Luke 19:40

Verse of the Day – Luke 19:40

“Jesus answered, I tell you that if they keep quiet, the stones themselves will start shouting.” Luke 19:40 

Yesterday, in the devotion of Luke 17:18-19 I shared the ultimate result of Jesus’ coming to earth. Those things were to share the Good News with the poor. To proclaim that Captives will be released, the blind see, the oppressed set free and that the Lord’s favor was here. In this account of what happened according to Luke, the people were crying out, “God bless the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory to God!” the Pharisees get upset at this ruckus and complain to Jesus to get his followers to be quiet. Jesus, replies with the verse.

I don’t personally think the Pharisees were always being antagonistic.
I think sometimes, they legit just didn’t agree with something, or thought something was improper.
In this case, the cries of the people were literally treasonous to the Roman government.
And if Jesus was a normal person (as the Pharisee’s believed) it’s not out of line to want to avoid the attention of the Romans.

I see two ways of interpreting this verse. The first is an extremely positive one that creation testifies to the truth of Jesus. That no matter what God will accomplish his desires and use whatever means to do it – whether it be rocks or like in Number 22:21-39, a donkey.

The second, and potentially more controversial one is an admonition to Christians. Because sometimes non-Christians act more like Christ than we do, and it’s demoralizing – especially when it speaks to something that is at the core of Christianity and the devil uses this type of technique all the time. An innate desire within humans is to be loved, be accepted, and be able to live in the freedom of who we were meant to be – these desires transcend religion, race, culture, and gender. And I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen someone struggling with a sin that isn’t one of the ignored sins like lust, pornography, anger, jealousy, or some sort of over indulgence be rejected and condemned by the church instead of loved and encouraged to find their identity in Christ who alone can help them overcome their sin. Because of this they seek to be accepted and loved by others, who oftentimes encourage the individual to find their identity in their sin. See, in cases like this the stones are crying out, and the devil is using it to his advantage. The individual struggling with the sin doesn’t realize their identity, based in sin, is a shallow husk of their true identity in Christ, and because of how they were treated they aren’t going to be interested in learning more about that.

Another instance where the rocks cry out because the church won’t/isn’t stepping up in situations of charity. Consider a situation where a church may spend a few million dollars on a new building with mahogany wood trim when there’s a homeless/resource crisis going on and that money could have been used to help the poor instead. In cases like this, the church isn’t necessarily in sin, but if the church isn’t going to help the people in the community, God will raise up a secular charity to do so.

We as Christians have to stand up and take our rightful place back from the rocks. We have the resurrected Son of God living within us, able to do more than we could ever imagine and when we decide to join him in his desire to proclaim good news and freedom we get to see and be part of God’s work here on earth in ways we’d never be able to guess.

  • Christiaan

Luke 4:18-19

Verse of the Day – Luke 4:18-19

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” – Luke 4:18-19 (NLT)

Jesus was teaching in a synagogue and was handed the scroll of Isaiah where he specifically looked for this verse so he could read about himself. Here, in this moment, Jesus summed up the result of his putting on flesh and coming down to earth. He told Nicodemus in John 3:17 that his purpose was to save the world and not to condemn it, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (NIV) but here he is telling the people in Nazareth what the result would be and what that would look like.

It should be noted the word for world in the Greek is Kosmos which means the entirety of sentient life.

I love the nuance used here and revealed in the NLT vs other translations. Jesus isn’t just making an empty campaign promise, that under his rule he wants X and Y to happen. But instead a direct result of his presence here on earth will lead to captives being released, the blind seeing, and the oppressed to be set free. In the Greek the word for “captives” literally means people who have been captured in contrast to that “the oppressed” being spoke of are people who have been broken, shattered, and shivering as a result of being crushed by the cruelty of their oppressors.

God makes five promises that apply in different ways to the spiritual self and the physical self:

1st: When you’ve been reduced to a lowly state, when you’re spiritually and physically bankrupt, begging for help, God has good news for you. Jesus uses the word, Euangelizo, which to the original audience would have been associated as a message from the Ceasars letting the people know that that the Ceasar had brought peace, freedom, justice, and prosperity to his new empire. Jesus is providing hope to people who may have lost it.

2nd: Whether you’re a captive to your sin or a literal captive for whatever reason. You will be released. Jesus doesn’t state when it will happen, or that it has already happened, he promises that you will be released from it. I think this works a lot like the season aspect that I wrote about earlier.

3rd: I can’t help but be reminded of the lyrics of Amazing Grace, “I once was blind, but now I see.” when I think about spiritual blindness and of course, there’s the physical healing and restoration of sight that God is able to do and still does today!

4th: I love how Jesus is constantly reminding us that there are people under an oppression that isn’t captivity. This type of oppression is more insidious, in my opinion, because it has a pretense of freedom. Jesus is telling us however, that no matter what you go through, no matter what has been done to you, no matter what has happened to break your spirits, there is hope. This is definitely a But God situation. Jesus is here to proclaim that Jonah 2:6 is still relevant to us today, “I sank down to the very roots of the mountains. I was imprisoned in the earth, whose gates lock shut forever. But you, O LORD my God, snatched me from the jaws of death!” (NLT)

5th: is the statement that because of Jesus’s arrival here on earth, the time of the Lord’s favor is available to us. We don’t have to do anything to receive this. If you’re a Christian, Jesus has already arrived and we don’t have to or send any gifts to preachers on TV to attain the favor of the Lord. And we will probably never fully understand the many ways in which this favor manifests itself but we can trust that it exists.

There’s so much more to unpack from this verse and there have been numerous books written about it. But for now, just remember what Jesus said when he closed up the scroll: “The scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

– Christiaan