The Mission

Luke 9

We’re just starting chapter 9 of Luke in this weekly blog, The Gatekeeper’s Key. While I’m finishing a couple of major writing projects, I’m taking a short break from my normal blogging. Here is an excerpt (in the rough) on Luke 9 from my manuscript, Night Shift: On a Mission Crossing Borders in the Night, just sent off to my editor:

[Concerning Jesus’ mission, he] came to earth to die so that we could live, but that dying only took a few short hours. It took him three plus years to accomplish the other part of his mission, which was to raise up a people who would extend his work of Blessing throughout the world. It is this very thing we see Jesus doing in Luke 8-10.

In between parables and other teachings in these three chapters, Jesus calms down the weather, exorcises a mega-demoniac, raises a dead girl back to life, heals an incurable sickness, miraculously feeds the multitudes … and that’s just for starters. Actually it is just for starters, because these teachings and miracle stories are an integral part of a very calculated strategy. Remember Mark 3 where we see Jesus calling his followers to be with himself and to send them out? Well, now we see the sending out.

Look at the beginning of Luke 8, the first few verses. Jesus is traveling about, going from one town or village to another. He is both declaring and demonstrating the Kingdom of God. Now, take note who is with him. The Twelve, of course … [and] several women….

[At the beginning of Chapter 9,] Jesus has just finished a whole package of ministry – declaring and demonstrating what his mission is all about – with this mixed band of followers accompanying him. At the beginning of chapter 9, he calls the Twelve together, gives them authority to demonstrate God’s kingdom in his name and sends them out to declare – just as he has been doing. How do they know what to do? They have just been with Jesus watching him declaring and demonstrating. And, Luke says, that is just what they do – “they set out and [go] from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.” (9:6)

Interestingly, Luke records less of Jesus’ own preaching and miracle-working in this chapter and more of the disciples’ activities. The miracles recorded here, feeding the multitude and healing the boy with seizures, involve the participation of the disciples. This is Ministry Lab 101. Jesus’ teachings become opportunities to help guide the Twelve on their initial endeavors. We see Jesus almost exclusively engaged with all or part of the Twelve in helping them grow in character and understanding of the work, and the chapter concludes with quite an altar call of commitment for the Twelve and for anyone else who might be listening.

Then we come to chapter 10. Here, Jesus starts sending out a whole bunch of other people. He is also beginning to push many other followers out of the nest to do just exactly what he and the Twelve have been doing in the previous two chapters. And lest there is any question of this, they return all excited that they too have the requisite authority to demonstrate the power of the Kingdom. While Jesus without hesitation shares their excitement, he is ever quick to remind them that bragging rights belong only to those who have been granted eternal life and nothing more.
….

Now look at what Jesus sends his followers out to do. As we have been saying, he sends them all on a two-fold mission, to declare the Good News and to demonstrate the Good News. There is around this principle a debate that never quits. Which is more important? Declaring or demonstrating? Some say the essential thing is to preach the Word of God. Some say it is to do good deeds. For God, all this debate is a splitting of theological hairs at best and a robbery of energy from God’s ultimate purpose at worst. You can’t have one without the other. There is no declaring God’s Good News without putting it into action. There is no demonstrating God’s Good News without explaining what it is all about. Word and deed go hand in hand.

Wherever Jesus goes, he both declares and demonstrates the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Wherever his followers go, they declare and demonstrate the Good News of the Kingdom of God. And by the time the gospels end, we get the point that anyone who follows Jesus has the same two-fold mission of declaring and demonstrating the Good News of the Kingdom of God.

We are agents on a mission of grace from an alien race. This then is our mission, to bring God’s Blessing to the nations “far as the curse is found," as Isaac Watts penned famously in the carol, “Joy to the World.” To do so means to cross borders – geographically, culturally, socially, materially and spiritually. Thus part of our training beyond learning how to build altars, how to allow ourselves to dream God’s dreams, and how to become advocates and priest trainers, is to learn how to cross borders – and we learn to do that Jesus’ way. How we declare and demonstrate are not necessarily time or place bound. There are some basic principles, one of which is what is called in bibliospeak, “Incarnation.”