Luke 13:31-35; March 16, 2025; Second Sunday in Lent
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I’d like to start this sermon as I did last week: with a question.
Namely, when you picture Jesus, who do you see?
Do you see:
- Blue-eyed, flowing hair, heartthrob Jesus?
- Sad, frowning, fresco Jesus?
- Mug shot, but perhaps historically accurate Jesus?
- Historically accurate, but fun to get along with on a nice day Jesus?
- Feisty, two-tone Jesus?
Who do you see when you pray to Jesus, when you think of him?
Honestly, while I’ve always been partial to slides 3 and 4 – those more historically accurate depictions – and while I’ve often resonated with sad, frowning Jesus too… this last one, number 5, “Feisty, two-tone Jesus” preaches to me the most.
Too often we picture Jesus up there, trapped behind the stained glass. Halo intact, resolute, but there. Up there in an air and dimension that we ourselves can’t access.
But our theology tells us that he’s also here, and that you can’t pin him down behind glass, for not even the cross or grave could render him still.
Likewise, scripture suggests that most of the faces we think of Jesus wearing are probably not the most accurate. For in the gospels, Jesus is never trapped, never sitting for a perm, and certainly is never called pretty or humorous (though I like to think he told a good joke or two). Rather he is often seen getting upset and angry, calling religious and political leaders hacks and hypocrites and daring them to challenge him otherwise.
That’s why I like this 5th image here. Because the dude is just not at all okay with how the world is turning. How it is treating him or others, especially those who are less fortunate.
Remember our text today: after the Pharisees surprisingly warn him of Herod’s plot to kill him, he goes: “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.” Listen! Basically saying, yeah, whatever, I’ve got work to do that doesn’t concern that guy; for unlike him I am using the power given to me to make a positive difference in this world.
Listen!
Yes, my friends, we get it wrong then if we only ever think of Jesus as the eternal pacifist, flat, indifferent, and distant above us. Nah man — that guy was down here in the muck with the least of us, and when challenged, he was able to throw a good barb or two.
“Go and tell that fox for me” is what he says. Go and tell that fox for me! Ooh, Jesus!
Yeah, that’s the Jesus I know and love! The Jesus who is not backing down – who’s feisty, confident, and on a mission. Who won’t let fear or threats get the best of him. Who won’t let order, tradition, or decorum get in the way of doing what is right.
And if anyone tries to tell you that your Pastor’s got wrong, and is acting all hysterical, that this wasn’t Jesus at all, rather that he was this gentle, blue-eyed, long-haired, superficially beautiful man, trust me, they’re lying, and they need to go back and read the good book.
Our scripture. The Bible.
Did you by chance notice in our text today the animals that were named?
We get a fox, who is associated with Herod.
We get a mother hen, who is associated with Jesus.
And we get the brood, the hen’s children, who I think can be associated with us.
Unlike a fox who presents as being clever, but who is so often a loner if not a predator, Jesus likens himself to a mother, a mother hen, who will stand up on truth, and stand up for what is right, sacrificing himself for his young so to protect the vulnerable and the innocent… us.
“Go and tell that fox for me” that he has no power here.
Fox, as it appears in this verse, in the Greek, is rendered as: ἀλώπεκι
And it would be a mistake to only think of this word as we might see and conjure a fox today. As this beautifully colored, slight, and sly creature.
According to the NET Bible commentary, the symbol of a fox, so often a figure for cleverness in our modern western culture, was more likely thought of during Biblical times as something akin to an insignificant or base person. Someone who would use cunning deceit to get his way, to assume power, and then try to destroy others.
And when we think of the Herod who Jesus was standing up to here — Herod Antipas — I think that description fits better; remembering after all that it was this Herod who severed the head of John the Baptist and then served it on a platter so to appease his young and attractive niece.
Pretty base and destructive.
Additionally, as another commentary writes: “though related to the dog, foxes do not rove in packs. In essence, they are not one to make friends, being destructive loners. And, we must always remember that Jesus was not brought up on Grimm’s fairy tales! To understand the Scriptures fully we need to have a revelation of the Jewish roots of our faith; and in that culture, to refer to somebody as a fox, was to call them a coward.”
A coward! Ooh, Jesus!
You see, my friends, that feisty, two-tone Jesus! He comes out more often than you think! Or, as our friend Whitney Gillis used to remind me, “Jesus is on the loose!”
Yes, sometimes Jesus’ humanity just bleeds through.
And he shows us that God is righteously able to get upset too; and more, that we are allowed to as well.
Let me close then today by calling your attention one more time to our screens. To our bulletin cover. This picture that Ben is putting up right now that our friend Tim Biskup took while riding in the subway. An ad for the Bible App, with the clever little tagline: “Zero Stars – Would Not Recommend. Signed, Satan.”
Pretty smart, right?
My friends, if you don’t read this Bible, if you don’t open it, but only parrot it, you might be led to believe that Jesus really is trapped up there behind the glass, under the halo, and not a real, emotional, and historical human figure at all.
But he was! And he was fully human at that. And he really did get upset with the apple cart of his day, especially when it trampled the innocent as it rolled on its way.
And make no mistake, he didn’t just frown or make some inconsequential tik-toks about it… but he spoke up, acted up, and attempted to overturn it.
Even going so far as to jump on a cross so that its wheels would stop dead in its tracks.
So be encouraged today, my friends, and follow Jesus, daring even to put on his feistiness, his two-tones, saying confident things like, “Go and tell that fox for me!”
For in the end, either in this life or the next, he promises that Mother Hen’s got our back.
Amen
