Luke 9:37 (ESV)
On
the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.
Coming
down the mountain after the transfiguration with his inner circle of disciples,
Jesus is met by a great crowd. Not just a crowd, but a “large crowd” or a “great
crowd.” Similarly, when Jesus entered Jerusalem on the day we celebrate as Palm
Sunday, a crowd gathered around him. In that passage the word used is plethos (from which we get our word plethora).
It means a great number. It is a different word from the one used in the above
verse, but a similar concept.
When
the crowd met him they were looking for a miracle, an expression of power. They
were looking for freedom and healing. A man approached Jesus pleading that he
would look at his son. He is described as his one and only son. It is the word,
monogenes. It is the same word used
to refer to Jesus in John 3:16. Jesus is God’s monogenes, his one and only son. Jesus, the one and only son of God
brought healing to the one and only son of a Jewish man.
The
man explained to Jesus that a spirit shatters his son. The New American Standard
Bible says that the spirit is “mauling him.” It is a word, suntribo, that means to break in pieces (vs 39). Jesus calls the
people a “faithless and twisted generation.” This “twisted generation” produced
a shattered young man. This is the Enemy’s lie. He offers freedom, but shatters
an entire generation in return.
I
was walking down the sidewalk carrying my favorite coffee mug when it slipped
from my hand and dropped to the sidewalk. It shattered. There was no piecing it
back together. Imagine how God felt when mankind was shattered by sin. The Good
News is that the One and Only Son of God can take a faithless and twisted
generation shattered by sin and restore them one by one. This is not done by
pointing out how shattered they are. As in the story of the boy in Luke 9, it
is obvious to everyone that he is shattered. What he needed to experience was
the power of God unto salvation. This is the Good News we have to offer a broken
and shattered people.
For
I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the
righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The
righteous shall live by faith.”
Comments
Post a Comment