To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:59-60)
Last week, we saw someone come to Jesus saying they would follow Him wherever He went, but this week we see Jesus initiated the conversation to another in saying, “Follow Me”. We don’t actually know what the previous person’s response was after being told the cost of not having a place to lay their head. However, in this interaction, the person has a reason for delaying in following Jesus.
Jesus’ response to leave the dead to bury their own dead may seem heartless, cruel, and completely lacking in compassion, but since we know that is not Jesus’ character at all, we need to look deeper at what was actually happening during this interaction to understand.
As this person told Jesus, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father” in response to Jesus’ call to follow Him, this person wasn’t saying that their father had just died and they needed to literally bury him. This person was in essence saying that their father is still alive so they want to wait until he dies before leaving to follow Jesus. This person deemed it more important to stay based on their father, then to go based on Jesus’ command.
A Flawed Perspective
As flawed human beings, our perspectives are most often not aligned well and when left to our own, certainly not aligned with God’s. How many people just in their own lives put off one thing for another? Put off getting married for a career, put off having children to travel, put off spending time with family to work, etc. And yet, how many times have you heard people say they would until their death bed to accept Jesus as salvation? But tomorrow is not promised, so anything that gets put off today, isn’t guaranteed to even be available to happen tomorrow.
And in essence anything that is put off for later is then deemed less important or valuable than what is being tended to in place of it. But is there anything more important than following Jesus?
Of course, the answer is no, but if it feels like there is, that’s a real problem.
Not Only for Non-Believers
To one who identifies as a Christian, this may seem like a moot point, but just like our devotional on the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8, one can be self-deceived if the soil of their heart is not good. If you find that you put off reading your bible to first go and do something else, such as laundry, dishes, check social media, etc. Or that you put off going to church to worship, study, and fellowship to first go and do something else, such as watch the game on TV or take the kids to their sports game, etc. These are all instances which call to attend to the check engine light of your heart.
Listen and obey the call of Jesus to let those other things be and follow Him wholly, to go and proclaim the kingdom of God.
In Matthew 22, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40) God is a God of order – we see it in the Godhead of Father, Son, and Spirit, we see it in creation, we see it through prophecies and time – and in the commands it’s no different. The greatest and first commandment is to love God with your everything. So if we are letting anything come before that, it is sin to us. And the second, is to love others, which is part of Jesus command to this second person who wanted to first wait until their father died – was to go and preach the kingdom of God.
In loving God with all their heart, soul, and mind, this person would choose to follow Jesus first; and in following the command to go and preach the kingdom of God, they would be loving others. Of which Jesus then said in Matthew 22:41, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Truths to Consider
As we wrap up here, consider these truths:
- On those two commandments, to love God and love others, depend all the Law and Prophets (Matthew 22:41)
- The perfect Law, the Law of liberty, is what James tells us we should look into and persevere as a doer (James 1:22-25)
- Jesus came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it, and He did so perfectly (Matthew 5:17-20)
- If we choose to follow Jesus, we are to be His ambassadors – to do and be like He is
THEREFORE, we must choose to leave behind all our “let me first go” type things and choose God first, and then love others in going and proclaiming the kingdom of God.
I’ll leave you with these verses from Romans 8:5-9:
“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.”