The Face Set Toward Jerusalem
The King of Kings
Mark 10:32-34
32 And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them: and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid. 33 And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto him, 34 Saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles: 35 And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him; and the third day he shall rise again.
In the spring of 334 B.C., at the age of twenty, the young Alexander—still unadorned with the epithet 'the Great'—faced his first defining conflict: the Battle of Granicus, where he would clash with the formidable forces of Darius III, the so-called ‘King of kings.’ Would Alexander’s conquest ignite, or snuff out before it could begin. Darius’ general, Memnon of Rhodes, leading the world’s greatest army, anticipated Alexander’s first move. He was older, wiser, battle-hardened. But Alexander was impetuous, even unpredictable. Upon arrival at the battlefield, Memnon's men had marched for three months. Rather than waiting until dawn, which was the custom of war, Alexander marshaled his army by spontaneously mounting his steed and crossing the river, right into the heart of the Persian army. At the beginning of the battle, Alexander went in first, pushed straight up the middle dividing the enemy, and dealt a blow that would crack, then eventually shatter the whole Persian Empire.
Worldwide, Alexander's courage is celebrated. He did what was unthinkable to his generals and soldiers. He went straight into the heart of danger. While other men's power is forged by evasion, Alexander's was forged by confrontation.
In our text we see something similar, yet infinitely more profound. Jesus, the true King, sets His face toward Jerusalem. Mark writes (v. 32), "And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them: and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid." Why amazed? Why afraid? Jesus was going the wrong way. He was advancing toward the heart of His enemies. His steps were deliberate. The Man, on a mission. But those steps baffled His disciples.
Why would our Lord, the Messiah, go straight into enemy territory? It’s bad enough when they send envoys out to trap Him. Shouldn't He wait? Look how many followers He has gathered from these hills and suburbs. More and more followers mean more and more kingdom power! We need everyone. Then all Jerusalem will have to recognize Him!
So the disciples were "amazed," struck by His boldness, but also "afraid," knowing full well what lay in Jerusalem's direction.
Jesus "went before them," leading the way. The disciples were amazed, not by miracle, but by His direction. He wasn't walking to a king’s coronation, at least not in the way they imagined it. He was walking into the kill-zone, the slaughterhouse (Mark 15:22). And He walked not only way ahead of them, but He walked alone. Alone, like He will be on that battlefield Golgotha. Only Jesus knew the full weight of what was coming. His perfect sinless life, and sacrificial death would be the two weapon that would vanquish sin and death forever. As Romans 6:9 declares, “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.”
Once they caught up, Jesus took some time to explain to the twelve what was about to happen. Verse 33: "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles: and they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him; and the third day he shall rise again." He does not soften His words, does He. The cup He must drink is mingled full, with suffering and rejection, betrayal and death. Yet, there's no hesitation.
His words were prophetic: "the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death." But the story did not end with death. "And the third day he shall rise again" (Mark 16:6). The religious rulers didn’t know this, or else they wouldn’t have done it (1 Corinthians 2:8). The devil himself couldn’t have imagined it: that in Jesus' death, He would defeat all his present kingdoms. How could any of them know that in His resurrection, He would come forth from the grave, with the keys of sin and death in His hands, and the devil underfoot (Rev. 1:18)? Don't see in these words our Savior simply walking to Jerusalem. See how He goes. Swiftly. Ahead. Alone. Believer, He is walking toward our ground zero, the epicenter of all that ails us. There, He will battle and defeat all His and our enemies (Hebrews 2:14-15), our Goliath’s, our Memnon’s of sin, and all their mighty hosts.
At Advent, we focus on a precious, holy, helpless babe. But in that cradle lay the slayer of our enemies. His Advent doesn't mark the arrival of a child, but the arrival of a warrior “mighty in battle” (Psalm 24:8). This is no ordinary king. This is the true King of kings. Who, our text tells us, willingly marched to bring salvation to fallen hearts. He was born to fight, to die, and to rise again, conquering all fears, all our sins, and all our foes. This is the King we worship, brave, mighty in battle (Rev. 19:11-16).
You paint a graphic picture of this moment in time, with the backdrop of Alexander the Great, of when Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem in Luke 9:51. It was as if at that time He was set on a schedule to fulfill all the prophecies that were made concerning His death and resurrection to be in Jerusalem at the precise time of the Passover and the events leading up to it. He was set on a mission that would accomplish the greatest event in the universe. There was no turning back now. He must move forward without hesitation and with intensification.
He sent messengers before His face into the village of the Samaritans but they would not receive Him because His face was set to go to Jerusalem. It was also at this point that He said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God (Luke 9:61). He was One who put His hand to the plow and did not look back; not like Lot’s wife who looked back to the city of Sodom and became a pillar of salt. The footnote on the plow in verse 61 in the Recovery Version is helpful.
“To plow, one must concentrate all his attention on the line being plowed. Being distracted just a little, to say nothing of looking back, may lead the plower off the straight line. To follow the Savior, we must forget everything else and press straight ahead for the kingdom of God.”
Another outstanding footnote regarding the intensity with which the Lord moved forward to Jerusalem is seen in a cross reference to Luke 9:51 in Mark 10:1 which reads:
“The Slave-Savior ministered in His gospel service for over three years in the despised region of Galilee (see note 141, par. 2, in ch. 1), far from the holy temple and the holy city, the place where He had to die for the accomplishing of God’s eternal plan. As the Lamb of God (John 1:29), He had to be offered to God at Mount Moriah, where Abraham offered Isaac and enjoyed God’s provision of a ram as a substitute for his son (Gen. 22:2, 9-14) and where the temple was built in Jerusalem (2 Chron. 3:1). It had to be there that He would be delivered, according to the counsel determined by the Trinity of the Godhead (Acts 2:23), to the Jewish leaders (9:31; 10:33) and be rejected by them as the builders of God’s building (8:31; Acts 4:11). It had to be there that He would be crucified according to the Roman form of capital punishment (John 18:31-32 and note; 19:6, 14-15) to fulfill the type concerning the kind of death He would die (Num. 21:8-9; John 3:14). Moreover, according to Daniel’s prophecy (Dan. 9:24-26), that very year was the year that Messiah (Christ) was to be cut off (killed). Furthermore, as the Passover lamb (1 Cor. 5:7), He had to be killed in the month of the Passover (Exo. 12:1-11). Hence, He had to go to Jerusalem (v. 33; 11:1, 11, 15, 27; John 12:12) before the Passover (John 12:1; Mark 14:1) that He might die there on the day of the Passover (14:12-17; John 18:28) at the place and the time foreordained by God.”
I was very touched by Luke 9:51, as a new believer when I was spending my morning watch time reading the Gospel of Luke during a five week Summer College Training in Toronto with a campus group called The Navigators back in the late ‘70s.
At that time I was beginning to have a feeling about moving to Toronto and somehow when Jerusalem was mentioned in my reading, I had the feeling that Jerusalem was Toronto to me. So this verse was one of the outstanding verses to me in the Gospel of Luke, although the Lord used many more to eventually lead me to make the move to Toronto that summer. “Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it” (1 Thes. 5:24).
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