Fifth Sunday After the Resurrection – He Set His Face Toward Jerusalem
The Road That Does Not Turn Back: St. Luke 9:51-62
“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.” (9:51)
Christ is risen! Indeed, He is risen!
In the next few days, the Church will be celebrating the Feast of the Ascension. The risen Christ who has been appearing in gardens and locked rooms and on roads and shores and mountainsides will ascend to the Father. The body that was crucified and raised and touched and fed upon will be taken up. The visible presence that has sustained the disciples since Pascha morning will withdraw. And the Church will be left standing on the ground, looking upward, waiting for the Spirit.
Today’s passage prepares us. Not by describing the Ascension. By describing the journey that led to it. The moment Christ decided to go. The moment He turned His face toward Jerusalem knowing that Jerusalem meant the Cross and the Cross meant the tomb and the tomb meant the resurrection and the resurrection meant the Ascension and the Ascension meant the departure.
He set His face. And He never turned back.
When the Time Had Come (v. 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.” (9:51)
“When the time had come for Him to be received up.”
En tō sumplērousthai tas hēmeras tēs analēmpseōs autou. When the days of His taking up were being fulfilled. The word analēmpsis is the word for the Ascension. Luke uses it here, at the beginning of the journey, not at the end. The Ascension is named before the journey to Jerusalem even begins. The destination is declared before the first step is taken. Christ does not stumble toward the Ascension. He walks toward it. Deliberately. From this moment forward.
Luke is telling us that the journey to Jerusalem is not primarily a journey toward the Cross. It is a journey toward the Ascension. The Cross is on the way. The tomb is on the way. The resurrection is on the way. But the final destination is the taking up. The return to the Father. The completion of the Incarnation’s arc. He came down from heaven. He lived among us. He died. He rose. And now He is going back up. The whole movement, from heaven to Bethlehem to Nazareth to Galilee to Jerusalem to Calvary to the tomb to the garden to the mountain, is one continuous journey. And the destination is the right hand of the Father.
“He steadfastly set His face.”
To prosōpon estērisen. He hardened His face. He fixed His face. He made His face like flint. The language is from Isaiah 50:7, the third Servant Song: “I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.” The suffering servant. The one who will not turn back. The one whose determination is carved into the muscles of His face.
The setting of the face is the opposite of turning around. On the Emmaus road, the disciples were walking away from Jerusalem. Their faces were set in the wrong direction. Christ turned them around. Today Christ’s own face is set. Toward Jerusalem. Toward the Passion. Toward the Ascension. And the face does not waver.
This is not grim determination. It is not the clenched jaw of a person forcing himself to do something He does not want to do. It is the focused resolve of a Person who knows what He is walking toward and chooses it freely. The troubled soul of John 12:27 (“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’?”) is real. The fear is real. And the setting of the face is the free choice made in the presence of the fear. Not the absence of fear. The overcoming of fear by purpose.
St. John Chrysostom, in his homiletical treatment of this passage, teaches that the setting of the face is the moment the Passion becomes irreversible. Before this verse, Christ could have chosen differently. After this verse, the face is fixed. The direction is established. The journey has begun. Chrysostom says this is the moment the entire Gospel pivots. Everything before verse 51 is preparation. Everything after is journey. And the journey leads to one place. Jerusalem. Where the Cross waits. Where the tomb waits. Where the resurrection waits. And beyond the resurrection, the Ascension. The face is set toward all of it. And it does not turn.1
The Samaritan Village (vv. 52–56)
“And sent messengers before His face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. 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?’ But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.’ And they went to another village.” (9:52–56)
“They did not receive Him.”
The Samaritans refused hospitality. Not because they disliked Christ as a person. Because His face was set toward Jerusalem. The Samaritans and the Jews had a centuries-old dispute about the proper place of worship. The Samaritans worshipped on Mount Gerizim. The Jews worshipped in Jerusalem. A rabbi heading to Jerusalem was heading to the wrong temple. And the Samaritan village refused to welcome a man who was walking to the place they rejected.
The rejection is religious. It is theological. It is institutional. The village has decided, on the basis of its doctrinal position, that the Man passing through does not deserve hospitality. The destination disqualifies the traveller. The theology overrides the humanity.
“Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?”
James and John. The sons of thunder (Mark 3:17). Living up to their name. The Samaritans have refused their Master. The response should be fire. Elijah called fire from heaven on the soldiers of Ahaziah (2 Kings 1:10–12). If Elijah could do it, why not us? The precedent is biblical. The anger is righteous. The people have rejected God’s anointed. Fire is the appropriate response.
This is the temptation of every person whose faith has been insulted. The temptation to use spiritual power as a weapon. To call down fire on the people who reject the Gospel. To use the authority of God to punish the people who refuse to receive God. The sons of thunder want divine violence against theological disagreement. Fire for the village that worships on the wrong mountain.
“You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.”
Christ’s rebuke is sharp but not angry. It is diagnostic. You do not know what spirit is motivating you. You think it is the Spirit of Elijah. It is not. It is the spirit of vengeance dressed in prophetic clothing. The desire to destroy is not the desire of God. The fire of Elijah was a specific act in a specific context. You are generalising it into a principle. And the principle you are deriving (“reject God’s messenger, get burned”) is not the principle of the Son of Man.
“The Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.”
The clearest statement of purpose in the travel narrative. Not to destroy. To save. The face is set toward Jerusalem not because Jerusalem will be punished but because Jerusalem is where the saving will happen. The Cross is not fire from heaven. The Cross is the Son of Man absorbing the fire into His own body so that the village does not have to burn.
The Samaritan village refused to receive Christ. And Christ’s response was not fire. It was walking to another village. Moving on. Leaving the refusal behind without retaliating. The rejection is real. The response is grace. The village that said no is not burned. It is bypassed. And the journey continues. Toward Jerusalem. Toward the Cross. Toward the Ascension. The rejection does not derail the journey. The journey absorbs the rejection and keeps moving.
St. Ephrem the Syrian, in his Commentary on the Diatessaron, writes that Christ’s refusal to call fire on the Samaritans reveals the character of the kingdom He is ascending to inaugurate. Elijah called fire to defend the honour of a temporary prophetic mission. Christ refuses fire because the kingdom He is about to enter at the right hand of the Father is not a kingdom maintained by destruction. It is a kingdom sustained by patience. The sons of thunder confused Elijah’s manner with Christ’s. They wanted the old response to rejection: burn it. Christ is establishing a new response: return to it.2
One week before the Ascension, this truth is sharper than ever. The Christ who is about to ascend is the Christ who refused to burn a village. The authority He is about to receive at the right hand of the Father is the authority of the One who chose mercy over fire. The kingdom He is about to rule is a kingdom where the Samaritan villages are not destroyed. They are revisited. After the Ascension, after Pentecost, Philip will go to Samaria and the Samaritans will believe (Acts 8:5–8). The village that rejected Christ will receive His Gospel. Not through fire. Through preaching. The patience of the set face pays off in the patience of the sent Church.
The Cost of Following (vv. 57–62)
Three encounters. Three would-be followers. Three revelations of what the set face costs.
The First: I Will Follow You Wherever (vv. 57–58)
“Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, ‘Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.'” (9:57–58)
“I will follow You wherever You go.”
The enthusiasm is genuine. The commitment is total. Wherever. No conditions. No limits. The volunteer is offering everything. And Christ does not say “wonderful, welcome aboard.” He says: let Me tell you what “wherever” means.
“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
The journey toward Jerusalem is a journey without a home. The foxes have their dens. The birds have their nests. The animals have their places. The Son of Man does not. The One whose face is set toward Jerusalem does not have a fixed address. The road is His home. The journey is His dwelling. The movement toward the Cross is His residence.
This is not poverty for its own sake. This is the cost of the set face. The face that is fixed on Jerusalem cannot also be fixed on a home. The person who is journeying toward the Ascension cannot also be settled in a house. The two directions are incompatible. Not because houses are wrong. Because the journey requires mobility. And mobility requires the willingness to have nowhere to lay your head.
The volunteer said “wherever.” Christ said: wherever means nowhere. Wherever means the road. Wherever means no fixed point. Wherever means the journey that the set face demands.
The Second: Let Me First Bury My Father (vv. 59–60)
“Then He said to another, ‘Follow Me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.'” (9:59–60)
“Let me first go and bury my father.”
The request sounds reasonable. More than reasonable. Sacred. The duty to bury one’s parents was among the highest obligations in Jewish law. Even a priest who was otherwise forbidden to touch a dead body was required to bury his father (Leviticus 21:2). The request is not an excuse. It is a sacred obligation. And Christ says no.
“Let the dead bury their own dead.”
The most shocking sentence in the passage. Let the spiritually dead attend to the physically dead. You attend to the kingdom. The priority of the kingdom overrides even the most sacred family duty. Not because family duty is unimportant. Because the kingdom is more important. Not because burying the father is wrong. Because the moment of the calling cannot be postponed. The set face does not pause. The journey does not stop for funerals. The Ascension does not wait for the burial.
This is not cruelty. It is urgency. The time for the kingdom is now. The face is set. The journey is in motion. And the person who says “let me first” is placing something before the call. Anything placed before the call, even the most sacred obligation, becomes an obstacle to the journey.
The Third: Let Me First Say Goodbye (vv. 61–62)
“And another also said, ‘Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.'” (9:61–62)
“Let me first go and bid them farewell.”
The request echoes Elisha’s request to Elijah (1 Kings 19:20). When Elijah threw his mantle over Elisha, Elisha said “let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Elijah allowed it. Christ does not. The new calling is more urgent than the old. The face set toward Jerusalem is more fixed than the mantle thrown over the ploughman. The old dispensation allowed the goodbye. The new dispensation does not. Not because goodbyes are wrong. Because the plough has been grasped. And the plough does not move backward.
“No one, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
The plough moves forward. Only forward. The farmer who looks behind him ploughs a crooked furrow. The line goes wrong. The field is ruined. The harvest is compromised. The plough requires a fixed gaze. Forward. On the unploughed ground ahead. Not on the ploughed ground behind.
The set face of verse 51 is now applied to the disciple. Christ set His face toward Jerusalem. The disciple must set the hand on the plough and not look back. Christ does not look back at the Samaritan village that rejected Him. The disciple must not look back at the house left behind. Christ does not look back at the comfort He left in heaven. The disciple must not look back at the life left at the booth or the shore or the home.
The direction is forward. Always forward. Toward Jerusalem. Toward the Cross. Toward the Ascension. Toward the kingdom. The plough does not reverse. The face does not turn. The hand does not release.
St. Cyril of Alexandria, in his Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, teaches that the three encounters are not three separate teachings. They are one teaching in three movements. The first movement: the cost of following (nowhere to lay your head). The second movement: the urgency of following (the kingdom will not wait). The third movement: the direction of following (forward only, no looking back). Cyril says the three together describe the disciple whose face is set the way Christ’s face is set. Fixed. Determined. Forward-facing. Unburdened by the need for comfort (first encounter), undistracted by even the most sacred obligations when they compete with the call (second encounter), and uninterested in the past when the future is the kingdom (third encounter).3
What the Fifth Sunday Means – The Sunday Before the Ascension
Next week Christ ascends. The visible presence withdraws. The body that was touched by Thomas and that cooked breakfast on the beach will be taken up into heaven. And the Church will stand on the ground looking upward until the angels say “why do you stand gazing up into heaven?” (Acts 1:11).
Today’s passage prepares the Church for the Ascension by revealing the nature of the journey that leads to it.
The Ascension is not an ending. It is the destination the set face was walking toward from verse 51. The face that was fixed on Jerusalem was fixed, beyond Jerusalem, on the right hand of the Father. The Cross was on the way. The tomb was on the way. The resurrection was on the way. But the destination was always the Ascension. The return to the Father. The completion of the journey that began when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And the preparation for the Ascension is the preparation of the set face. The face that does not turn back. The face that does not retaliate against the villages that reject it. The face that does not promise comfort to its followers but promises instead nowhere to lay the head. The face that insists on the urgency of the kingdom over every competing obligation. The face that demands forward motion and will not accept a backward glance.
The Ascension will be disorienting for the disciples. The visible Lord will become the invisible Lord. The body they could touch will be beyond their reach. The voice they could hear with their ears will become the voice they hear through the Spirit. Everything will change.
Today’s passage says: the change was always coming. The journey was always heading toward the departure. The face was set. And the disciples who follow the set-faced Christ must themselves set their faces. Toward the mission. Toward the nations. Toward the kingdom. Without looking back at the mountaintop where He stood before the cloud received Him.
The Ascension is not a loss. It is the fulfilment of the journey. The face that was set toward Jerusalem has arrived at its destination. Not Jerusalem the city. The Jerusalem above. The right hand of the Father. The place of all authority. And from that place, the same voice that said “follow Me” will send the Spirit. And the Spirit will set the disciples’ faces. And the journey will continue. Forward. Always forward. Hand on the plough. Eyes on the kingdom. Never looking back.
For Our Journey Today
Set your face. The Ascension is coming. The familiar forms of Christ’s presence may be about to change. The intensity of the Paschal season is yielding to the ordinary. The post-resurrection appearances are ending. The visible is becoming invisible. Today, set our faces. Not toward a destination we can see. Toward the One we cannot see but trust. The way Christ set His face toward a destination He could not yet see from Galilee. The way the disciples will set their faces toward nations they have never visited. Fix the direction. And do not turn back.
Do not call fire. Someone will reject you. Someone will refuse the Gospel. Someone will close the door of their village because our faces are set toward the wrong mountain. The temptation will be fire. Judgment. Spiritual violence against theological disagreement. Today, refuse the fire. Christ refused it. The Son of Man did not come to destroy but to save. The village that rejects you today may receive the Gospel tomorrow. Philip went to Samaria. The fire would have destroyed the harvest.
Put your hand on the plough. The kingdom requires forward motion. The hand on the plough. The eyes on the unploughed ground. The refusal to look back at the field already ploughed. Today, ask yourself: what am I looking back at? What house, what obligation, what comfort am I clinging to that is preventing the plough from moving forward? The plough does not reverse. The kingdom does not wait. The Ascension is coming. And the life that follows the Ascension is a life of forward motion. Spirit-empowered. Kingdom-directed. Face-set. No looking back.
Lord Jesus Christ, who set Your face like flint toward Jerusalem knowing that Jerusalem meant the Cross and the Cross meant the tomb and the tomb meant the resurrection and the resurrection meant the Ascension and the Ascension meant the right hand of the Father, set our faces today. We confess that we are tempted to turn back. To call fire on the villages that reject us. To look for comfort on a road that has none. To pause the journey for obligations that compete with the kingdom. To glance over our shoulders at the life we left behind. Set our faces. The way You set Yours. Not with grim determination. With the focused resolve of a Person who knows what He is walking toward and chooses it freely. The Ascension is coming. The visible is becoming invisible. The presence is changing form. And we need faces that do not turn. Eyes that do not wander. Hands that do not release the plough. Give us those faces. Those eyes. Those hands. And lead us forward. Toward the kingdom. Toward the nations. Toward the place where You have gone before us and where You wait for us. No one having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom. Help us to be fit. By the grace of Your Spirit. By the power of Your Ascension. By the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, the holy Evangelist Luke, and all the saints, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
The Fifth Sunday After the Resurrection. The Sunday before the Ascension. He set His face toward Jerusalem. The Samaritan village rejected Him. He refused to call fire. Three would-be followers learned the cost: no home, no delay, no looking back. The face is set. The plough is moving. The Ascension is ahead. And the kingdom does not wait for people who keep turning around.
Patristic References
- St. John Chrysostom (c. 349–407): Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (NPNF), Series I, Vol. 10: Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, and related homilies on Luke ↩︎
- St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306–373): Commentary on the Diatessaron. ↩︎
- St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444). Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, on Luke 9:57–62. ↩︎
