Knowing The Word in Luke 11:45-54

More Woes

11:45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” 46 And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. 52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

53 As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.

Comments

The lawyer, who devoted himself to the study of Old Testament law, and may or may not have been a Pharisee, felt insulted by Jesus. The lawyers required the people to do difficult religious things but did not help them. They lacked love and judged others. They should have expounded on the law in such a way as to inspire and help the people; instead, they used the law to burden them.

The lawyers held that they honored the heroes of the faith by constructing monuments to them, but they were, in a sense, completing the work of their murderers by building their graves. Ironically, it is easier to honor dead saints than living ones!

Able was the first martyr in the Old Testament and Zechariah was the last known prophet/martyr killed in the Old Testament. Jesus is saying that the blood of all those slain for their faithfulness to God will be required. It is laid at the feet of Jesus’ generation because these people share fully in the attitude that brought about the deaths of the former prophets. And these people will be responsible for the death of the True Prophet, Jesus.

Instead of opening up the treasure of God’s word, the lawyers have turned the Hebrew Scriptures into a book of obscurities and a bundle of riddles only they could understand and explain to the people. Ordinary people on their way to knowing and understanding God have been prevented by them. Now Jesus’ detractors have turned up the heat to provoke him into saying something indiscreet, so that they can bring charges against him.

Applications

Each of us has religious practices that prevent us from truly seeing who God is. Having just gone through Holy Week, are there some religious practices you think you can do without because they keep you from focusing on moral practices that are better? Do you have some Pharisaical thoughts or practices towards others that separate them from you when as sisters and brothers in Christ we should be one?

Prayer

Father, in this time of silence and contemplation, help me release my judgmental thoughts toward others when it comes to religious practices. Instead, help me to see myself as I am. Assist me in removing the log in my eye so I can help others with the specks of dust in their eyes.