He said to another man, "Follow me.”
But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."
Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
-Luke 9:59-60
In the world, one of the most important events is my father passing away. I realise I should bury my father. This is the first and most basic relationship we form in our lives. If we were to avoid this, people would point fingers and accuse of us lacking morals.
If my parents should pass away, I should be there, especially at their funeral. In a way, Jesus is being kind of cold - ‘let the dead bury their own dead’ – and we can misunderstand this as breaking the most fundamental basis of our lives – to love and serve my father. However, we already know that this is not what Jesus means...
From the point of view of the Christian, it is easier to accept. However, from the eyes of those that don’t believe it can be misunderstood.
If you look one-dimensionally it can be misunderstood.
However, we know here, only one sentence is written even though the conversation was most likely longer...it is compressed.
Q ‘Lord, my father has passed away, let me go and bury my father’.
A ‘No, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God’
This is not the whole conversation.
The Lord probably also cried, and with tears would have appealed to the disciple ‘Your Father God, he is also dying, do you not know that also?’
The Lord would have had tears in his eyes also. He would have known the pain of the disciple, but then he would be appealing to the disciple to also feel the pain of the father that is greater. Seeing the disciple’s pain, he wishes that the disciple could also know the pain of the Father God – that is also dying when he sees the suffering in the world...
‘Don’t you know that God’s pain is greater than yours?’
Jesus is teaching us to look deeper to find an amazing world in our sorrows. Jesus is saying, ‘remember your Father’s sufferings also’.
If your father passed away, would you do anything else but take time to remember him? However remembering the Father God and bringing His Kingdom is more urgent. As so many souls are dying, the work of saving them is more urgent.
Jesus always had this heart when it came to saving souls, and our attitude must be the same. We must have the same urgent heart when saving souls, and remember the suffering of our Eternal Father first.
-Author Unknown
