In Luke’s Gospel, just after Jesus calls the disciples to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow him, Jesus leads three of his disciples up a high mountain to see him transfigured. This little exercise was not merely so that Jesus could somehow show off before his disciples. The disciples’ presence is crucial, especially after being told what it means to follow him. Jesus wants to give them a taste of what is coming for them as they continue to follow him. A foretaste of Jesus’ coming glory on that mountain is just as much for the disciples as it is for Jesus. The cross of which Jesus just told them is not the end for Jesus or for the disciples. The cross is the necessary path to glory, but the cross is not the end of the story.

In his fear, Peter doesn’t seem to remember what Jesus told them about eight days before concerning the cross. He wants to stay there on top of the mountain. This can’t be done. Glory is coming, but it will not be a cross-less glory. Jesus will lead the way through the death of the cross to glorious transfiguration in resurrection. All those who follow him will follow the same path in one way or another.

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The demoniac that Jesus met after crossing the sea was in a state of perpetual, growing death. Luke represents this for us in several ways in his descriptions. This man abides among the tombs with the dead. He is possessed by an unclean spirit; the breath of Satan animates him. He is naked, stripped of all glory. He is separated from home and community, being driven in the desert. He is a walking dead man.

This death, as mentioned, is not static. It is growing. In the beginning, when God created the man in his image, the intention was that man would progress in a fruitful life. Life would move from one stage of glory to another. But when death came into the world through sin, that process was reversed. Instead of growing in life, man initially dies and then continually dies unless God moves him from death to life through resurrection. This demoniac was dead and was growing in death. Satan and his minions were destroying him day by day as he roamed and cried among the tombs. This is Satan’s glorious plan for man’s life under his control: to move you from death to death.

What this man needed at this time was not a little helping hand. He needed resurrection. He needed to be cleansed and delivered or, in short, given new life. So it is with all of us who are sons of Adam, born into this world dead in our trespasses and sins. Our need goes far beyond just a little help. We need resurrection. Jesus came to provide for this need through taking on our death and subsequently being raised from the dead. In him we are cleansed. In him we are given life instantly and that life grows and grows until it comes to full flower in the resurrection of our bodies on the last day.

This is glorious news, but it is news that is difficult to accept for some and out-right rejected by others. Each of us knows that he is guilty. But instead of turning and submitting to the one who forgives and, through that forgiveness, gives life, we would rather find other ways to justify ourselves; that is, we want to find ways to deal with our guilt and the guilty feelings that are the consequence of that actual guilt. People will bury their guilt through abuse of substances or even resorting to self-mutilation in one form or another. We must deal with our incessant uncleanness.

This attempt at self-cleansing also dresses up in more respectable ways. We can bury ourselves in work, lose ourselves in material possessions, or even dedicate our lives to causes that make us feel good about ourselves. We long to be clean.

Many times, however, we love our death. It is familiar. It is a friend. It is destroying my life and eventually carrying me on dragon wings to hell, but it is what I like; it is what I know. Besides all of that, I hate God. Submitting to him is the last thing I want to do. So, we continue to try to justify ourselves, and, like this demoniac, we continue on the road of death.

This is seen all around us every day in the world. But this problem is not exclusive to those outside the church. There is something that remains in all of us while we are progressing in life that nags at us that we aren’t clean and that we must find a way to pay for our sins ourselves. There is enough uncleanness left in us that, at times, we still want to do this for ourselves.

As always and with everybody, these attempts fail. The only answer is what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. The answer to your guilt and the guilty feelings that follow is to hear the declaration of God in Christ over you: “You are forgiven and righteous before me.” The only way to quiet the tumultuous mind that tortures you in condemnation is to believe what your God has declared about you. You are cleansed in Christ. Having been justified by faith, you are at peace with God. Believe that and be free. Believe that and live.

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Most (if not all) of us can identify with the disciples in the boat with Jesus during that big storm recorded in Luke 8. We would love to identify more with Jesus: resting so confidently in his Father’s protection that he can sleep through the middle of a hurricane. But we don’t. At least not normally. We identify with the disciples and their fear. We know that Jesus plans to take us to the other side of the sea, but it looks like somewhere along the way he may have changed his plans. So we, logically (at least in our minds) begin to worry. We’re afraid like they are.

Because we think we are being sensible, the waking words of Jesus to the disciples—to us!– sting a bit when we hear them: “Where is your faith?” That hurts. I’m just being rational and looking at the very real situation that is around me at this time, analyzing the situation in my great wisdom, and coming to a very logical, well-reasoned conclusion. A little boat in the midst of a hurricane-like storm doesn’t stand a chance. “Jesus, if you were a fisherman and fished this sea as much as us, you’d understand that. You need to know that it is time to be afraid.” Sounds perfectly logical, yet Jesus, knowing what normally happens to boats in storms on the sea, still questions the faith of his closest companions and the ones who will be the foundation of the church.

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The whole story of man can be told from the perspective of farming. We see these images popping up everywhere at the beginning of our history. God makes a world in which the land that emerges from the water becomes lush with vegetation. Then, after creating the man, he creates a special Garden for the man to work and to protect. Farming was man’s original task. These images were even evident in the relationship between the man and the woman. God told them to be fruitful and multiply, filling the earth. Man’s relationship with his wife would be like farming; it would be like tending and guarding the Garden. After the fall of man, God promises a seed who will come. God will make a new Garden that will be fruitful and will overcome the seed of the serpent, who are the thorns and thistles.

Creation and redemption can both be explained in terms of man’s vocation as a farmer. In giving man this vocation, God was also teaching man something about himself as well as leading him to meditate on how the entirety of his life is reflected in the world of agriculture. Man learns truths about himself and his relationships with God and others as he observes what goes on with land, seed, plants, and cultivation. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Remember, man was created out of the dust of the ground (Gen 2.7). This means that man, though distinct from the ground, nevertheless, corresponds to the ground in many ways. Man is the ground formed and filled with the breath of God. We are living, breathing plots of ground who are called to be farmers. This is why, not so incidentally, these parables of Jesus about seeds, soils, and sowers aren’t “far out-there” analogies. They are as natural as they can be. How much more basic can you get than going back to our original creation and understanding the correspondence between us and the ground from which we were birthed, so to speak? Jesus teases out the implications of this relationship in all of these agricultural parables, calling us to reflect upon our lives in light of what God is doing in this world in and through Christ Jesus and by the Spirit.

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The scene must have been shocking because of the reckless display of love. Simon, the Pharisee, invited Jesus along with many other guests to come and feast with him at his house. While reclining at the table, a nameless, well-known woman comes in to express her loving gratitude to Jesus who has forgiven her many sins. She is most likely a prostitute. The words that Luke records along with her actions all point to this. The “uncovering” and caressing of a man’s feet in that culture would have been considered a sexual advance. Simon indicates this when he speaks of the woman “touching” Jesus, a word that can have sexual connotations. Add to this the fact that she lets her hair down in public, an act that would have been reserved for a husband and wife in private—or a prostitute and a client—and we can be fairly certain that this “sinner” is a prostitute.

She has many sins. Jesus says so. She knows it. That’s why she came to Jesus for forgiveness. And she received it. The loving grace of forgiveness that she received drove her to reciprocate in expressions of love for her Lord. Jesus tells her in front of everyone that her sins are forgiven. He adds, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” (Lk 7.50).

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Jesus follows John the Baptizer as substance follows shadow, as antitype follows type. Jesus is the glorious fulfillment of John’s prophetic ministry in every way. John’s miraculous conception to a barren woman is announced by an angel. Jesus’ more glorious conception in the womb of a virgin is also announced by an angel. John’s birth is followed by the prophetic singing of his father, Zechariah. Jesus’ birth is followed by the angelic singing of the heavenly armies. Everything that happens in the life of John typifies what is to come in the life of Jesus. The difference is that what is fulfilled in Jesus will have greater glory than in the life of John.

This makes sense when you consider whose relationship John and Jesus reflect from the story of Scripture. John comes in the “spirit and power of Elijah” (Lk 1.17). Jesus says unequivocally that John is “Elijah who is to come,” that is, in fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi (cf. Mal 4.5; Mt 11.14). If John is Elijah, then who is Jesus? Elisha, the prophet anointed by Elijah who receives a double portion of Elijah’s spirit (2Kg 2.9). Jesus’ ministry is a continuation and glorious fulfillment of John’s life and ministry.

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