Day 92

Deuteronomy 21:1–22:30; Luke 9:51–10:12; Psalm 74:1-23; Proverbs 12:11

SOMETIMES YOU JUST have to shake the dust off. This is what Jesus taught us in Luke’s Gospel today.

Jesus was preparing to send seventy-two followers in pairs to replicate what He was doing in the world. But rather than giving them a pep talk of victory and prosperity, He told them the sobering truth —they were about to be sent “as lambs among wolves” (Luke 10:3). Jesus was always consistent in telling anyone who would listen that the cost of following His teachings would be high. In fact, it would cost them everything. Anyone who began the journey and turned back was not worthy of the Kingdom He was revealing (Luke 9:62).

Jesus was sober-minded and truthful with His friends:

If you enter a town and it welcomes you, eat whatever is set before you. Heal the sick, and tell them, “The Kingdom of God is near you now.” But if a town refuses to welcome you, go out into its streets and say, “We wipe even the dust of your town from our feet to show that we have abandoned you to your fate. And know this —the Kingdom of God is near!”

Jesus came to reveal God’s Kingdom to a humanity that had fallen so far from its created identity that it no longer recognized itself. This is borne out not only in the teachings of Jesus but also in the horrible death He suffered at the very hands of His creation. As disciples of Jesus, our mission is no different from that of the seventy-two friends He commissioned in today’s reading. And in truth, we are still lambs among wolves. We’ve come a long way in the past two thousand years, but our species is still largely unmoored, confused, and slumbering. When we live the truth of the gospel, we are effectively bringing light into the darkness. Jesus knew the difficulty of this, though: He noted that even though the world was exposed to the light, it loved the darkness more (John 3:19).

We are sure to face opposition on our faith journey. When we respond to confrontation, ridicule, or persecution by perpetuating the same kind of tactics used against us, we are not replacing darkness with light. We are simply perpetuating the darkness. Sometimes we simply have to shake the dust off and move on, knowing that we brought the Good News of the Kingdom.

MEDITATION:

You, O God, are my king from ages past, bringing salvation to the earth.