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Small Group Devotional Study Guide
For the Week of April 5th, 2009 - BradGustafson
Text of Focus for April 5th: Luke 18:31-34; 19:28-40
The Sermon This Week: Confessing Christ’s Royal Sacrifice
From a review of James Carroll's PRACTICING CATHOLIC by L.A. Times columnist Tim Rutten, the following is a quote that may help to center us on the threshold of Holy Week, as we seek to ‘keep the story of Jesus alive…’:
"We maintain our loyalty to the church because we cannot live without it," he writes. "The church gives us a language with which to speak of God, a Meaning that is God. The church feeds us in the Eucharist, keeps the story of Jesus alive in the preaching of the word, marks our journey through life with the sacraments, and underwrites our participation in the community that transcends space and time."
- As we approach Palm Sunday this week, we read two related passages from the gospel of Luke. In the first passage, Jesus foretells his death and resurrection for the sixth time in Luke, and tells his disciples that this is in fulfillment of everything that has been spoken by the prophets up until this point. They still do not understand. Luke in fact tells us three times in one verse – verse 34 - that they didn’t get what Jesus was predicting. Why do you think Jesus’ predictions were ‘unthinkable’ to his closest disciples? If you had been as close to him as they were for almost three years, what do you think you would have been expecting the climax of his story on earth was going to be, as you approached Jerusalem with him? Would you have been expecting him to triumph over his enemies by military force, political victory, a spiritual healing wave of the wand across the turbulent sea of human hearts – in which everyone would be changed instantly and then live happily ever after? If Jesus had told you that he was about to be killed, but then raised again on the third day, would you have believed him?
- Jesus makes the claim that everything that is about to happen to him is in fulfillment of what the prophets have written before him. If we set out in search of these connections, we are in good company – the early believers sought them as well, and found some literal connections. There are of course inconsistencies between the gospels (there are no palm branches in Luke, for example, as there are in Mark) and there are no absolutely verbatim passages in the old testament that have been simply ‘copy and pasted’ into the new. However, the early believers and writers of the gospels did see echoes of what they had witnessed with Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures. As examples, read Zecharia 9:9 and Isaiah 42:1-4. The apostle Paul had been heavily schooled in the Hebrew texts and took it upon himself in his letters to interpret them in light of the person of Christ. What remains for us in the gospels themselves, however, is mainly the claims of Jesus and the disciples regarding these connections, without being given all the details. As an example of the claim without the content, read Luke 24:44-46. Now, why do you think it was so important for the disciples to understand Jesus’ life and mission in light of the Hebrew Scriptures (Hint: Of what religious persuasion were they already?) Now a harder question: If you are not Jewish, what difference does it make to you that the story we know of Jesus from the New Testament is a fulfillment of the Old Testament scriptures that came before him, if any difference at all? To help you in this question, you might ask yourself what difference a knowledge of who your ancestors were makes in your life today, if any? Do you even care who your great grandparents were and where they came from and what they did, if you didn’t know them in person? Does it matter to you what they believed? What difference do you think a knowledge of the faith of our fathers (and mothers!) in our distant past makes for our nation’s future?
- Finally this week, read through the story from Luke 19 about Jesus entry into Jerusalem. The crowds are full of joyous celebrations, but if you read a verse or two on, you find that Jesus himself is weeping – resulting for us in a palm sunday which may bring us both joy and sadness as well. Can you separate out your emotions in response to this story, knowing what you do about the drama that is to come in the next week? Does this story make you happy? Why? Does it make you sad? Why? If you had to say, what reasons would you give a small child for feeling both ways as we read the story? About what can we genuinely be happy, and about what can we rightfully be sad?
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Luke 18:31-34; 19:28-40
A Third Time Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection
31 Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. 32For he will be handed over to the Gentiles; and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. 33After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again.’ 34But they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
28 After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” just say this: “The Lord needs it.” ’ 32So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ 34They said, ‘The Lord needs it.’ 35Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38saying,
‘Blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven!’
39Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ 40He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’
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