Letter To Laodicea (part 44)

Luke, writing from the advantage of hindsight following the crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the ascension that brought about the inauguration of God’s kingdom on earth with Jesus as its Lord, has Jesus speaking of taking the lowest place, being moved to a place of honor by the host, and honored in the presence of all shortly after He has spoken of going to Jerusalem to be killed.  What must be placed alongside this then, it the fact that the lowest of all places in which or on which one could find himself in that day was a Roman cross.  The summum supplicium (the ultimate punishment)---it was the eschaton of all eschatons.  This lowest place would not be willingly gone to by anyone. 

Luke understands and desires to communicate that Jesus is pre-figuring the place to which He knows He is headed.  Jesus speaks of His coming embodiment of that which would become a very early Christian hymn, in that He “did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature.  He humbled Himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death---even death on a cross!  As a result God exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow” (Philippians 2:6b-10a).  Indeed, Jesus knew that He would be taking the lowest place---the cross, trusted that He would be moved to a place of honor---the Resurrection, and believed that He would ultimately be honored by all.  The structure of Luke’s narrative about the life of Jesus has Him constantly moving towards the cross, while at the same time and within that process, He shows and tells the way in which He expected His people to live out and embody the kingdom.  Taking the lowest place---bearing the cross, so to suffer on behalf of another---is one of those ways.         

Getting back to an earlier statement, how can all of these words be interpreted as jabs at the Pharisees?  On the surface, though when viewed rightly it is a penetrating and powerful presentation, this seems rather innocuous in that regard, and not necessarily directed at anybody in particular.  We do not see any mention of the Pharisees in this portion of Jesus’ multi-layered discourse, yet we can be sure that Jesus is making reference to them.  How so?  Due to the genius of Luke’s narrative, we are again reminded of the words of “woe” that Jesus spoke against the Pharisees.  Returning again to the eleventh chapter, of which we are reminded when by the implied condemnation for hypocrisy of the opening section of the fourteenth chapter, we hear Jesus saying “Woe to you Pharisees!  You love the best seats in the synagogues and elaborate greetings in the marketplaces!” (11:43)  Of course, having read that again, we also notice that no mention is made of seating.  In order to round out our understanding therefore, we look to Matthew. 

There, in the twenty-third chapter, we find the elaboration we seek, as Jesus, speaking of the Pharisees and experts in the law (though in a different setting---we remember that we cannot think of Jesus as having said what He said on only one occasion, but that there were regular features of His teaching that were offered multiple times), says “They love the place of honor at banquets” (23:6a).  This went along with their desire to have the best seats in the synagogue and elaborate greetings in the marketplaces while being referred to with honorific titles.  Jesus makes the point that the Pharisees were always seeking out the protoklisian. 

It would never cross their minds to willingly place themselves in the eschaton.  Why take shame upon oneself?  Because the places of honor were what they were seeking, as they went about pursuing their methods that they believed would finally move God to bring in His vindicating kingdom, it would be quite natural on their part to expect this of the messiah as well.  Why would this man who was living and working as if He was the messiah, encourage the taking of the low place?  Is that not where Israel had been for so many years, suffering oppression under the boot of one empire after another?  The messiah, when he came, would sit at the chiefest of seats, executing justice on behalf of Israel and placing all other peoples at the eschaton, or so it was thought.  Though this seating at the chiefest of all seats would of course ultimately come about, it certainly would make no sense whatsoever, in the estimation of the Pharisees at that moment, for the messiah to go to the lowest place of all in order to accomplish His work and bring a full inauguration of God’s kingdom.