An essay by Joseph Shulam Copyright 2024
Luke 9:51 says:
"And it came about when the days were approaching for his ascension that he resolutely set his face to go to Jerusalem."
Or another version says:
"When the days were approaching for his ascension, he was determined to go to Jerusalem."
It is a relatively simple text without any problematic words. What can we learn from the idea "when Yeshua's hour had come"? Several places in the New Testament talk about "his hour had come," "his hour had not come," "it is not my time yet," or "my time has come." In John 7:60, the apostles in Galilee during the Feast of Tabernacles tell Jesus:
"Let us go to Jerusalem," but He told them, "My time has not come yet." Here, we read that his hour had come.
If I say to you, "The hour has come for me to leave the hotel and go to the congregation," I have a calendar. I have an agenda, and when I look at my program, I know when my time has come and when my time has not come. G-d has a calendar and an agenda, and He knows the times and the seasons. Paul in Galatians 4:4 says:
"When the time had fully come, G-d sent his son..."
It was the right time, and it was marked, in a manner of speaking, with red ink on G-d's calendar. Jesus knew he had a calendar appointment in Jerusalem; it was his time to go there. The word "resolutely" is very interesting in this verse. It means that He decided to go to Jerusalem, come what may. He made up his mind to turn toward Jerusalem, no matter who would try to distract Him on the way and at all costs. He has a calendar, and He knows when his appointment is due to come.
Why did Jesus have to go to Jerusalem, and what did He have to do there that caused Him to turn his face toward it "resolutely"?
We think we know why, and we think we know what the Bible says. Every Protestant Evangelical will tell you that He had to go to Jerusalem to be crucified, but they are not paying attention to the text. We have almost 1500 years of Christian history that, with all of its beauty and garbage, has mesmerized us and numbed us from seeing what G-d has for us in his Word. In Christianity, people like to see Jesus hanging on the cross, but they do not want Him to come and sit next to them in the pew.
I went to university in Nashville, Tennessee, for two years and did not have a car. On Saturday, I walked from where I lived to the Orthodox synagogue, and on Sunday, I walked from where I lived to the Church that was right across the street from the Orthodox synagogue. One Sunday in 1969, I arrived early and noticed that the rabbi was in his office with the light on in the synagogue. The Church was still closed, so I went to talk to the rabbi for a little while. He knew I was a Jew from Israel who believed in Jesus and invited me to have a cup of coffee in his office. While talking in his office, he suddenly got up, went to the window, looked out, and said,
"Joe, do you see all these people going to Church? I have been a rabbi here for thirteen years, and nobody from this Church has ever knocked on my door or invited me to anything. Isn't it strange that they go in there every Sunday and worship a dead Jew hanging on a tree but don't like the live Jews?"
That is how the Church approaches Yeshua. Christianity stops at the cross, and 90% of all our attention is focused on Him hanging on the cross and his bleeding and suffering. No one wants to diminish the seriousness of the cross of Jesus, and no one wants to minimize his suffering. No one wants to deny the atonement of our sins by the blood of Yeshua, the Messiah. That is a central point of our faith and our relationship to the Almighty G-d of Israel. However, if we stop at the cross, we have no life. If there is no resurrection and ascension, and Yeshua is not sitting at the right hand of G-d, our faith is in vain.
Notice the text we just read says that Yeshua went to Jerusalem for his Ascension.
He was homeward bound; the cross was only a necessary and essential station along the way through which He had to go. That was not the goal or where He wanted to stay. He tried to pass by the cross and ascend to heaven to the Father. Suppose we, as disciples of Yeshua, do not move beyond the cross to think about going home, seeing Him descend from the clouds, and our present fellowship with Him. In that case, we are more miserable than any other religious group in the world. That is the difference between the traditional Protestant worldview and what the Bible says. Our faith is not in a crucified Mes
siah but in a living Messiah coming back. To grasp the simplicity of this, we have to do what Jesus did and set our faces once more toward Jerusalem. Let the Church set its face toward Jerusalem and away from the traditions inherited from paganism and Rome! We are being robbed of the joy of life through faith in Yeshua, the Messiah.
Most Christians think their religion is a serious business and that they need to suck on a lemon before they come to Church instead of being bright and joyous in the L-rd. They think that there is something frivolous about joyful believers. Nevertheless, we believe in a living Messiah, not a Jew hanging on a tree but one raised from the grave. Have you noticed that most Christians connect to Rome with an umbilical cord, whether they are Baptists, Methodists, Charismatics, Churches of Christ, or anyone else? Open a church history book to find out how they trace their roots. You will see some connecting themselves to Luther in Germany or Calvin in Switzerland, Menno Simons in Holland, Baptists in Europe, or Pentecostals in Azuza Street.
That is not my Church or the Church that Jesus died for. The Church that Jesus died for is looking toward Jerusalem, not Rome. The Church for which Jesus died is not a Gentile church. There are no Gentiles in the Church. Paul's letter to Ephesians 2:11-13 states:
"Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles bybirth. At that time, you were separate from Messiah, excluded from citizenship with Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise. But now in Messiah Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Messiah."
You have been made fellow citizens of the same city, not Paris, London, Dallas, or Rome. It is Jerusalem!
The Restoration of Israel and the Restoration of the Church go hand in hand. Luke 9:51-56 says:
"As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him, but the people there did not welcome him because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples Ya'akov and Yochanon saw this, they asked, 'L-rd, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?' But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village."
There is an alternate manuscript of the New Testament that also adds here:
"Jesus said to them, 'You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy lives, but to save them.'"
Jesus was going to Jerusalem in the springtime before Passover. The Land of Israel is magnificently beautiful and green during this time. Most of the year, we do not have any rain. We still have a little rain in March, and it is also warm enough for the wildflowers to sprout on the hills. The hills are red with poppies, and the Land is lovely. Jesus and his disciples go through Galilee to Jerusalem and then come to Samaria.
The Samaritans are a group of people who are mixed between people from the ten northern tribes that Nebuchadnezzar exiled and people that Nebuchadnezzar exiled from other countries. The Jews hated them, and because they suffered from prejudice, they, in turn, became prejudiced against the Jews and Jerusalem. So when the disciples of Yeshua were looking for a place for Him to spend the night and came to this Samaritan village, the people of the town asked him where He was going. When the disciples answered, "Jerusalem," the villagers said, "Oh, there is no room for you in this village." Their racial prejudice kept Yeshua out of their village. Just think how much they lost! Everywhere that Yeshua went, He healed people, raised people from the dead, fed the hungry, opened the eyes of the blind, and purified the lepers. Wherever Yeshua went, there were signs and wonders and miracles, but these people kept Yeshua out of their village because of their racial prejudice against Jerusalem.
Any time that there is racial prejudice, there is no room for Yeshua.
Any time that people are anti-Semitic, there is no room for Yeshua. Any place you and I cannot be a part of has no room for Yeshua. The essence of faith in one G-d is that we have one Father, and if we have one Father, it means that we are all brothers. In any place where there is racial prejudice, there is no monotheism because there is a denial of brotherhood and one common fate. Those who have prejudice deny that there is one Being who created everything in the world, from the elephant to the ant.
It was wrong for these Samaritans to keep Jesus out of their village because of their prejudice. But the Sons of Thunder, Jacob and John, also behaved incorrectly. Why am I not saying James? There is no James in the Bible. In the Spanish Bible, there is Santiago; in the French Bible, there is Jacques; and in the Hebrew Bible, there is Ya'akov. The only reason the English Bible has James is that (King) James paid to translate the Bible into English, and he wanted his name in the Bible. The translators could not say "no" because he was paying their bills, so everywhere the Bible said "Jacob," they changed it to "James." Money talks; you do not have to be deaf to hear it. It does not always whisper sweet nothings.
These disciples spent three years with Yeshua and were there for the Sermon on the Mount and when Yeshua fed the 5000. They walked with Him, heard Him teach, and saw Him do miracles, but they got angry when this Samaritan village prevented them from spending the night there. They were angered by the prejudice and asked Yeshua for permission to "burn this village down. We know you have the power and are greater than Elijah."
Samaria was the Land of Elijah, the place of his origin and operation. Elijah called down fire several times and burned up the servants and soldiers of King Ahab, who came to arrest him. Three times, he called fire down from heaven, and fifty soldiers were burned up in an instant, like Star Wars.
The Church is not supposed to demonstrate the power of G-d; it is supposed to work out the power of G-d to win the world and evangelize the lost, preach the gospel, and save souls.
That is what the power of G-d is about. It is not to make pastors rich or for churches to demonstrate how wealthy they can be. It is not for the pyrotechnics of the Holy Spirit. It is to present the love of G-d for all humanity so that the lost can see and be saved. Until the Church turns toward Jerusalem and reconnects with its history and roots, it will not be able to restore our power, love, or relationship with G-d.
Until now, most of the evangelical world has been connected to the creeds which the Catholic Church created. A bunch of half-drunk monks gathered in Turkey in the Fourth Century and wrote these creeds as a political adjustment to please Emperor Constantine. We are still tied down by these creeds today. If somebody says, "I don't believe what those monks in the Fourth Century said," he is immediately labeled a heretic. If you say, "I want to believe in the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, not only for Sunday School but also for life," they will tell you that you are a heretic. "Don't you know that the Old Testament and the Torah are finished, and we no longer need it? Don't you know that we are
free from the Law?"
Let me tell you something: you cannot be free from something you never had and have despised all your life. First of all, get into it and see what it is. "Taste the Lord and see that He is good, " the Psalmist says. See if it helps and blesses your life to keep the Sabbath. Jesus is the L-rd of the Sabbath. How could He be L-rd of something we do not need? The Church said, "We don't need the Sabbath because we have Sunday." If you do not need the Sabbath, what is Jesus L-rd over? He could only be L-rd over the Sabbath if there is value to the Sabbath.
The families of the West are victims of the modern lifestyle, which has destroyed the very fiber of the family. One reason is that they do not have a Sabbath, and the Sabbath is like every other day for them. If people stayed at home with their wives, children, and grandchildren and did not work and had dinner together on Friday night as a family, they would taste the wisdom of G-d by saying, "Work six days and rest on the seventh."'
The Catholic Church purposefully changed the Sabbath to Sunday in the Fifth Century, and no place in the Bible says to rest on Sunday or that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. An individual studying at the Pontifical Institute for Cardinals in Rome wrote his PhD dissertation in 1967 on how the Church changed the Sabbath into Sunday. When he was finished, he left the Catholic Church because of what he learned from it. He documented how the Catholic Church changed the day of the Lord. Sunday is a day of the L-rd and is used to worship Yeshua. According to Acts 20:7, the Church met on the first day of the week, immediately after the Sabbath, as the Greek says literally. That was when the early Church met to worship, but it did not replace the day of rest when G-d rested. They replaced the Sabbath in Rome. I could go on and on and explain many things about how far the Church has strayed from the New Testament. That is why we must resolutely turn our faces to Jerusalem as Yeshua did.
I was raised as a Jewish kid in Jerusalem without much religion. My parents were atheists, and I knew very little about Judaism and absolutely nothing about Christianity. I had never spoken to a Christian in my life, and I was fortunate that I got to know Yeshua before I got to know Christianity. If I had known anything about Christianity before I knew Yeshua, I would have never believed in Him.
A high school teacher asked me to write a paper about the beginning of Christianity for a history class. He told me to start by reading a Hebrew encyclopedia about Christianity and go on. I read in that encyclopedia that Christianity is divided into two primary halves: Catholic and Protestant. I read that Christianity's holidays are Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and Valentine's Day. I read that the Protestants are divided into two halves as well: the Armenians and the Calvinists. The bibliography of this encyclopedia listed the New Testament. When I read the chapters my high school teacher assigned, I got agitated because I could not find anything Christian in the New Testament.
I looked for "Protestants," and the only Protestants I saw were the Pharisees protesting against Yeshua. I looked for Christian holidays and did not find any of them in the New Testament. I only found a story about a Jewish boy born in Bethlehem, just six miles from where I lived. All I found was someone who dealt with problems that occupied me as a Jewish boy, like my attitude toward the Sabbath and the religious establishment, and the hypocrisy of the spiritual people in my neighborhood. I did not find a single Christian thing in the New Testament; it was all Jewish. I looked for the Baptists and only found one Baptist, who also happened to be a Jew. That intrigued me as a Jewish boy in Jerusalem, and I wanted to dig deeper into the Word of G-d and find out who Yeshua was.
I made my decision two years later, after tormenting my soul, because, as a Jew, I did not want to become a Christian, but I did want to be saved. I was selfish enough to desire to be saved and ensure my eternal life, but I knew there was no other way than Yeshua, the Messiah. Later, growing up in the faith, I learned the most important thing is not to trust anyone. Jeremiah 17:5-8 says:
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man... He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the man who trusts in the L-rd, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."
This verse gave me boldness enough to say this in churches all over the world. I have to trust only our G-d in the L-rd. Only in Him can I have enough confidence to study and teach His Word and to call upon the Church to forget the Reformation. It is too late to reform the Church.
It would be best if you started looking into restoration instead of Reformation.
We see that G-d is restoring the dry bones to life and the Land back to its rightful owners in Israel. G-d is restoring the Spirit back to the Church and life back to the dead valleys of the Negev and the Jordan Valley. The desert is blooming again, and as Israel is being restored physically, the Church has got to be restored spiritually. It will only happen as we turn our faces together back toward Jerusalem.
When I became a believer, there were many missionaries in Jerusalem: Baptists, Pentecostals, and the Church of Christ. Each one had six or seven Jews in their congregation. The biggest congregation was about fifty people, half of whom were Jewish. The same Jewish people in that congregation attended all the other congregations because they benefited financially. The missionaries helped them with clothing and other material needs because all these believers were poor. In the whole country, there were maybe only fifty Jews who believed in Yeshua in 1962.
Today, it is entirely different, and we have close to a hundred local congregations that are not part of some international mission or denomination. They sing and worship in Hebrew, and most seek their roots in Judaism to one degree or another. Very slowly, they are getting Torah scrolls and beginning to pray and celebrate holidays like Jews. Our ministry was the first to celebrate Passover in the mid-70s. Before that, nobody did it because the missionaries taught us that we were no longer Jewish after we believed in Yeshua. "You were Jewish, but now you became a cocker spaniel." There are thousands of Jewish believers today, and the number of congregations is growing.
Our ministry, Netivyah, is one of the oldest Messianic Jewish ministries in
Israel. We are registered as a non-profit organization with the state of Israel and are perfectly legal in what we do. We have a soup kitchen, giving out more than 1500 meals a month to people experiencing poverty and homelessness in our community.
We have realized that we are not in the process of Reformation
but rather in the restoration process. We are not looking to Europe or Rome for inspiration; we are turning our faces toward Jerusalem. I invite all of you to turn your faces toward Jerusalem because the next appointment on G-d's calendar is going to be in Jerusalem.
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