke 20:20-26

Jesus kept winning, and it frustrated these religious leaders. He becomes a marked man; they are out to get Him.

What was the trap in their question? If He said, “Yes,” the people, who hated Rome, would turn on Him. If He said, “No,” his enemies would report Him to Roman authorities as a traitor who advocated withholding taxes. They had no loyalty to Rome, but their hatred of Jesus was so fierce they were willing to take either side in order to be rid of Him.

Jesus avoided their trap, and His famous answer has entered our language, not only as a literal rule, but also figuratively as a metaphor. At first glance, Jesus’ response seems noncommittal. But it is not. It is a clear assertion. We are to pay our taxes.

The denarius, the coin Jesus asked them to show Him, would have had a likeness of Augustus or Tiberius Caesar on it. About ten years before this, the Roman senate voted Caesar Augustus divine powers. Nothing could have been more hateful to a good Jew than an image of a deified emperor. Yet, Jesus says, pay your taxes to such a government. You can obey the Roman state and still be a loyal Jew or Christian.

We owe tithes to the God who gives us life. We owe the state because we accept its protection and privileges. The two loyalties are not incompatible.

Read Luke 20:9-19

The religious leaders had no trouble seeing themselves in Jesus’ story.

The vineyard owner is God the Father. The vineyard is Israel, a figure of speech readily understood because the culture of grapes was common in Palestine. Jesus’ hearers knew very well that the “servants” referred to people like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the others we call Old Testament prophets.

When Jesus casts Himself as the vineyard owner’s son who gets killed, it is clearly a messianic designation. “Is this nobody from the back country of Galilee telling us He is the messiah?” the religious leaders scoffed.

We wonder why God would risk His Son like this.

That’s the whole point. The vineyard owner looks like a mad man to send his son into such a dangerous situation. That’s how much God loves us. He risked His only Son among desperate people to save us. In Jesus’ rejection and death is our opportunity for life.

Jesus ends with a solemn warning. Where do we get the idea that all there is to Jesus is the “meek and mild” part? God gives responsibility. The vineyard owner will come back. He expects a return on His investment. If we neglect to learn the lesson that we were so important to God that He put His only Son in harm’s way to save us, we bring severe punishment upon ourselves. Rejecting Him means death.

Read Luke 20:1-8

Surely one of the most exasperating experiences of life is facing innocent-sounding questions from persons who encounter truth and do not want to face it.

The religious bigwigs’ inquiry is the first of four questions Luke records in Chapter 20. This one has to do with Jesus’ authority and identity. “These things” (v. 2) the priests and teachers mention would have included His triumphal entry, His driving the traders from the temple, His miracles. All were actions to be expected from Messiah. In all of them Jesus was making Himself His own authority. Those inquiring were educated religious leaders who should have been looking for the Messiah, searching the scriptures to see if Jesus fit the prophecies. Instead, they saw Jesus as a threat. If the people transferred their loyalty to Jesus, it would dry up their source of money and power.

Jesus knew His questioners were insincere, but He was never rude and He never missed an opportunity to teach. No answer Jesus gave would have satisfied His questioners. However, others overhearing might be helped. He gave the experts a courteous hearing, then discredited these authorities on the Law before a large audience.

He was a skilled debater. Rabbinical debate often took the form of question and counter question. When Jesus answered their question with another one, and they had no answer, Jesus had no further obligation to debate until they answered His question. Jesus won.

Read Luke 19:41-48

Lost opportunities, that’s what they were.

Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem was an opportunity for all to see Him, respond and praise Him if they would. Did the people do it? Some did; others did not.

Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem? Because that city lost her chance. The people could have repented and lived. They chose to go their own way and die. Jesus’ prediction (vv. 43-44) took place in 70 A.D., less than 40 years later, when the Romans invaded and destroyed Jerusalem.

This was an unparalleled occasion to praise God. Instead, worship got lost in the shuffle of commerce (vv. 45-46). Are we guilty of this same sin? We don’t buy and sell animals in church these days. But do we get so carried away with preparations for some church affair—the speaker, the food, the decorations—that we miss our chance to worship? Jesus did not condemn parties. Neither did He criticize buying a lamb to sacrifice for Passover if it were acquired properly. To everything there is a time and place, and these persons were not observing either. Let us not miss an occasion for devotion, lost in busyness.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day sought another opportunity, a chance to get rid of Him (vv. 47-48). Ultimately they found it, as Jesus knew they would. Unknowingly their action provided Jesus with His special opportunity—to die for us all (Luke 22:20).