Mosaic Teaching 145 - Luke 19:12-27

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Going everyone. Bogotov. Welcome to the Mosaic Teaching Service. This is teaching number one hundred and forty-five in our series, going through the four gospels of Jesus of Nazareth. We're going to be locating ourselves this morning in Luke chapter 19 and still finding ourselves in the town of Jericho, finishing up our time with Jesus and Zacchaeus. But let's get started first with prayer. So let's bow our heads for prayer. Blessed Lord, who has caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we would so hear them. Read, Mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, so that by patience and comfort of your holy word we would embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given to us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. In Mosaic, we value our Bibles, love our Bibles. Always encourage you to bring your Bible with you to the Mosaic Teaching Service. But if you need one today, that is not a problem or an issue. Just grab one in the pew or the chair around you. And if you need to make that your Bible, please accept that as a gift from us to you. But if you will, please take a Bible, hold it up, and repeat after me. This is my Bible. Jesus is who it says He is. I am what it says I am. I can do what it says I can do. Today I will be taught the Word of God. My mind is alert. By God's grace, my heart is receptive. The Bible is the incorruptible, indestructible, ever-living word of God. My encounter with the Bible today will transform and grow my faith. And we say together, in Jesus' name. Amen. So let's open up our Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, the third gospel there, Matthew, Mark, Luke, chapter 19. And we're going to be looking at verse 12. Yeah, we'll be picking up in verse 12, in the midst of where we have been. And again, we're coming to this point where in the story, the narrative, the flow of the gospels, Jesus is in his entourage, his pilgrimage entourage, making his way to Jerusalem for the festival known as Passover. This will be the final festival that Jesus will celebrate in his earthly ministry, in his earthly life. And so we are getting ourselves ready in Mosaic to enter into the study of his passion. And so one of the final kind of stops along the road that we are given inside information into is on that route. He makes this stop into Jericho. And he's had these conversations leading up to it, and some of that's formed some of the background for his interaction with Zacchaeus, especially the idea, remember, about the first being last and the last being first, and what it's like to be the economy of Jesus' kingdom versus the economy, if you will, of the kingdoms of the world, and what's powerful there is things are kind of introverted, uh turned inside out, upside down in Jesus' kingdom. You had James and John's mother, you know, wanting uh the her sons to have this position of power, and so Jesus has taken opportunity to speak and into that and what that's about in his kingdom. But also, and we're gonna come back to that again, um, time and time again, it's very important when you're reading your gospels and really reading anywhere in the Bible, Old Testament or New Testament, to always pay attention to the geography, not just literally so that you know where it's happening on a map, not that that's not important or not that that can't be insightful, but because the biblical culture is um it's it's it's very concrete, and so it makes use of that in its literature and its speakers like Jesus and so forth, make use of what's around him. And so Jesus is very much interacting with the opulence of Jericho and the opulence of Herod and Herod's palace there, and uh that kind of impression when Jesus is teaching, he's very conscious of what's around him in a very literal sense, uh, so that that's kind of the very intentional backdrop, if you will, to what he has to say. And so, as Jesus uh has been at Zacchaeus' house, he's had this encounter with Zacchaeus that's caused Zacchaeus to have this change of heart. And it's not that we were given total insight into what exactly uh happened that caused that, but we are given some of that. And that's what we're gonna look at today through a parable, really kind of a parable embedded in a parable. So uh so that's where we're picking it up in the midst of the context. Well, this is the parable of the ten minnahs. Uh, this is in Luke chapter 19 and verses 12 and 13. Uh let's read these verses together. Jesus said, A certain man of nobility went to a distant land to take a kingdom for himself and then return. He called to ten of his servants and gave them ten menas. He said to them, Engage in commerce with them until I come. All right, so last teaching, teaching 144, we kind of uh ended by getting ourselves ready to enter into this parable, and that is we kind of briefed ourselves on the journey parable. These are parables that Jesus taught about uh usually uh a nobleman, sometimes a king, a person of means, a person of power, whatever it may be, goes on a long journey, leaves people in charge or leaves people behind with responsibilities and so forth. And no one knows when that person of power, that king, that noble person, uh, when they're going to return. But nonetheless, eventually the person does return, and there's either reward or judgment coming with that. Uh, and so that parable uh has kind of two levels for the hearers for Jesus at this time. Remember, Jesus is getting them ready for his soon-to-be passion, where he will be gone from them for kind of a short period of time, right? He's going to die and he's going to be out of their presence for a short period of time, and they're going to be and have been entrusted with his teachings. They're going to have been entrusted with uh certain things. How will they manage until his resurrection? But then on a bigger scale, uh, 40 days later, he's going to ascend and he's going to be gone for obviously a much longer period of time where not only them, but you and I, as his disciples, have been entrusted. We have been become stewards of the kingdom. Uh, what will we do with what we have been entrusted in? How will we be found when the master returns, right? And so they have these parables have uh immediate application for these apostles and these disciples then and there on kind of two levels, but also application for you and I. As our master, our man of certain nobility, is still away. What are we doing with what he has entrusted us? These so those are the kind of questions we could still be asking ourselves. So that's the journey parables, and Jesus has given several of them, gives several of them. But here in the parable of the ten minas, we have a king or a nobleman who sets out on a journey, and before he leaves, he summons ten of his servants, and he entrusts each one essentially with a single menna. He does this to test them and to instruct them to invest the money uh during his absence. Now, the minna was a Greek coin. It was worth about 100 drachma. And you're like, well, thanks. That helped me a lot. Thanks for clarifying that. Oh, no problem. I'll help you even more. That's about 200 denarii. Oh, yeah. Now, now you're totally set, right? Uh well, a drachma equal to daily wage of a common laborer. A mina was approximately equivalent to three months' wages, uh, the exchange weight. It's hard to translate into modern era standard of living. But in our terms, here's what you might want to know. Essentially, we might say that he gave each one of his servants about $10,000 to invest. That's roughly, you know, if you wanted to like take me offline and debate and argue, you could. And yes, you probably could convince me something a little more or a little less. But in the ballpark, he gave them about $10,000 to invest, all right? So not an amount, immense fortune, but also not chump change either. If someone gave me $10,000, I would be quite excited, to be honest with you, right? Um, so in your head, think this they got about $10,000. So when the king returned, he calls his servants to him to see how they've done. Uh he gives them $10,000 and he basically says, Engage in commerce, invest, do something with it. I'm giving you a gift, all right? Become a steward of it. All right, while I'm gone, show me what you got. Okay. Comes back and he wants to see how they've done. The first servant had made a 1,000% profit. He returned ten minas. And the man says, you know, verse 17, Well done, good and faithful servant, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, you are to be in authority over ten cities. Likewise the second servant returned five minas and received authority over five cities. Right? So again, the person of importance comes back, there's reward or punishment, right? But there's something involved with it. A third servant, however, returns only one minna, basically what he was entrusted. And he explains in verse 20, Master, here's your minna, right? Here's what you gave me. I didn't lose anything, I didn't really gain anything, I didn't do anything with it, but I didn't lose anything. Um I kept, I kept it put away in a handkerchief. Uh at first that may sound odd. We're gonna unpack the cultural background of that. That's actually something very technical that he did by putting it in a handkerchief. But he puts it in a handkerchief and he basically just stores it away in a no-interest account, right? And, you know, just is able to say, here you go. I didn't mess anything up. I kept the status quo, right? You know, you left me in charge as pastor of a church of a hundred people, you came back 10 years later, we got the same hundred people doing the exact same thing. Nothing at all has changed in uh yeah, we didn't reach one single soul, right? But we still got the same 100 people, right? Right? So, you know, now wrapping the money in a handkerchief, it was like leaving it in a safety deposit box. And the Greek word here is sudarion. It's actually just a loan word from Latin, uh, which is sudarium. A sudarium was a scarf or a neck cloth usually used to protect uh the back of the head from the sun, similar to uh kafia uh in the Arab world today. And according to the Mishnah, a source of Jewish law, a sum of money wrapped up in a cloth, wrapped up in a sudarium, and deposited with a money changer, it can't be invested, uh, nor uh is the Bailey responsible for the accounting. And so you have this written in Jewish law uh of the period. He who deposits coins with a money changer, if they are wrapped up, um, the money changer, so put it in a handkerchief, the money charger should not make use of the sum. Therefore, if they got lost, he's not liable to make them up. But if they were loose, he may make use of them, and if they get lost, he is liable for repaying them. So when he says, I put it away in a handkerchief, he literally is saying, I put it with a banker, but in a way that the banker could not touch it, could not invest it, couldn't make anything off of it. Nothing could be done with it. So it's basically like you're what you would do with maybe your high school student when they get their first paycheck and it's $75, right? They're not gonna be able to open up a money market account with that that draws interest, right? You're gonna try to find a checking account that doesn't charge them any fees, but also it's not gonna pay them any rewards. That's what this guy did. And so the servant then defends his action. He says in verse 21, I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man, and you take up what you did not lay down, and you reap what you did not sow. The servant did not imagine that anything he could possibly accomplish would be adequate enough to please his master, so he didn't even try. And instead of making an attempt, he opted to do nothing instead. The negligent servant's attitude here can reflect one's attitude toward God and towards God's word and toward the kingdom. It can be seen in the thought theology which dismisses the obligations of obedience and the possibility of merit on the basis that all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. The servant believed that the king would not reward his success, but would penalize his failure. And this is some false theology that exists, believe it or not, in the Lutheran church. That God is this punisher, he'll certainly punish you for doing wrong things, but don't ever think he'll ever reward you for doing something good. God rewards nothing because everything you do is just a dirty, filthy, nasty rag. So don't ever try to do anything good because you can never please God. I bet you've never heard that before, right? Yeah, you've heard that before, right? That's false. And this is attacking that theology. You can do things that please God. Hear that and hear that well. You can do things that please God, you can obey God. It is very possible to obey God, and it is very possible to do things that God very much is happy that you did. And believe it or not, God does reward those things. Yes. Yes, he does. Now, I'm not saying with salvation, I'm not saying that you earn heaven with that, I'm not saying you earn the forgiveness of your sins with that, right? You don't have to go to that extreme, but I am saying not everything you do is horrible and a piece of filthy rag, right? That's what's being attacked, or that's what this guy had, this kind of theology. God only punishes the bad things I do, and he never rewards the good things I do, because after all, can I really do anything any good? So I might as well just kind of just stay put and be stagnant. And how often does that describe, unfortunately, not only many Christians, but many churches? Let's just kind of stay stagnant, right? Let's just kind of stay put and do the status quo. And that's not what Jesus' kingdom is about. This can be compared again to the theology which says that God punishes our sin but does not reward any good thing we can do. You can do good things, you can obey God. The king accepts his servant's analysis, though, which by the way, that's an important thing you need to take note of also. The king says, Well, if that's the relationship you want to have with me, if that's how you want to interact with me, if that's the covenant you want, then so be it. Then so be it. And so in Luke 19, verse 23, then why did you not put my money in the bank? And having come, I could have at least collected it with interest. Like again, $10,000, you could have at least done something minimal with it, where you know, you could have got like 1% interest or something. I could have at least gotten that. And the king told his servants to take the minna away from him and give it to the servant with the ten minna's, the one who did the most. So take that away and give it to the one with the most. And the other servants objected, but Master, he already has a ten. All right. So again, Jesus is teaching us something about his kingdom and giving us something to think about. Let's keep reading in the text here. Let's read Aluke 19, verses 26 and 27 together, these words of Jesus. See, I say to you, that everyone who has, it will be given to him, and whoever does not have, even what he has, will be taken from him. But bring here those enemies of mine who rejected me from ruling over them, and slay them in front of me. Each of the servants again received the same allotment. But they used their allotments differently. And Jesus explained, I tell you, that every one who has more shall be given, but the one who does not have, even what he does have, shall be taken away. This rather obscure warning can be understood in light of the parable of the talents, where in Matthew 25 of verse 21, the master says to his faithful servants, You were faithful with a few things, and so I will put you in charge of many things. In other words, if I can trust you with a little, I can trust you with a lot. And if I can't trust you with just a little, why when the world would I ever trust you with a lot? And so the one who has is the one who has been faithful with the few things, and so he will be given more. The one who has nothing is the servant who was not faithful with the few things, and even those things that he has will be taken away. This is actually very similar to a very popular midrash that would have been known in Jesus' day about Moses and David. The midrash, the folk tale in the Jewish uh uh legends of the time, talk about how God tested the character of both Moses and David by making them shepherds over flocks of sheep. And when they demonstrated their worthiness in the small matter of shepherding sheep, God rewarded them by placing them over his flock, the people of Israel. And so this is in Shemot Rabbah, uh, section two, verse two. It says, He who knows how to keep sheep, giving each one the care it deserves, shall come and tend my people, because you have mercy in leading the flock of a mortal, you will certainly are surely tend my flock, Israel. And even in the midrash, you know, many of us may be familiar artistically with the image of from the gospels, the image of Jesus. Having the one sheep around his neck, you know, 99 stay, the one strays off, and Jesus pursues the one, brings them back. You have that kind of image of Jesus carrying the one sheep. But the reality is, is that actually is a retelling, a recasting of a story of Moses, where Moses went off to find the one lost sheep. And so what the gospels are re-echoing is Jesus is the greater Moses, and the one like Moses, the final Redeemer will be like the first Redeemer, and so forth. But also this idea, Moses was entrusted first. God tested to see if how would Moses do with just some sheep? And Moses proved to be a great shepherd and cared a whole bunch for his sheep, including putting his own life on the line for just one single sheep. And so God says, well, if he's going to do that, then I know I can certainly trust him with my people, with my flock. That's what's being expressed here. The parable might be interpreted in a variety of ways, but the simplest meaning reminds us that God tests his servants in small matters. And, you know, that gives us some things to think about in our own daily life, in our practical living. How many times do we have those opportunities where it's a small thing, right? No one will know, no one will notice. Or what is it? How will they know? They will never know. How will they know, right? How will they ever know, right? Well, maybe that's the whole point of it all. Maybe no one will know except one. And maybe that's all designed to see how you're gonna do, right? We're tested in these ways, and even the blessings he bestows, that's part of the process. How we will invest what we have received, especially the revelations and the gifts from God that we have received. How will we invest that? How will we invest what we've learned from God? Like whether that's just insights into scripture, blessings we've received, um, understandings we've received, uh, you know what are we going to do with that? How are we going to invest that back? Uh Luke 12, verse 48. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required. And to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more. If we have proven unfaithful in small matters, how much more unfaithful will we be in great matters? This also relates to this particular parable. It not only has kind of a parallel in Matthew, but it appears uh in a version in what's known as the Gospel of the Nazareneans. The Gospel of the Nazareans is essentially a now lost gospel of the um, if you will. Uh we only have it in kind of it being quoted. So there is a church historian known as Eusebius. Eusebius is a very important historian, one of the earliest uh people to kind of write down the history of the early church. It's uh proven itself over time to be tested and to be accurate. It gives us a lot of details into not only the who's who, but the practices of the early church, what their liturgies were like, how they were structured, uh, uh what kind of things they argued about. I mean, it's just a it's a very important thing. Uh it's called ecclesiastical history, our church history. It's by Eusebius. But one of the things he does is he often will quote what for him were books that he had, that we no longer have, uh, which means the only access we have to those books are now his quotations of those books. And one of the books he likes to quote is a Hebrew gospel, that is a gospel of Jesus written in the Hebrew language. He calls it the gospel of the Nazareneans. Uh, and he says he calls it the gospel that's come to us in the Hebrew letters. And in that gospel, Eusebius tells us that it has the parable, very similar to the one here in Luke 19, about a man going away on a journey who entrusted three servants with a talent of silver each, uh, and he left them to invest the talent during his absence. The first servant went and traded with the money and multiplied it, the second servant buried it in the ground, and the third servant lived in extravagance, eating and drinking with those who were drunken, and spent the fortune of his master with harlots and flute girls. So it's a little bit different parable, but similar. And after a long time the master finally returns, and of course he asks the servants to come and to display what they did with it, and it's kind of similar things to think about. One took them seriously, did something with it. One was kind of not sure, but took them seriously enough where he at least he didn't waste it, and the other was like, he ain't ever coming back, so I'm living it up, right? Which is kind of like the the three attitudes you can have about our disposition. And well, Jesus said he's coming back soon, and he said that 2,000 years ago. Is he coming back? So you have those who still take that very seriously, who are still invested in that, who are still producing for that. Others who are like, well, I'm not stupid enough where I'm gonna completely dismiss that, but I'm not really gonna put all my chips in it either. I'm just gonna kind of be right in the middle of the road on that. And then you got the others that are like, pfft, eh, it must mean something else, and so he ain't ever coming back, right? Um, and so that kind of version of the parable exists in what's known as the Gospel of the Nazareneans. Now, embedded within this parable in Luke 19 is kind of a sub-parable, a mini-parable, uh, that I call the parable of the king's return. Luke 19, verse 27. Let's read this together. But bring here those enemies of mine who rejected me from ruling over them and slay them in front of me. Right? So, as I said, these journey parables have, when the person of importance comes back, comes back with great reward and joy and celebration and awesomeness, but there's also an element of judgment with it. Uh, and we talked about that in teaching 144. Luke's narrative intertwines the parable of the ten menas with this second parable, the parable of the king's return. Jesus may have originally told two parables together as one, or they may have become entangled as a subsequent stage of transmission. But disentangled from the parable of the ten menas, here the king's return reads as follows A nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself and then return. But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, We do not want this man to reign over us. When he returned, after receiving the kingdom, he said, These enemies of mine who do not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence. That's Luke 19, verses 12, 14, 15, and 27. So you kind of have two parables that kind of got twisted together. I've pulled them out, ten menas and the king's return. Jesus here based the parable of the King's Return on the historical memories of the Herodian power struggles. This is very important for you to realize for the historical context of what's being told here in Luke 19. This would have been the memory, the historical memory in the ears of the original people hearing this parable. They're in Jericho, they're seeing Herod's opulent palace, they're seeing all about, remember, when Herod became king over Judea, how did that happen? He left and went to Rome, so he left for a while, got the title, and he came back. And guess what? The people didn't want him to rule over them. Right? Jesus is describing to Ati the Herodian experience. It's very important you understand that and hear that so that we get the full impact and interpretation of the parable. Herod the Great was not yet king when Antigonus, the last king of the Hasmonean dynasty, hired the Parthinian army to dislodge Herod. So Herod fled to the distant country of Rome, where the synod granted him the title to be king over Judea. He then returns to Judea with a mercenary army to avenge himself against the enemy, to slay all of those who didn't want him ruling over them. And that included Antigonus, the last Hasmonean king. In a similar manner, when Herod died, he left Judea to his son Archelaus, who then left for a while, the person of importance, who left for a while, set sail for Rome so that he could receive appointment as king from the emperor. A delegation of Judeans followed him to Rome to protest his savagery. We do not want this man to reign over us, they told the emperor. Caesar Augustus decided to give Archelaus the title of Tetrarch over Judea instead of king. On returning to Judea, Archelaus took possession of his government and barbarously abused not only the Jews, but also the Samaritans and anyone who had spoken out against him ruling over them. He did this because they resented him and because of their old quarrels. So again, this is exactly what Jesus is describing. When word of his retributions reached Rome, Caesar banished him to Vienna. And so these stories of Herodian claims to the throne, they underlie the parable of the king's return. So why did Jesus compare himself to the wicked Herodian kings? Luke explains that Jesus told this parable because he was near Jerusalem, and the people thought that the kingdom was going to appear at once. Remember, we've seen that. They're on their way to Jerusalem. The people know something big is going to happen. They are anticipating something massive is going to happen. And contrary to popular expectation, though, the king had come to bring judgment. It was the same message which Jesus continually warned his disciples. Do not think I've come to bring peace. I've not come to bring peace, but a sword. The generation's rejection of Messiah King invited certain disaster, and Jesus has the fall of Jerusalem in view. So here you're beginning to see the first predictions from Jesus of Jerusalem's destruction. They'll become more and more clear as they enter into Jerusalem. For us who stand on the other side of that day of judgment and await Messiah's return, the parable has a second meaning for you and I. We see the nobleman's journey as Jesus' long absence, his continued absence. And we interpret the nobleman's return as Jesus' second coming. He will return as king, ready to reign on David's throne, and on that day he will bring with him, yes, joy and reward and great things that are awesome, but he will also bring with him judgment and recompense for those who rejected his rule. Rabbi Lichtenstein wrote a quite lengthy commentary on this parable, and I think it's worthy to read all of it. And so I'll read that to you now. This is from Rabbi Lichtenstein. To receive a kingdom, that is kingship of Israel. And this parable is taken from the practice then under the Romans by which the kings would travel to the city of Rome, right? A person of importance would leave, go get their position of authority, and come back to reign. There the Romans crowned them as kings, and they received the authority of kingship. And here he made a parable about himself, in spite of the fact that people imagined and reasoned that the kingdom of God was about to be revealed and seen in the Messiah. And he notifies them by this parable that he's compelled to first travel to a distant land to receive kingship over Israel, and afterwards he will return and will reign over them. And his attention in this is that although the kingdom of God and the Messiah has already come and is in their midst, Luke 17, verse 21, and therefore the disciples cried, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, and the Messiah replied to the protestation of the Pharisees, If these keep silent, the very rocks will cry out. In spite of all this, the kingdom is not obvious to the eyes, as he has said in Luke thirteen, for it is still a great secret. Only when he comes the second time will his kingdom over us be revealed and seen fully, as in heaven, so on earth. First he must die, and on behalf of the sin of the world, and therefore travel to a distant land, that is, to heaven above, and there he will receive the kingly authority. As it says in the conclusion of Matthew, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And likewise in Daniel 7, Behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like the Son of Man, and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom. Jesus has gone away on this long journey to receive his authority, to receive his crown, so that he will then return to reign. Now Jesus told the parable of the Ten Menas, the parable of the king's return. While he is sitting at the table of Zacchaeus the tax collector, as the chief tax collector over Jericho, Zacchaeus certainly knew the Herodian history very well. He would have been tracking with all of this. Zacchaeus and his colleagues remembered Herod the Great, and they probably were originally appointed to their posts in the days of either Herod the Great or Archelaus his son. Zacchaeus and his friends were Jews who remained loyal to the Herodian dynasty even when his citizens hated him. That loyalty had earned Zacchaeus his high posting. The king put Zacchaeus in charge of taxing the city of Jericho and the trade that flowed through it, and similarly to how the king in the parable of the Menas gave his faithful servants authority over the cities. So do you see how, on one hand, Zacchaeus would have been tracking with this? The Herodian twist to the parables brought the message home to Zacchaeus and his household. Loyalty to the Herodians is what once secured Zacchaeus and his friends reward and success. They were once the loyal servants of Herod, or the Herod household, who went away and came back and found him being loyal, and they were rewarded for that. The parables, though, reverse the character values. The parable made the Messiah into the king, who would be the one to reward his friends and punish his enemies. The tax collectors and the Herodians around Zacchaeus' table could immediately understand the implications. They would now be the ones on the outside of that. They were now on the opposite side of the fence. And they were the ones who had hated the king and opposed his appointment over them. The loyalties to Herod and Rome that once profited them would now mean their doom if they did not repent. The only course of action was to do exactly what Zacchaeus did. Zacchaeus repented, and he placed all of his resources and allegiances at the disposal of the one true king who would return, and that is the Messiah. And so now you can see what convicted Zacchaeus. It was a parable that really hit home because it was hitting home at the Herodian background that he benefited from. And Jesus took that and flipped it and flipped the values of it. And Zacchaeus understood that. And he does it. And he does so through repentance and through his actions. Leaving Jericho. Now we're gonna flip over to the second gospel Mark chapter 10. Mark chapter 10, verse 46. Let's read this verse together. And as they went out from Jericho, he, his disciples, and a large crowd of people. So that night Jesus and his disciples lodged in the home of Zacchaeus. Early the next morning they set out again, and as they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. Matthew 20, verse 29 has the same description. The crowd included Jesus, no doubt his family from Nazareth, the families of the disciples, as well as many other Galileans, again making this pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover. Because remember, Jesus, time and time again, when things had gotten sticky, Jesus had said, My time has not yet come, my time has not yet come, my time has not yet come. Well, that phrase, my time, right, Hebrew Moed, meant my the the appointed time, the festival, right? This is the appointed time, this Passover. The disciples are even picking up on that. They haven't figured out all the implications of it, but they know this is it. And so they're now leaving Jericho and they're headed to Jerusalem. The humble rabbi from Nazareth walked near the head of the procession. And this is the image we need to have, especially from what was just discussed in the parable, walking ahead of the procession like a king with his royal retinue. With an early start and a determined hike, Jesus' pilgrimage caravan could expect to reach the vicinity of Jerusalem by nightfall. Ahead of them lay about 17 miles of road, ascending into the chalky, dry wilderness of the Judean hills. The road followed a deep canyon known today as the Wadi Kilt. It's what it looks like today. That is the infamous Jericho Road. And yes, that is the same Jericho Road Jesus took. It doesn't change much through the ages. It's not probably not the road you imagined, right? It's not much wider than a person's body, you can see, right? It's walking through there. And you can kind of see if you fall off that road, you could be left for dead, right? It's um you run off the curve of that road, it's a long way down. Okay. That's that's the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. From west to east, draining the northern part of the Judean wilderness. The depth of the canyon makes it impassable. Travelers must move alongside rather than across it. The road ran parallel with the canyon near the rim above. Again, the Bible calls the road from Jericho to Jerusalem the ascent of the red places. Male Adumim, likely due to the red stone color that appears in the rock formations along the way. Jesus had walked the same road many times before. This is, you know, where he's encountered people before, we've heard. Only a few months earlier. He had made the same ascent to reach Bethany when Lazarus had died. And at this time of year, the travelers could anticipate converging with other pilgrim caravans on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. But here I want you to imagine this is just a typical day, you know, taking a picture of a few tour groups there. Want you to imagine quite literally between 50,000 to 100,000 people hiking that road. Be a little different story, right? But that's that's where Jesus is, where we're at in the in the gospel narrative. And so next week when we pick it up, there's gonna be an interesting man they're gonna find on the side of that road. And they're gonna have an encounter with Jesus. That'll be where we pick it up next week.