Journey to Jerusalem by Bishop Kurt Burnette

In the final months or weeks of his life, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. Because of his destination, a Samaritan village refused to receive him, enkindling anger in James and John, but compassion in Our Lord. As a matter of fact, the Samaritans were the step children of the chosen people, sharing the faith of Abraham, but rejected from the family by the heirs by blood. While Jesus was rejected by many of the people who should have recognized him, the Samaritans embraced him, as we read in St. John’s gospel. They too expected the Messiah. Isaiah prophesied about him, “The meek shall find fresh joy in the Lord, and poor shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.” Perhaps, the Samaritans could not bear to watch Jesus walking to Jerusalem knowing what would happen to him there. I sat in a court room once with a man who listened as his young son was sentenced to seventy-five years in prison. Though his mother spoke to him on the phone every day, she could not bear to be present. I wonder if the Samaritans felt the same way, and that is why Jesus felt compassion for them, while his disciples perceived an insult.

This final journey of Jesus to his destiny is lined with scenes of compassion. He makes his entrance the same way the chosen people entered the promised land one thousand years earlier, from the desert around the Dead Sea and through the gateway city of Jericho. Both before and after Jericho, Jesus heals blind men. One of them is named in the scriptures, Bartimaeus which means Son of Timaeus. He calls out persistently, “Son of David, have pity on me,” and “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” The blind man sees what the educated scripture scholars could not, that Jesus was the heir to the throne of David, the Messiah, the Christ. Jesus calls out to another man with a different impediment of sight, Zachaeus, who climbs a tree to overcome his shortcoming. Jesus calls out enthusiastically, “Quick! Come down from that tree! I mean to eat at your house today.”

During Lent, we follow Jesus with the crowd up the steep rocky highway from the low desert to the holy city of Jerusalem in the mountains. In our imagination, we pass by another scene of compassion, the Inn where the Good Samaritan took the man who was robbed, beaten, stripped, and left for dead by the side of the highway. By patristic tradition, Jesus is the Good Samaritan, and I am the sinner who was robbed, beaten, and left for dead by the devil and my own sins. Jesus carries me to the Inn and I hear those sweet words, “If he owes any more, I will pay it on my return.”

On Flowery Sunday, we enter into Jerusalem bearing branches from trees and singing, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosannah in the highest!” During that week we remember the greatest of the gifts the Son of God brought to us during his time here. First, the gift of his own Body and Blood for our food, the medicine of immortality. Second the gift of his own life on the Cross, where He is sacrificed for the sins of all people in all times, the true Pascal Lamb, the Lamb whose blood on the doorpost protects our house from the Angel of Death. We then remember his journey into the underworld, to give the Good News to those waiting for deliverance since Adam and Eve. Just as He delivered the chosen people from slavery in Egypt through the desert and through Jericho, He delivers the souls in the underworld to the new kingdom of eternal life.

Finally, on Pascha or Easter, we celebrate with wild abandon his resurrection from the dead, and the Good News that He has conquered sin and death for all time. The life of Jesus reminds us that our own life is a pilgrimage, a journey. We do not have a permanent home here in this life. Just as our journey to heaven began with our Baptism, Jesus began his public life with Baptism in the Jordan. We imitate his public life by learning from the scriptures, teaching the truth to the ignorant, giving hope to the discouraged, and showing compassion to those in pain. We offer our own suffering for his kingdom, as St. Paul says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church.” In our journey through this life, we thrill to the words of the prophet, “Awake! Awake! Put on your strength, O Zion, put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem!” So we look forward eagerly to the day when we join Christ at the heavenly banquet, the banquet of the Lamb.