Ancient Anglican

On the Cross, Jesus takes upon himself, each of our specific sins and transgressions. He cleanses them in his blood. He buries them in the tomb. He takes them away so that they are no more. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World.

“The Wise Thief didst Thou make worthy of Paradise, in a single moment, O Lord. By the wood of thy Cross, illumine me as well, and save me.”

In Luke’s story of Jesus’s pretrial detention, we see Jesus as the Lamb of God who has taken upon himself the sins of the world – our weakness of Peter, our violent depravity of the soldiers, and our perversion of justice of the Council.

In this last teaching, he does not give his disciples a list of theological principles to memorize, but he gives them an action to follow and a meal to share. Following after the teaching on the Apocalypse, the Last Supper is the dawn of the New Age.

The heart of the Little Apocalypse speaks to our interior preparation, regardless of the turmoil we see surrounding us in the world and despite even the threats of violence and persecution and natural disaster.

There are four questions and one parable that give us a preview of the remainder of the Gospel and of Jesus’s Death, Resurrection, and Exaltation.

The essential nature of repentance is not about telling God we are sorry and that we will try harder next time. Jesus is not talking about rule-breaking and punishment. Rather, what Jesus is talking about is being in a relationship with God or suffering the consequences of that absence, which is perishing into non-existence. 

Luke clearly shows us that Jesus enters Jerusalem as a triumphant returning King.

Jesus continues to prepare us for the Kingdom by giving us a story on interdependence and a parable on the necessity of faithful reliance.

Jesus gives two parables – one on prayer and one on humility – to teach us how to prepare for the immediate present of the Kingdom of God.

We are merely trustees of any wealth that is given to us, and therefore, we are charged with using that wealth in the service of others.  

Each of these three parables has the same motif – something is lost, there is a search, the lost is found, the lost is restored, and there is a celebration. The protagonist in each parable is not the lost one but the finder.