Lenten Tour of the Gospels

Luke 10: Mission Impossible

The seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name."

A seismic change is rumbling through this chapter. As Jesus commissions 72 followers, he does not disguise his alarm. "Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves," he says. Finally, in a voice that commands attention, he gives this mysterious charge: "He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me." Then the recruits depart on their dangerous, important mission.

Luke's next view of Jesus is almost unprecedented. Nowhere else in the Gospels will you find Jesus so happy, even bubbling with joy. The caution in his face has brightened to exuberance. It has really worked, this perilous mission into the hill country, and Jesus celebrates the enormous breakthrough with these 72 disciples.

In his enthusiastic response, Jesus reveals that he has come to Earth to establish a church, a group of believers, to carry on his will after his departure. As these 72 disciples walk the footpaths of Judea, knocking on doors, explaining the gospel of the Messiah and healing the sick, Jesus watches the behind-the-scenes impact: Satan falls like lightning from heaven. Jesus' own mission- more, his own life- is being lived out through 72 very ordinary human beings whose actions win a cosmic victory.

Power can go to your head, especially if you've never before had any. The disciples, mainly farmers and fishermen, are overwhelmed to discover their spiritual authority. Jesus urges them to keep it in perspective. Their salvation, he says- their names written in heaven- matters more than their power. (The Bible often speaks of God's people having their names recorded in a heavenly book. See Daniel 12:1 and Revelation 3:5.)

Finally, Jesus's parable- beginning with verse 25, definitively shows the correct teaching of Christian charity and love. The priest observes a robbery victim in a half-dead state. According to Old Testament law, any priest who touched a dead body made himself ceremonially impure (Leviticus 21:1-4) Both he and a religious Levite decided not to get involved. Jesus' audience might have been expecting the third character to be a Jewish layperson. But Jesus added a twist by making the one who showed love a Samaritan, a racial minority despised in Israel. In this way, Jesus contrasted mere religious beliefs with true love.