Thursday, February 7, 2008

"He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem"

Luke Chapters 19, 20 and 21

Why start at chapter 19 verse 28 in Luke for a Bible study about Acts? The answer is that the Passion story is closely related in time to the events described at the beginning of Acts and Luke intended that his Gospel and Acts be read sequentially as two volumes of a single work. We study Luke’s account of the Passion story to get a sense of what pressures the disciples were under during and after the events of Holy Week.

In his version of the Passion story Luke follows the account given by Mark very closely. Only one verse in this part of Luke can be traced to the “Q” material – Luke 20:18. Look through chapters 19, 20 and 21 in the color-coded Luke here http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/luke.html
to get a sense of Luke’s use of his sources. Note the three sections of verses that comprise material appearing only in Luke: 19:39-44, 21:24 and 21:34-38. Read them two or three times to get a sense of why Luke feels these are important enough to include in his Gospel. (For additional information, see the lesson on “Who Wrote Luke and Acts”.)


Background to the Passion Story

Why did Jesus go up to Jerusalem? Some clues are given in Luke 2 with the presentation of the baby Jesus at the temple for circumcision. Also in 2:41 we read “every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover.” And we have the childhood story starting at Luke 2:42 where as a boy Jesus was lost and then found by his parents in the temple courts amazing the teachers with his knowledge of Hebrew scripture. For Jesus to go to Jerusalem for the Passover, and specifically to the temple, would be a perfectly natural event in keeping with his upbringing as an educated and observant Jew.

But Luke gives us a greater insight into why Jesus intended to go to Jerusalem in 13:33: “In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!” So there is never any doubt in Luke as to the purpose Jesus had in entering Jerusalem.

This lesson deals with three important stories that occur prior to the Last Supper: The Triumphal Entry, the Cleansing of the Temple and Jesus Teaching at the Temple.


The Triumphal Entry – Read Luke19:28-44

The Passover holidays were a particularly tense time for the local authorities in Jerusalem. Only at the temple could the appropriate sacrifices be made and the crowds poured in from the surrounding countryside such that the city’s population would double with pilgrims. The Passover story - with its context of the deliverance from slavery - would have been of particular concern for the Roman officials, ever sensitive to the possibility of rebellion by their Jewish subjects. Pilate, the Roman governor who normally resided on the coast, would have made it a point to be in the city with extra military reinforcements to keep trouble from starting or getting out of control. (See also “Politics of Roman Palestine.”)

In Luke 19:28–44, the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is characterized as an extremely provocative act. The crowd of pilgrims flocking to the city would have heard Jesus preach in the countryside, and they formed a natural political constituency for him. Read Zechariah 9:9 – 10 and Psalm 118 for background to the symbolism in this story. Only in Luke’s Gospel do the Pharisees challenge the dramatic entry of Jesus and ask him to disavow the cheers of the crowd (19:39). Jesus then quotes Habakkuk 2:11 in reply and continues on, giving an emotional speech in 19:41-44 before entering the city proper.


The Cleansing of the Temple – Read Luke 19:45-48

Upon his arrival into the city Jesus goes to the temple court and, in the only violent act of his ministry, overturns the tables of the money-changers, driving them out of business. (See the lesson on “The Second Temple” for further information.) Here was something that would definitely attract the attention of the authorities. It was little wonder that, as Luke states in 19:47 “...the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him.”


Jesus Teaches at the Temple – Read Luke Chapters 20, 21

In chapter 20 Luke describes the various attempts of the priests and Pharisees to trick Jesus into public blasphemy. In the first case, Luke 20:1-19, Jesus evades their question and replies with a stinging parable that ends with a famous quote from Psalm 118. Note that Luke also adds the quote from Q here to give emphasis. In Luke 20:20-26 they next try to trap Jesus into sedition by cleverly questioning him about the payment of taxes to the Roman government, but again he gives the perfect answer. Finally the Sadducees try to trick him on a point of Jewish marriage law and the resurrection of the dead, but once more he eludes their trap. Jesus then recites part of Psalm 110 to further clarify his status, and again rebukes the Pharisees.

Chapter 21 begins with the story of the Widow’s Mite – Jesus at the temple reflecting on the injustice of the collection of offerings. Starting at verse 5 Jesus offers his observations on the Signs of the End of the Age – a remarkable prophesy that fills up the rest of this chapter. Interestingly, Luke breaks the continuity of the account he is using from Mark to insert independently-sourced material at 21:24 and 21:34-38.


Links of Interest

A handy timeline for the life of Jesus is here:
http://www.biblenet.net/library/study/timeline.html

A useful study of the Triumphal Entry from a Catholic perspective is given here:
http://www.thecrossreference.blogspot.com/2006/02/bible-study-synoptics-15-triumphal.html


Study/Discussion Questions

1. From your reading of Zechariah and Psalm 118, what is Jesus declaring about himself by riding the foal of a donkey? Why must the donkey be one that has never been ridden before? What is the crowd saying by their actions?

2. Why do the Pharisees in Luke 19:39 ask Jesus to disavow the crowd? Why does Luke feel that this is important enough to break the narrative he is using from Mark to insert this?

3. From Luke 19:40-44, do you think Jesus feels “triumphant”?

4. What were money-changers doing in the temple court?

5. After the cleansing of the temple, why didn’t the priests simply have Jesus arrested? Why should they want to kill Jesus?

6. Why does Luke include independently-sourced material (21:24) in the “Signs of the End of the Age” prophesy when it seems to overlap that in the account already taken from Mark?

7. How many times and in how many ways does Jesus announce himself as a king or the Son of God?

8. We have focused on the political and social context of the actions of Jesus. How do you think God is using the situation at this place and time in history?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Study Question
1.From your reading of Zechariah and Psalm 118, what is Jesus declaring about himself by riding the foal of a donkey? Why must the donkey be one that has never been ridden before? What is the crowd saying by their actions?

Response
Jesus is declaring that he is a king. The king is described as coming on a donkey in Zechariah, and this must be a donkey that has never been ridden before. The crowd understands this symbolism and responds by laying down their cloaks and branches in the path of Jesus, as they would do for a king.

Anonymous said...

Study Question
2. Why do the Pharisees in Luke 19:39 ask Jesus to disavow the crowd? Why does Luke feel that this is important enough to break the narrative he is using from Mark to insert this?

Response
The Pharisees want to be on record as asking Jesus to stop so they can remain in good standing with the Romans. Luke wants to make it clear where the Pharisees stand with respect to the activities of Jesus in Jerusalem. Luke was writing to a largely Greek audience that may not have grasped the intricacies of Palestinian politics at that time.

Anonymous said...

Study Question

3. From Luke 19:40-44, do you think Jesus feels “triumphant”?

Response
Not at all, he is described as weeping.

Study Question

4. What were money-changers doing in the temple court?

Response
In order to make a sacrifice in the temple at Passover, the sacrificial animal must be purchased with a special temple currency. As there were many pilgrims from many different places, money-changers would accept the pilgrims coin and change it into the official temple currency. But this was done at unfair exchange rates and this is what Jesus objected to.
tudy Question

Anonymous said...

Study Question

5. After the cleansing of the temple, why didn’t the priests simply have Jesus arrested? Why should they want to kill Jesus?

Response
Jesus was too popular a figure and could not be arrested in public for fear of a riot. The priests did not want the Romans to come down on the people because of some incident and thus had to wait their chance to take Jesus. Blasphemy was considered a capital offense and Jesus was proclaiming himself to be a king. This would have been sedition in the eyes of the Romans and so it was better to have Jesus executed than to permit someone to publicly proclaim such ambition. Jesus had taken overt actions aimed at the political accommodation and collaboration of the Sadducees with the Romans and he had interrupted the revenues of the temple and so had to be eliminated

Anonymous said...

Study Question

Why does Luke include independently-sourced material (21:24) in the “Signs of the End of the Age” prophesy when it seems to overlap that in the account already taken from Mark?

Response
Luke wrote his Gospel after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Gentile Romans. He used this material because it complimented and enhanced the prophesy given in Mark.

Anonymous said...

Study Question

We have focused on the political and social context of the actions of Jesus. How do you think God is using the situation at this place and time in history?

Response
Jesus came to earth to die for our sins. The context of the Exodus, Passover and the entire history of the Hebrews pointed to the necessity of this and God was using these circumstances to achieve his goal of salvation for mankind.