By Ryan Sim

Imagine driving on a busy highway through pouring rain, hurrying to reach your destination. Further ahead, you see a drenched and desperate young hitchhiker with his thumb out, as if to say, “I will go with you, wherever you are going!”

You pull over for the soaked hitchhiker, but are appalled at the conversation to follow. You tell him your intended destination, and he boldly requests you take him further. He demands you stop for lunch, turn down the radio, and provide a pillow for his comfort.

We would be appalled! In our kindness we pulled over to pick him up, and he dares to add conditions! It’s a familiar story. In Luke 9:51-62, Jesus has his face set for Jerusalem, with the time coming near for him to be taken up. As Jesus passes by, one from the crowd calls out, “I will follow you wherever you go.” I can almost imagine him with his thumb out.

Jesus warns him that this journey will not be very comfortable, with no pillows for his comfort, much less anywhere to lay his head. Despite this example, another from the crowd asks to come along, but immediately starts adding conditions, asking Jesus to wait while he buries his father. Another simply wants to say goodbye. Only moments into the incredible journey of discipleship, they are adding conditions, in encounters as absurd as my illustration.

To be fair, they probably imagined their demands were justified. After all, in 1 Kings 19, the great prophet Elijah let his new disciple go and say goodbye. In telling this story, Luke is contrasting Jesus and Elijah. Elijah and his mission were able to wait at the side of the road, with no urgency. Jesus and his mission cannot be delayed.

His demands would be harsh and unrealistic if Jesus was simply going to Jerusalem on a whim. However, he has “set his face” and is on a mission. It was in Jerusalem that he would conquer death on the cross, and save the world from sin. No wonder this is urgent, no wonder he was determined, and no wonder the man’s obligation to bury his father was simply too much to ask. In the context of this journey, bringing about a kingdom where death will have no sting, a funeral is of little importance! While one man was concerned with filling his father’s grave with soil, Jesus was concerned with opening every grave with the power of the cross! Jesus was determined to accomplish his self-sacrificial mission of universal consequence, and although he was willing to pick up disciple hitchhikers along the way, they were called to mimic his resolve, not to delay the mission with self-centred and particular conditions. By this he shows us, his disciples, just how determined we must be--since “No one who puts his hand to a plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Today, Jesus’ earthly journey to Jerusalem is long over. He arrived and conquered death, and his kingdom is ever growing. As he continues travelling towards the fulfillment of his kingdom, he still has the kindness to take on hitchhiker disciples like ourselves. Absurd as it may now seem, many of us still add conditions.

In the Christian life, as individuals and together, we will always wrestle with competing desires, torn between the flesh and the Spirit. In these times, we are taught to sacrifice our desire for control, and allow Christ to lead. The Samaritans had to sacrifice their quarrel with the Jews. The demanding hitchhiker disciples had to sacrifice the chance to say goodbye and bury the dead because there was an even greater and urgent task at hand.

If we truly desire to follow Christ as he passes by, we are called to sacrifice the things of the flesh that add conditions to discipleship. On this journey, we are called to submit ourselves fully to the leadership of our Lord, and to suppress desire for control, and our longing for the old way of life. Together as his disciples, let us set our faces towards a new way of life in the heavenly Jerusalem--and never look back.