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Open the door to day 20 – read Luke chapter 20!

According to Luke, there are no more healing miracles now until the resurrection of Jesus. We have come to the sober moments of continued and growing confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders and as a consequence, their plots to have Jesus killed. These last few days for Jesus are increasingly days of darkness for him and confusion for his disciples – the very antithesis of what our world is ‘screaming at us’ to celebrate. Surely Jesus is the light – yes! Surely Jesus came to set us all free from the tyranny of sin and death – yes! But at what cost? What courage and conviction? What resolute sacrifice?

Jesus has entered Jerusalem as King (see yesterday’s post) and now the religious leaders challenge him! “Who gives you the right?” they ask. (v2).  Jesus keeps his head, destroys their attempts to trap him and then tells yet another parable against them. And they knew it, (v19). On the one hand he is affirming that HE is the son of the owner (God) and THEY are merely tenants, who are headed for destruction. Frankly, it is mind-bogglingly provocative. And it will have its inevitable consequences.

Yet no matter how hard they try they simply cannot outfox him. Nothing happens until he allows it.

As Luke recounts the events of Jesus’ life, I cannot help but be struck by how perfectly engineered his whole life and ministry was. This was THE moment in human history when God said “Enough!”

And all of our moments of darkness and confusion, all our stupid mistakes and our willing disobedience, all our triumphs and failures, all our ordinariness and our amazing successes – all of it hinged on the son of the owner’s willingness to tell the truth about life and death and live them both out completely.

There are days when we will soar like eagles and days when we will crawl like maggots but one day, The Lord’s Day – all his (and our) enemies will become like a footstool: chaos, injustice and pain will be disintegrated. But only because Jesus planned and went through it first. There is no way Jesus is getting out of Jerusalem alive – he didn’t intend to.

• It’s 5 days before Christmas – how are you feeling?
• Forgive my focus on all the conflict, (but it has to be about 30% of what we’ve read, right?). What has been revealed to you through it all? Why do you think Luke included it along with all the ‘nice’ stuff?
• From all you’ve read and learnt so far this advent – how are you going to respond to Jesus’ greatest gift?