Luke 22:35-38
He said to them, “When I sent you out without a purse, bag, or sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “No, not a thing.” He said to them, “But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted among the lawless’; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.” They said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.” He replied, “It is enough.”
As we’ve discussed before, Luke imagines history being divided into three phases or periods: the period of Israel, the period of Jesus, and the period of the Church. The passion, from this reckoning, stands as an in-between time, a transition from that time when evil is kept at bay and the kingdom is proclaimed in its fullness (the period of Jesus) and the time when evil is again loosed and the community of the faithful, aided by the Holy Spirit, struggles against it and proclaims what God has done in Jesus (the period of the church).
But the passion is more than a transition, it is also a climax, when God in Jesus engages the powers of darkness directly and fully on the cross. The passion of Christ, from this point of view, is the climax and turning point of history.
You can sense both the transition and impending climax in Luke’s depiction of the Lord’s Supper. There is both intensity and intimacy as Jesus gathers with his disciples, shares this last meal, and readies them for what is to come. That intensity begins to approach a more fevered pitch in these few verses, the last in this scene, as Jesus first reminds them of how he has cared for them and then signals a change of circumstances. The days of proclaiming the Kingdom uninhibited are over; the days of struggle and stress as that kingdom is birthed is now upon them. And so Jesus tells them that, unlike on their earlier sojourn, this time they will need to be ready, taking with them a purse and even a sword.
I wish I knew exactly that he meant by that. Is it a sword for battle? Later events would seem to contradict that. Is it a symbol of the struggle to come? Is it a figure of speech? We don’t know. Or, at least, I don’t know. But what we do know is that the tenor of the scene has changed dramatically, as we move from transition to the drama proper. For the conflict that stands at the center of the Passion of our Lord is about to get underway in full and final fashion.
Prayer: Dear God, bless us with insight and understanding when we read your Word, and when we do not understand it all, bless us with faith and patience. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Post image: Jacob Tintoretto, “The Last Supper”
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