Thursday after the Fifth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on July 8, 2021 by under
Scripture: St. Luke 9:51-56 (NKJV)
9:51 Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, 52 and sent messengers before His face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. 53 But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. 54 And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?”
55 But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. 56 For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” And they went to another village.
Devotion
The narrow road that leads to eternal life can be quite hard, and very lonely. Jesus knew that road. It wound its way through the fields and mountains of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. It was a road that often wandered through the wilderness. Sometimes He would be asked to leave a region, or not welcomed into a village, like in this reading from Luke’s Gospel. And at the end, the road that Jesus walked was called the “way of sorrows.” It twisted through the streets of Jerusalem and finally led to another very lonely place.
James and John were indignant at the treatment that their master had suffered at the hands of the Samaritans. They loved Jesus so much that it pained them to see Him mistreated. They were jealous for His honor, as all followers of Christ should be. But Satan used those feelings of love and protectiveness, and twisted them to his evil plans. James and John wanted to call fire down upon these ungrateful, miserable heretics, as if to say, “How dare they fail to welcome the Christ; destroy them!” But Jesus didn’t need to be defended from the Samaritans. He must continue to travel the road so that He could die for those Samaritans. He travels that road for their salvation, and ours. We must follow our Master on the narrow road to heaven because He has made us His people.
Prayer: O God, who hast prepared for them that love Thee such good things as pass man’s understanding, pour into our hearts such love toward Thee that we, loving Thee above all things, may obtain Thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
