26 th June: 6 th Sunday after Pentecost

Jesus “set his face to Jerusalem” and the narrative of Luke’s gospel shifted. The ministry in Galilee had reached its conclusion; now Jesus began his inexorable march to Jerusalem. In the verses appointed for this Sunday (Luke 9:51–62) movement and resolve are legible on the surface. But just below this are allusions to prior prophets and their ministries. Jesus “set his face to Jerusalem” to demonstrate resolute, unwavering determination to be sure, but in so doing he also continued a performance inaugurated in the ministries of prophets before him.

It is tempting to divide Luke 9:51–62 into two sections. Under such a division the first section consists of a single verse—the first one—in which the face of Jesus acquires its steely, Jerusalem-oriented cast. Setting the first verse aside in this way allows the remaining verses to function as serialized teaching on discipleship. When divided this way, the first verse provides for the instruction on discipleship a bit of context and narrative momentum. Discipleship is a manner of life lived on the way: a mobility marked by rejection and transience but also flinty resolve.

But Luke meant to signal more about Jesus than his resolve in the phrase “set his face” and it is worth lingering on this first verse a bit longer. Though this phrase or some variation of it appears in several books of the Old Testament, it is Ezekiel’s usage that Luke had in mind here. Like Luke’s Jesus, the prophet Ezekiel is frequently given the Son of Man appellation. With similar frequency the word of the lord directs Ezekiel to “set [his] face” toward the people or city against which he is prophesying. So when it is narrated that Jesus “set his face” toward Jerusalem Luke is doing more than signaling a shift in the story or remarking on the character of the story’s protagonist. Luke is directing his hearers see and hear in Jesus an echo of the prophet Ezekiel.

More than this, the allusion seems to be to a specific speech delivered by Ezekiel (21:2–3):

Mortal, set your face towards Jerusalem and preach against the sanctuaries; prophesy against the land of Israel and say to the land of Israel, Thus says the Lord: I am coming against you, and will draw my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from you both righteous and wicked…

It is a prophesy of withering judgment and cataclysm—the sort that many contemporary hearers will not want to attribute to Jesus. And yet there it is, resounding in the background of a pivotal moment in the gospel. At the same time there is pathos in this speech from Ezekiel. After announcing the judgment coming to Jerusalem, the prophet is instructed to “moan with breaking heart and bitter grief” (Ezekiel 21:6). The prophet Ezekiel approached the city of Jerusalem—set his face—with a word of judgment and a heart of sorrow.

Jesus went to Jerusalem as prophet and judge. And it is from Jerusalem “that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.” The judgment of Jesus is not, as Rowan Williams has articulated in his book Resurrection, “an activity in which Jesus engages.” Rather, Williams goes on to say, the judgment that Jesus brought to Jerusalem and to every concrete, human situation is “an event in which his ‘word’, his image, his history, ‘acts’ in the world to convict and transform.” ¹ Jerusalem was the zero point for this transformation. Its judgment is the substance of the allusion embedded in Luke 9:51. Its destruction is gravely and elaborately foretold in the prelude to the Passover events that lead to the crucifixion (Luke 21:1–36). And its role as the epicenter of the redemption wrought in the death and resurrection of Jesus is the pivot at which the gospel of Luke becomes the Acts of the Apostles (Luke 24:47).

Jerusalem lends to Luke’s gospel an historical specificity that braids the city to all other cities and human habitations. Where is Jerusalem? Here. What city’s guilt presses it to the brink of destruction? This one and every city where this gospel is read and invisible victims are made visible again in the light of the Word. Jesus “set his face to Jerusalem.” And Jesus sets his face to this and every city. He approaches the city as a prophet bearing the fiery word of God in his carriage, prepared to incinerate the injustice and degradation that grease the wheels of everyday life. He approaches the city as a prophet with a breaking heart and bitter grief.

The words of Ezekiel’s prophecy lend complexity to the picture of Jesus setting his face to Jerusalem. Jesus began the journey to Jerusalem with an outward countenance marked by unwavering resolve and a heart breaking with grief. The narrative shift announced in the setting of Jesus’ face toward Jerusalem resounded in the prophetic register. Words spoken in the key of judgment will be transposed into the key of mercy. The sword brandished in the prophet’s speech will be returned to its sheath. Violence will be absorbed and not returned.

The itinerary from this point of the gospel until its climax in the crucifixion and resurrection in Jerusalem is both long and harrowing. Today’s gospel invites hearers to follow, to make their own way to their own Jerusalem. At the outskirts of such a city Jesus hung on a cross and spoke forgiveness: a gesture of mercy offered as the completion of the prophet’s task.

From Jerusalem a space marked by clemency and mercy rippled outward, distending to gather and redeem every human situation.