Gospel of Luke

Chapter Eighteen

Day 18 of 24
The closer they get to Jerusalem, the more the Lord Jesus reveals to His disciples concerning what is about to take place when they arrive. In this description of the events, Jesus connects some more of the dots and includes the fact that what is about to happen will be in fulfillment of prophecy spoken in the Old Testament scriptures.
Jesus tells the twelve that He will be delivered to the Gentiles. He will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon. He will be scourged. He will be killed. Then, on the third day, He will rise again. Isaiah 50: 4-8 says that his beard will be plucked out. The gospels do not mention this but if Isaiah said it would happen, it happened.
The disciples did not understand these things. Luke tells us that they could not comprehend them. I believe this means that they just could not imagine these things happening to Jesus so they just blocked such thoughts from their minds. They walked on together.
Luke 18 continues to make entries into the gallery of folks Jesus met along the journey...characters in the parables He told or actual people they encountered.
Prayer was to be their continued connection to The Father. Jesus knew that without prayer, they would lose heart. He had modeled a lifestyle of prayer connection with His Father. Now, Jesus shared a parable about an unrighteous judge and a desperate but persistent widow. God will hear our prayers and show compassion.
Self-righteousness was deadly and would contaminate the presentation of the gospel. The antidote to this was true humility. Jesus told the parable of two men who went to pray. One man prayed “to himself” openly attracting attention away from God. The other man prayed to God and simply asked for mercy in the face of his sinfulness.
Ken Medema is one of my favorite singer/songwriters. He took this passage of scripture and wrote a song called “Mister Simon” which depicts the scene perfectly. The songs ends with: “two men walked into the the church on that morn, one left slightly wrinkled, the other left reborn.” Ken Medema is blind, yet he sees with wide open spiritual eyes. He plays and sings and composes music that tells the story of Jesus with God-given, Holy Spirit inspired clarity.
As they encounter children along the way, Jesus welcomes them as full participants in the kingdom of God. We are all to grow up to be children of God, no matter how many birthdays we celebrate.
Next, they heard His actual conversation with a certain ruler who asked about eternal life. He expected to inherit eternal life so that he could add to his spiritual portfolio. There was one problem: he was now standing in front of Jesus, eternal life Himself...and Jesus knew him inside and out, through and through, upside down and sideways.
This ruler was possessed by his possessions. Money is not a problem until we worshipfully place it as a “god” in our lives. This man could not let go and let God have His way in his life. He walked away in worse shape than ever because he rejected the plan of Jesus for his life.
The final encounter in this chapter was with a blind man. They were near the town of Jericho which is about twenty miles northeast of Jerusalem. The blind man heard the noise of the multitude traveling with Jesus. Expressing his deep faith, he cried out for Jesus, the Son of David, to have mercy on him and restore his sight. Jesus spoke the word and immediately the man could see again. Jesus did not want His disciples to be spiritually blind like the Pharisees.
What touches me about this story is that the healed blind man jumped up and began to glorify God. He then “began to follow” Jesus. I have wondered if this man might soon have been standing in Jerusalem at the foot of the cross of Calvary as an eye witness to something he would have never, ever wanted to see.