Hi everyone. Welcome again to logical bible
study. This is the Catholic podcast
where every day we do a verse by verse exegesis of the gospels.
And today we're going to continue in the Gospel of Luke.
So we're looking at Luke chapter 9, verses 18 to 24.
One day when Jesus was praying alone in the presence of his
disciples, he put this question to them who do the crowds say
that I am and they answered John, the Baptist others Elijah
and others say, one of the ancient prophets, come back to
life. But you he said, who do you say?
I am It was Peter, who spoke up the Christ of God.
He said, but Jesus gave them strict orders.
Not to tell anyone about this. The son of man he said is
destined to suffer grievously to be rejected by the elders and
chief priests and scribes and to be put to death and to be raised
up on the third day. Then to all he said, if anyone
wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and
take up his cross every day and follow me.
For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it but anyone who
loses his life for my sake, that man will save it.
So that's our passage for today. And those words are probably
fairly familiar to many of you, because this is Luke's version
of the famous Peter's confession, where Jesus, then
goes on to make him the holder of the Keys of the Kingdom of
God. This is Luke's version though,
which is a little more brief, so what's the context here?
Jesus has been doing healings and miracles all across Galilee.
And the thing that happened, just before this in Luke's
gospel is the feeding of the five thousand.
So it would appear. You that we're perhaps in the
middle of Jesus ministry, somewhere, in the middle
chronologically Verse 18. One day when Jesus was praying
alone, in the presence of his disciples.
Notice this, he's praying alone, but with his disciples, so
there's no crowds at this point, which is actually pretty rare
for Jesus. It's just him and his disciples.
So that's why he takes this opportunity to have this quite
personal revealing conversation with them, because there's no
crowds around now. Matthew and Mark's gospel.
Make it clearer that the Location for this scene is as
they're coming in to caesarea Philippi, but Luke doesn't tell
us where it is. At this point, Jesus has been
concealing his identity. He hasn't been willing to
completely come right out and say that he's the Messiah, but
he now wants to see his disciples have perceived what it
is and if they're ready to understand what it is.
So he puts a question to his disciples.
Who do the crowds say that? I am Jesus.
Nosing answer to this question. He would know what the crowds
thought of him obviously, but he just wants to establish some
common ground with the disciples for the rest of the The station.
So he's going to use this question as a launching platform
to talk about some deeper Concepts and caesarea Philippi,
interestingly is a region that's known for worshipping false
gods. So perhaps, that's another
reason why Jesus Takes the opportunity to ask about his own
identity. And here's what the disciples
say, in response, some say, John the Baptist others Elijah and
others say, one of the ancient prophets, come back to life.
So these words are probably fairly familiar to you.
If you've been listening to the podcast in the last few days
because almost just prior to this Herod wonders, the same
thing, here it is wondering is he John the Baptist is he
Elijah? Is he one of the ancient
prophets those same three options are presented to us
again. So these are the common opinions
at the time about who Jesus is. So something is John the Baptist
because in Israel John the Baptist was known as a mighty
spirit filled man. So some people think that Be
John. The Baptist has come back to
life in the person of what they think is Jesus.
Another option that people believe is that he's Elijah.
And that's because there's many prophecies in the Old Testament,
which predict that Elijah will return one day before the
kingdom of God comes. If you look at Malachi chapter 3
verse 23, there's predictions that Elijah will come back and
Elijah could work miracles. Jesus could work miracles.
So some people think is the same person and the other option here
is that Others say he's one of the ancient prophets come back
to life. So some other people at the time
in the crowd of thinking, that maybe Jesus is one of the other
prophets, maybe Elijah or perhaps Moses because there's
some prophecies that Moses will return.
If you look at Deuteronomy, 18, verse 15, there's a hint there
that maybe one day Moses will return.
So there's all these different rumors about Jesus swirling
around apparently, no one has come right out at this point and
said, Jesus is definitely the Messiah.
Possibly some Do you think that but that hasn't been fully in
the onset or certainly no one in the crowd has said that
specifically that they think he's the Messiah so those three
options John the Baptist Elijah and one of the prophets those
are all Preparatory rolls when the Messiah.
So no one seems willing to take the extra step of saying that
he's the Messiah. But at least all of those titles
do acknowledge that Jesus is a prophet and Jesus uses that as a
springboard to take it a step further and to show that he's,
in fact, more than a prophet. He really is the Messiah.
So having after the disciples have said those three options
Jesus says to them in verse 20. But you who do you say that I
am. So this is the key question.
He wants to know who his own disciples think he is.
And you could say that Luke here is directing this to each hearer
when the original readers of Luke's gospel, read this part,
they would have probably thought to themselves.
Who do I say that Jesus is? They have to wrestle with this
question because at this point, there's been a lot of debate.
Out who Jesus is and now, as they come towards sort of the
middle section of Luke's gospel, they need to reflect on who they
think Jesus is. And it was Peter who speaks up
and it's significant that Peter does that because that shows
that he's the leader who speaks on behalf of all the apostles,
it is quite significant that Peter is the one that speaks and
Peter says you are the Christ of God.
Now that's quite profound Christ, literally, this means
Messiah. Leah.
So when Jesus says you, when Peter says you are the Christ of
God, it's equivalent to saying, you are the Messiah and the Jews
have been waiting for the Messiah.
They do believe in Messiah is coming, but Peter is the first
one to come, right out and say Jesus, you are the Messiah.
No one during his ministry, her directly understood this yet,
angels, and demons have said it, but no human, except perhaps,
for Simeon, early on, but certainly no human on their own
reasoning. Has announced that Jesus is the
Messiah yet. So, Fact that paid it does that
here is significant and it's evidence.
The Peta is inspired by God in order to recognize that Jesus is
the messiah. Now it's possible some Scholars
think that? Because the feeding of the five
thousand happens just before this may be because of the Old
Testament background of the feeding of the five thousand.
So it's a man in the wilderness, which is associated with Moses.
So some think that the fact that the feeding has just happened is
what allows this recognition that Jesus is the Messiah to
take place. So it's a precursor to the
revelation of his identity. And this is, of course, Peter's,
great confession. You are the Christ of God.
This confession, Peas in all four gospels in some form.
Now, in Matthew's gospel we learned that Peter actually goes
on to say, you are the Christ, the son of the Living God and
then of course. What is Jesus say to him?
Jesus says, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you and
then he gives him the keys of the kingdom of God and makes
him. The first pope basically, now
that's in Matthews version and it's a very Jewish idea.
This idea of a leader of the kingdom of God or a prime
minister in the kingdom of God. And so perhaps Luke leaves out
that More lengthy discussion between Jesus and Peter because
Luke is writing mostly to Gentiles and perhaps they
wouldn't understand the Old Testament context of Jesus.
Setting up a prime minister for his kingdom, in a Messianic,
kind of way. That's one explanation of why
Luke doesn't include the full version here or perhaps.
Luke already knows that Matthew is planning to write about that
and he doesn't want to include it.
It's can be hard to work out. Why gospel authors have shorter
or longer versions of things? So, verse 21 after Peter has
said, you are the Messiah, Jesus gave them strict orders.
Not to tell anyone about this. And in fact, the Greek here can
be translated rebuked. He rebuked his disciples and
made sure that they don't tell anyone.
Now, that might seem strange. And there's a lot of these
phrases in the gospels, where Jesus says, don't tell anyone
that I'm the Messiah, and this is something that comes out,
particularly in the gospel of Mark, and we talked about it a
bit in our commentary on the gospel of Mark in these
episodes. It seems the reason why Jesus
doesn't want word to spread that he's the Messiah is because he
knows that people at the time, have a false understanding of
the Messiah, they think the Messiah is going to be an
Earthly political military leader.
So if word gets around that, he's the Messiah.
There might be a frenzy, people will try and take him and make
him King and things will get out of hand, and he might be killed
too early or maybe his ministry would go off in the wrong
direction. And he doesn't want that to
happen. So, Jesus out of prudence is
don't tell anyone that I'm the Messiah now, obviously, he knows
that later in human history. People will understand that.
He's the Messiah and he wants that to happen later in human
history. But not while he's alive,
otherwise it will stuff up his ministry.
Now apparently the apostles comply with this order.
They don't tell anyone that he's the Messiah, we don't have any
record of them telling people that he's a messiah until after
his resurrection. And of course, in the book of
Acts, they go around telling people that he's risen from the
dead and he's the Messiah. Now, Matthews version of this
says, from that time on Jesus began to show the disciples and
then it goes into the next part of the texture.
So it implies that. Jesus, what we're about to hear
is something that Jesus Is continually teaching them and it
appears that Jesus begins to teach them.
These things about his identity as a result of Peter,
recognizing him as the Messiah since Peter recognizes that.
He's the Messiah Jesus figures that they're now ready to hear
about his Destiny had Peter, not recognize that he is a Messiah,
Jesus may not have gone on to tell them what he now tells
them. So, here's the whole thing.
He tells them in, ER, verse 22, the son of man is destined to
suffer grievously to be rejected by The elders and chief priests
and scribes and to be put to death and to be raised up on the
third day. So it's a very specific
prophecy, there's a whole lot of things he lists here.
So, starting with the first phrase, he says, the son of man
is destined. And the son of man is a image
from the Old Testament. It's a figure in the Old
Testament, which has a few different connotations, but in
the time of Jesus, it had come to basically mean the Messiah.
So, when Jesus says, son of man, it would have a very Worked
images of both, humiliation and glory and it's his own.
It's his preferred name for himself, he rather than saying
the Messiah will do this. He says, the son of man will do
this in reference to himself. He says the son of man is
destined. So notice that keyword they're
destined or must it's like a Divine must.
Jesus is teaching them these things from the perspective of
Prophecy. And so the idea of this phrase
it's not in this context, he's not really saying, I'm going to
suffer, although he is saying that.
He's main point, is something like this.
According to God's Plan of Salvation as made clear in the
Old Testament. All of these things must happen
to the Messiah, the Son of Man And the wood must there can be
translated as what we have is destined.
So he wants his disciples to understand that these things
must happen. And when they happen they're not
accidents or tragedies, God has set things up.
So that these must happen, of course, the disciples initial
reaction. When these terrible things
happen to, Jesus would naturally be to think it's a tragedy, it's
an accident, but Jesus tells them beforehand, God has set
things up. This is how it must be.
He says the son of man must suffer grievously.
So he's now going to tell them about the specific rejection.
He's going to face. That's the opposite of what they
expected. They thought the Messiah was
going to be Earthly and political not involving
suffering and death. So that's pretty revolutionary
for them to hear what he's about to say.
The son of man will suffer, grievously will be rejected by
the elders and the chief priests and the scribes.
So that's the Sanhedrin. The Jewish leaders at the time,
who should have been the ones to Accept Jesus as the Messiah
Jesus announces. They're going to be the ones
that reject the Messiah, he then gets even more specific.
He says, the son of man will be put to death and we know of
course that that is by crucifixion and will be raised
up on the third day. Now, notice how specific that
prophecy is. We have probably heard those
words so many times, but think about the original context,
Jesus tells them the son of man is going to die and then be
raised on the third day. Why the third day?
Well, there's lots of different things that could be said about
that, but it probably Taps into one specific texts in the Old
Testament. If you look at Hosea chapter 6,
verse 12, it says God will revive offs after two days on
the third day he will raise us up to live in his presence.
Now in the context of Hosea that's talking about God raising
up Israel after suffering and it's sort of a poetic way of
saying that God will eventually do it.
But Jesus applies this Hosea text himself in a way he's
saying, the whole history of Israel can be summed up in
himself and he'll be literally fulfilled when he literally is
raised on the third day. So it's interesting.
Sometimes prophecies in the Old Testament.
The Jews at the time took a little too literally.
And but certainly with some of the Messiah texts, they
misunderstood them but sometimes the reverse is true, sometimes
they didn't perceive that there's going to me or more
literal fulfillment of Of things that had already had a spiritual
meaning in the Old Testament. So we can go both ways.
So, Jesus has predicted all these things early in his
ministry. He knows exactly how the
timeline is going to go. It's unfortunate that his
disciples do not recall when these things happen later, they
don't recall, the Jesus prophesied them all and so they
get worried and they run away rather than having confidence
that it's God's plan, which is why Jesus told them, that these
things, he hoped that Would show confidence when those things
happened but it seems that the disciples forgot about them.
At the time, the disciples only fully understood these events
later, in fact, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus has to remind
them, it is written that the Messiah would suffer.
So later, in Luke, Luke chapter 24 on the road to Emmaus.
Jesus reminds his disciples that the Old Testament predicts, the
Messiah is going to suffer and of course in the book of Acts
eventually the disciples get it and they go around and preach.
That Jesus is the suffering servant, but he's the Messiah.
Verse 23. Now it ships, then to all he
said. So now what he's about to say is
a message for the crowds and is going to speak quite plainly.
Not in Parables like he usually does.
He says, if anyone wants to be a follower of mine.
So in that culture, it was common for people to follow
rabbis there, be rabbis traveling around and if there's
if one of the Jews liked what they heard from a rabbi, they
could choose to follow that Rabbi.
So Jesus says, if anyone wants to be a follower of mine, now
notice that even the language there, if anyone wants to be a
follower of mine and then he goes on to say what they have to
do. So notice that implies a choice.
Jesus says if you want to be a follower of mine then you have
to choose to do it, you have to do a certain thing, it's not an
automatic thing. Jesus tells them what the
conditions are. Let him renounce himself.
So renounce is a legal term, which signifies complete
disarmament Jesus. He doesn't mean just letting go
of selfishness and attachment but it appears to mean a radical
abandonment to Jesus, even being willing to give up, one's life
to give up his life. Jesus says, let him renounce
himself take up his cross. So the Jews would have been
quite familiar with this idea of taking up their cross, because
every day, they would see the Romans crucifying the Jews that
was quite common. And to the do taking up your
cross. Meant making sacrifices and
bearing, heavy burdens now, interestingly, Simon of Cyrene
would literally do this later. He would take up a cross and
follow Jesus, so that's in 23:26.
And then Luke adds a phrase here that the other gospel writers
don't have to take up his cross every day so that emphasizes the
importance of renewing, the commitment to follow Jesus every
single day. Even in small matters complete
abandonment to God every single day.
So probably when Jesus spoke this originally he did say take
up his cross every day. It's just that Matthew and Mark
felt that it wasn't necessary to include that phrase but Luke
kept it in there. Jesus says, and follow me.
So he says his followers must be willing to experience suffering
just as he experiences suffering, he's just told them
about how the son of man has to suffer.
And now the whole point is making his, if you want to be a
disciple. You also must suffer Justin
similar to the way that he just described.
So Jesus is communicating to his disciples, the radical demands
of discipleship. He wants them to know that it's
not going to be easy. Verse 35.
Jesus goes on anyone who wants to save his life, will lose it.
So the word life there can be interpreted different ways
because it is psyche in Greek, and that can mean Soul.
So, Jesus, here could be two saying, two different things.
He could be warning against denying Jesus at the point of
death. So he says, one must literally
be willing to give up their life and become a martyr.
That could be what he means or he could be warning against
worldliness and self-protection He's saying you need to give up
your attachments in your life and if you don't that's going to
lead to Eternal death. But on the other hand to anyone
who loses his life, for my sake, and the other gospels adhered
and for the sake of the Gospel. So again, this refers to either
being martyred, so choosing to be martyred or choosing to give
up, one's life and possessions. And in fact, later in Luke,
we'll hear from some teachings of Jesus where he talks about
the importance of giving up, possessions Anyone who loses his
life, for my sake. So, Jesus is basically saying
the only way to truly, preserve your life.
Is by giving up your life, that's kind of a bit of a
paradox, but that's what he's saying, you need to give
yourself away to Jesus. So some Scholars have pointed
out, that what Jesus is requiring here is more radical
even than a military General. So a military General would say,
you need to commit yourself fully to the cause, but Jesus is
basically saying, you need to be fully committed to me as a
person. So, Jesus says, anyone who loses
his life, for my sake. So again, that refers either to
martyrdom or giving up material possessions, and attachments,
that man will save it and Jesus here means will inherit eternal
life. Now, there is one more verse to
this section that Jesus has here, but it's not covered in
today's reading. So, if you want to hear verse
25, you can hear that on Thursday after Ash Wednesday
every year, so it's the day after Ash Wednesday.
You'll hear this reading where Jesus actually intensifies,
what? He's just said.
So let's turn to the catechism to see what it has to say about
the passage from Luke and there's a couple of really
interesting paragraphs here. So paragraph 2600 is about how
Jesus praise the Gospel, According to st.
Luke emphasizes the action of the Holy Spirit and the meaning
of Prayer in Christ's Ministry, Jesus prays before the decisive
moments of his mission. Before his father's witness to
him during his baptism and Transfiguration.
And before his own fulfillment of the father's plan of Love by
his passion. He also praised before the
decisive moments, involving the mission of his apostles, His
election and call of The Twelve Peter's confession of him as the
Christ of God. And again, that the faith of the
chief of the Apostles. May not fail when tempted, Jesus
prayer before the events of Salvation that the father has
asked him to fulfill is a humble and trust.
And commitment of his human will to the to the loving will of the
father. So that paragraph their lists,
particularly in the Gospel of Luke, how Jesus is always
praying at Key moments. And in particular, he's going to
pray before the Transfiguration, which is coming up very soon in
Luke chapter 9. And of course, at the start of
today's passage, it says, when Jesus was praying alone in the
presence of his disciple. So all of that is highlighted in
Luke chapter 9 paragraph 1435 is about Penance in the Christian.
Life conversion is accomplished in daily life.
By gestures of reconciliation concern for the poor, the
exercise in defense of justice. And right by the admission of
faults, to one's Brethren, fraternal, correction revision
of Life, examination, of conscience, spiritual Direction,
acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution, for
the sake of righteousness, taking out ones, cross each day.
And following Jesus is the surest way of penance So a
really interesting paragraph there from the catechism.
You may have never heard that one before about how Christians
need to do Penance. And it actually says you
specifically, taking out ones cross each day and following
Jesus, which is exactly what Jesus talks about here in Luke
chapter 9, the catechism says that is the surest way of
penance, so that's one. That's well worth meditating on
all include both of those paragraphs in the episode
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