Before transitioning to the meal, Luke, while reminding the reader of the “woes” of the eleventh chapter through the record of Jesus’ use of “hypocrites” while in the synagogue, tacks on that which effectively closed out the woe pronouncements in Matthew, when he presents us with an encounter between Jesus and some Pharisees in which Jesus is told “Get away from here, because Herod wants to kill you” (13:31b). Jesus responds with a reference to His coming passion, unconcerned with the looming specter of death, saying “Look, I am casting out demons and performing healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will complete My work. Nevertheless I must go on My way today and tomorrow and the next day, because it is impossible that a prophet should be killed outside Jerusalem” (13:32b-33). He then adds the a crucial statement of “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would have none of it! Look, your house is forsaken!” (13:34-35a)
By providing us with this record in correlation with Jesus’ reference to the completion of His work on the third day, along with making mention of His coming death as that of a prophet, Luke brings us up to the beginning of the end for Jesus’ old-age ministry. Also, we now find that we are nearly (but not precisely) matched up with the time and place in which Matthew presents Jesus as uttering these words. Matthew places them after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, whereas Luke makes record of Jesus speaking in this way before the time of His entry.
We’ll remember that Matthew had the words spoken against Jerusalem explicitly connected with Jesus’ more detailed and extended messages of woe (also pronounced in Jerusalem). Luke, on the other hand, as we also remember that it is likely that Jesus spoke His woe-words on more than one occasion (as well as, obviously, these words about Jesusalem), has this message about Jerusalem only implicitly linked with the messages of woe, with this implicit link provided by His use of “hypocrites” that we see repeatedly used in Luke’s well-structured and inter-textually reliant narrative. While it would first appear that Luke omits what follows in Matthew, which is Jesus speaking specifically of the destruction of the Temple and of the end of the age, which follows His saying of Jerusalem that “your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew) or “your house is forsaken” (Luke), we bear in mind that Luke’s record has Jesus saying these things before His Jerusalem parousia.
Though Luke will provide a record of Jesus’ declaration of the Temple’s coming destruction and the end of the age following His entry into Jerusalem (in the twenty-first chapter) , the words about the city that would be on Jesus’ lips at that point are quite a bit more direct, as Jesus will say “If you had only known on this day, even you, the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and surround you and close in on you from every side. They will demolish you---you and your children within your walls---they will not leave within you one stone on top of another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God” (19:42b-44). For some reason, Matthew fails to provide this portion of Jesus’ speech in his report. Truly though, this speaks of being forsaken and of great desolation, and the reasons for it taking place cannot be disconnected from that which Luke shows Jesus communicating throughout his narrative, with His prominent table fellowship and practices of inclusion, as seen in both His parables and His actions. With the prominence of this part of Jesus’ life throughout all of the Gospel, it should not be difficult for us to realize that living out Jesus’ notions of inclusiveness is incredibly crucial in the life of a church. However, this is as difficult now as it was in the years following Jesus’ very presence and personal example.
Obviously, the issue of the Jerusalem and the Temple was of great concern for Jesus, so it is of even greater interest that, rather than having Jesus move from the coming desolate forsakenness of Jerusalem (and its Temple), Luke moves immediately to the scene of Jesus dining at the house of one said to be a leader of the Pharisees (14:1). Another thing to keep in mind, as we continue to confer rightful importance to Jesus’ presence, teaching, and behavior at meals, especially as it relates to the activities and concerns of the early church as they sought to live out Jesus’ well-presented principles as so as to make manifest the kingdom of heaven (which has a great deal of bearing on what must be understood in the letter to the church at Laodicea), is that Luke keeps Jesus at this meal from the beginning of the fourteenth chapter until the eleventh verse of chapter seventeen, before putting Him back on the road to Jerusalem.
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