Missing the obvious is a terrible feeling.
I had a great experience of this this week.
I got a letter in the post and I thought, oh goody, what could it be?
Opening it, I found that I had failed to see the signs where I had parked
and received a lovely notice telling me that I should pay lots and lots of money very quickly
if I wanted to get away with it.
And it's just like that.
So often we seem to bumble our ways, our way through life and we miss the obvious.
And then you get a letter in the post, then you sit and you're embarrassed
and you tell everybody that you know that you've got a parking ticket,
which is a very foolish thing to do.
And Jesus is going to point out some obvious truths to us this morning.
For many who should have known better completely miss the clear facts of the situation right
in front of their faces.
The nine lepers and the Pharisees in our passage completely miss who Jesus is.
And so just before we dig in, can we pray together and ask that our God would help us to see
and to hear and that we would understand what he has to say to us through this passage today.
Let's pray together.
Father God, you are so good to us.
And as we have sang together, as we have heard your word read, as we have prayed together,
Lord, we ask that these things would not wash over us.
That as we focus in on this passage for a little while,
we long that you would come and draw so close to us
and open our eyes to see exactly who you are.
Father, that we would lose our blindness and that we would maybe for the first time catch a glimpse of your son
and that we would turn and worship him truly today.
Father, help us, we pray.
Help me as I try to present this well.
Help each one of us as we try to hear your word.
Give us ears to hear, we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Before we dig into the main meat of our section,
can I just draw your attention to a detail in verse 11?
Our eyes naturally skim over this, but it's an important header to notice.
It says,
Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Jesus and Samaria.
The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that when the author, Luke,
gives us pointers on where Jesus is and where he's going,
he's giving us an important structure.
Since 1321, as we've been journeying with Jesus towards Jerusalem,
we've seen Jesus dealing with a single kind of main train of idea,
a main question.
Who will be kingdom citizens?
And this new section that starts here in 1711 and runs through for a few chapters,
then builds on that idea.
And it asks,
How then do we live in the present time as those kingdom citizens,
as those people who are going to follow Jesus,
while we both live in and wait for the kingdom coming?
And this is going to be a theme that we'll see over the next coming weeks.
And our new section opens up with this little group of lepers
who interrupt Jesus as he's going into a village.
And they see an obvious miracle.
These guys, they're outcasts.
They're potentially infectious.
They're not allowed to come into society as a whole.
And from a distance, they call out to Jesus for help.
I'm sure they'd heard stories.
I'm sure that news had gotten to them.
And do you notice the help that Jesus gives to them?
Unlike so many other miracles where Jesus goes near or touches them,
he doesn't.
From the distance, he just calls.
He just speaks the words.
And he just gives them a simple command,
exactly the same command as what the Old Testament said to do
if you had already recovered from such a disease.
Go and show yourselves to the priests.
It could be said that they are to act as if the miracle has already happened.
And so this little band of ten folk, they go.
I dare say some of them were dubious at whether this would work or not.
If I had been among them, I'm sure in the back of my mind,
there would have been a niggling doubt.
But as they travel, the miracle that they had all hoped for occurs.
Whether suddenly or slowly, we just don't know.
But can you imagine the sheer elation of this group?
As they see, as they look, and their skin is made clean.
But one of them stops.
And he does the most startling of things.
He turns back.
Turns back seemingly from what Jesus had told him to do.
He turns back and leaves the other nine and goes.
Why?
In order to go and to worship God properly and to thank Jesus for what he's done.
Isn't that a hallmark of someone who's just realized who Jesus is and what he has done?
Isn't that such a lovely veneer of what a Christian should be in terms of thankfulness and gratitude?
These are fundamental aspects, elements of worship, as we see what God has done for us in our lives.
But don't miss the scandal in the middle of this little story.
The group of lepers, they're in border country, and so there seems to be both Jews and Samaritans among them.
And yet only this Samaritan has done the right thing in turning around and glorifying God.
Surely, if you had lived at the time, surely, if anyone would have, it would have been the Jews who would have worshipped God correctly.
But no, it was this Samaritan.
This outsider.
This outsider within the group of outsiders.
The one with the crazy ideas about God.
He was the one who recognized that this power that had healed him was the very power of God.
Where the other nine seemed somehow to have missed it.
And I think this gives us great confidence as we reach out to our friends and to our families with the good news of Jesus Christ.
We don't need to be concerned that they don't have a good background.
As we bump into maybe Mormon and as JWs knock on our doors, we don't need to worry that they've got their theology all wrong.
What we need is to present Jesus to them all.
Whether people of other religions or people of none.
And as we do that, as we present Jesus in his power, we can trust that as they see him,
that God could work the same miracle in them in opening their eyes as he did for the Samaritan.
As he did for you and me at some point in our past.
There was an obvious miracle happening here.
And as we come to verse 20, we find what seems to be a quite different section.
But here as Jesus is being questioned by the Pharisees,
we find that they are also failing to see the obvious.
Just like those nine lepers.
They were waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God to come.
They were looking for a political leader.
They were looking for someone to give the Jewish nation freedom.
And as they read the Torah, the Old Testament,
they searched it for clues about their coming king.
And so they ask this preacher, Jesus, when he thinks the kingdom will come.
And the irony of this question is staggering.
Here they are, the experts, standing in front of the very person that they've been looking forward to.
The king.
And they're asking him for the directions to somewhere else.
And Jesus tells them that the kingdom isn't coming as something that can be observed.
There's delicious irony in this as we read a clear example of Jesus coming with an observable miracle.
We've just seen ten lepers cleansed, haven't we?
But isn't it purely ironic that these Pharisees,
who were the best of the best,
they were the pious ones,
they were the religious,
they were the zealous.
They have searched diligently to know about the coming kingdom,
but in it all they miss the clear and the obvious.
Flesh and blood Jesus standing in the middle of them.
It's a classic example of not seeing the wood because of the trees.
We have an obvious king and they're asking about the kingdom.
And perhaps we could bring this up to date with ourselves.
Perhaps some of us have been looking for something spiritual.
Some meaning in our lives.
Something more.
Something that would make sense of this world that we live in.
And perhaps we've looked past Jesus and not recognized him for who he is.
I don't know whether you've heard all this before.
Or whether this is the first time you've heard anything about this man Jesus.
But if you aren't trusting him,
if he isn't the king of your life today,
would you consider him afresh?
Consider his claims and what he has done and what he has said and who he is.
Would you consider him seriously?
Because we can laugh at these Pharisees all that we want.
And as I read this passage, I chortle.
Because these Pharisees are ludicrous.
And yet the worrying possibility is that we could be like them.
We could be like them.
Missing the obvious signs.
And abandoning our cars.
And coming back to find tickets.
There is a clear king here.
And the kingdom has already come.
And these guys completely miss it.
And perhaps as we realize that we have a problem seeing Jesus clearly,
our instinct could be to turn away.
To conclude that this whole Christianity thing isn't working.
And to try and look somewhere else.
But Luke here isn't teaching us this so that we will turn away.
But he's showing us our natural blindness
so that we have an opportunity to think afresh.
To look again.
And ask that as we earnestly seek answers,
that God would reveal Jesus to us.
Because that's the whole ballgame here.
There was an obvious miracle.
There's an obvious king.
And as we followed the story,
the Samaritans seeing Jesus,
with the Samaritans seeing Jesus as the one who is worthy of worship.
And yet the Pharisees missing Jesus as the king.
Now Jesus turns to his disciples.
There's a clear pattern going on here.
And with all of these ideas of spiritual blindness
and of missing the obvious,
Jesus knows that his disciples are needing to be taught
about something.
About the realities of what this kingdom is going to look like
after he has left this earth again.
And Luke, by showing us that we're onto the last leg of Jesus' journey towards Jerusalem,
he's alerted us how close the cross is coming.
And Jesus is forewarning us and he's forearming his followers
for after that cataclysmic event.
It's framed here in language that we will perhaps struggle a little with understanding.
But I think he gives just a few big ideas
of what his return will be like
and tells them when it will be.
So he gives a few ideas about what his return will be like
and then tells them when it will be.
I occasionally get a bus to Bigger from Edinburgh here.
It's the number 101.
Maybe you see it.
And it doesn't appear in the bus tracker system.
And I love the bus tracker system
because it lets me know it forewarns me
and forearms me for the coming of the bus.
But I'm going for this one.
And perhaps you're a little like me.
You know the timetable.
You've read it on the internet.
You see that the bus is to come at 1605.
Sure not to come before then.
But quite often I'm at the tail end of my time.
I'm rushing to meet it at stop.
And I begin to panic.
Maybe it came early this time.
Just this once.
Unlikely as that may be.
Like that train in Japan.
Maybe it drove past
and somehow I didn't see it.
I was staring at my phones
and I just didn't notice.
And these doubts and these worries
kind of bubble in my head.
And it's all nonsense.
And yet when we're waiting for something
that we aren't entirely sure of
we can be easily troubled.
And Jesus, he's dealing with that here.
He's allaying his disciples' fears
as to when he will return to the earth.
He's giving them a timetable for the second coming.
In verse 22 he speaks of them longing to see Jesus.
It's clear that a time is coming
when Jesus won't be standing in front of them.
And he won't be performing obvious miracles
as the obvious king.
And down in verse 25 he explicitly tells them
that it won't happen until this generation,
these first century Jews,
reject Jesus and he suffers.
Clearly these days of the Son of Man,
this time when Jesus will be revealed,
will happen after Jesus is crucified.
But beyond that there's no clear time given.
I think we need to be very careful
about saying anything more specific.
It is still to come.
That's all we know.
But going back to me at the bus stop,
can you imagine what would happen
if some random stranger came up to me
and told me that there was a diversion on the route?
That I should go to a parallel street perhaps
and wait at a bus stop there?
Perhaps someone who's just been misinformed themselves?
Or maybe someone who wants to somehow profit
from my desperation?
Maybe just to get a laugh.
That seems to be why Jesus talks about
his return being like lightning here.
Did you notice that phrase?
Like lightning comes and flashes on one side of the sky
and flashes to the other.
It's going to be obvious to everyone.
You're not going to miss it.
Don't worry about missing Jesus coming back.
And we certainly shouldn't believe anyone
who tells us otherwise.
Don't follow people or listen to people who say,
oh, the kingdom's coming over there.
Or Jesus is coming back over here.
It will be absolutely obvious,
like lightning in the sky.
But it will also be sudden.
Just as that bus appears around the corner
without forewarning,
without fanfare or ice cream van music
or anything else.
And the Old Testament illustrations
that Jesus uses here to show us this
are striking,
and they're very deliberately chosen, aren't they?
These stories of Lot and of Noah,
they speak to the suddenness
and the unexpectedness of the return
while everyone else is just getting on with life.
And this is why seeing Jesus is an urgent need.
This is why we need to spend the time now
and think seriously of this.
Because he's coming back to deal
with this sin-sick world.
He's coming back to wash away
all of the evil and all of the pain.
And he will come suddenly,
and we must be ready.
There will be no time for us then
to see him as king
and to become part of his kingdom.
Jesus is to come back,
and we find that it's going to be
both obvious and sudden.
And the natural response to hearing these truths
is twofold.
Firstly, it takes away our worry
and our anxiety
that many have about these things.
we need not panic.
Jesus' coming is sure to be clear.
But it also shows us
that we ought to be ready.
We ought to have our lives ordered
in light of these eternal truths.
This little section then,
in verses 31 to 33,
open up these ideas further.
And the point here
is that we must see
where our lives are centered.
when Jesus returns,
our hearts' response
will be one of two.
Either it will be
a wholehearted
looking to him
in whom we have placed our trust,
or we will look around
at the lives
that we have built here,
and we will choose them.
I'm not saying
that in that moment
we are going to make
a different choice
than what we've already made,
but in that moment
it will become clear
where our lives
are to be found.
Just like Lot's wife.
She was told
about the destruction
that was coming.
That the evil of Sodom
was about to be punished.
She was even taken
and rescued
from the city
and placed outside.
And yet,
even as she was
given the promise
of safety,
yet she still
looked back
to the life
that she had built
in Sodom
and was lost.
And if we're not
seeing Christ
as King now
and finding our life
in Him
presently,
we will not change
our tune
on that day.
We will look around
and we will not
leave our lives here.
And in that,
we will be seeking
to preserve our lives
and yet lose them.
Rather,
we need to be those
who daily,
who hourly,
lose our lives
in the here and now.
as we live
as kingdom citizens
and keep looking
for the coming
King.
Analogies never
stretch terribly far
and I think
my bus analogy
is quickly
finding itself
out of its depths.
But perhaps
we can get one more
detail through it
and you'll forgive me
for stretching it far.
When the bus
comes
and the doors
open,
not everyone
who is standing
at the bus stop
will get on board.
There will be
a distinction
made
between all of us
who have stood
at that stop,
between those
who have waited
for that bus
and those
who don't.
And that is
what we see,
I think,
in verses 34
and 35
to underline
that
Jesus coming
will be
discriminatory.
I don't mean
that in the
bad sense
that we hear
that word used.
I'm using that
in the dictionary
sense.
There's going
to be a
distinction
made between
people.
Even those,
Jesus is
illustrating,
even those
who share a bed,
even friends
who work
together
in the very
same place,
that distinction,
although it isn't
elaborated here,
is not to do
with intellect.
It's not to do
with looks
or family
or social class.
It isn't based
on the membership
of a club
or money in the
bank account.
But it comes
down to whether
or not we have
truly seen
who Jesus is
and what he has
done for us
and responded
correctly in
worship.
Or on the
other hand,
if we've missed
him,
even with all
of our
information
about him.
There's an
obvious miracle,
there's an
obvious king,
and there's
going to be
an obvious
return.
And as we
come to the
conclusion of
our passage,
the final verse
wraps up the
whole train of
thought perfectly,
almost as if
the author had
some idea in
his mind that
he wanted to
convey.
the disciples
wonder when
all this and
where all this
will transpire.
They're interested
in learning more
detail.
But Jesus has
given them all
that they need
already.
Rather than
giving them more
information,
Jesus uses this
little proverbial
saying at the end
to underline what
our focus has been
all along.
It's going to be
obvious.
Just like in
desert countries
when there's a
dead body in
the ground,
there's an
obvious sign
because the
vultures will
gather to pick
off the corpse.
It's going to
be obvious.
Although as
Jesus followers
we may not
physically see
him now,
although his
work in this
world is
concealed from
clear vision
at the moment,
yet it will
become clear
when he comes
back in his
glory and we
see him.
And so we
must ask
ourselves, we
must seriously
consider, are
we seeing Jesus
clearly in his
word?
And are we
living our lives
based on that
reality?
Or have we
overlooked Jesus?
Are we
distracted by our
lives here?
And are we
not thinking
about the fact
that Jesus
will come
back?
I've been
struck recently
that this has
been something
that has faded
in my mind
over years.
We can
respond like
the nine
lepers and
overlook Jesus
despite the
obvious miracle.
We can
respond like
the Pharisees
and overlook
Jesus as
the obvious
king.
But there
will come a
day when we
cannot overlook
Jesus and
he appears to
judge sin and
to set up his
everlasting kingdom.
And so just
as we close,
take a moment
to think to
yourself, how
will you respond
to Jesus
today?
Amen.