He Set His Face Toward Jerusalem

The Road to the Cross: A Lenten Journey of Surrender and Hope | Day 28

“As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” — Luke 9:51 (NIV)

Good morning, beloved in Christ! Something shifts in the air as we move deeper into this Lenten season. The weeks behind us have taken us through honest self-examination, through the rhythms of daily Christian living, and through the beauty of the community God has given us for the journey. Now, together, we turn our faces toward Jerusalem. The shadow of the cross falls longer across the road. And we discover, perhaps with some surprise, that Jesus walked this road not reluctantly, not with dread, but with a settled and resolute love that nothing could turn aside.

Luke 9:51 is one of the most quietly powerful verses in all the Gospels: “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” The word translated “resolutely” carries the weight of the original Greek, which speaks literally of Jesus setting His face, a Hebrew idiom for fierce, unwavering determination. He was not drifting toward the cross. He was not being carried there against His will. He turned toward it with everything in Him, fully aware of what awaited, and He went.

This moment in Luke marks a decisive turning point in the Gospel narrative. Everything that follows, the final teachings, the triumphal entry, the Last Supper, the garden, the trial, the crucifixion, flows from this single act of holy resolve. Jesus knew the cost with perfect clarity. He had told His disciples plainly: “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again” (Luke 18:31–33, NIV). He laid it out without softening a single detail. And then He went anyway.

Why He Went

The reason Jesus set His face toward Jerusalem is the reason we gather each morning in this season: love. Not a sentimental, comfortable love, but the fierce, self-giving, world-redeeming love of God poured out for people who could not save themselves. Isaiah had written of the Servant who would come centuries before it happened: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain... Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering... he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:3–5, NIV). Every step Jesus took toward Jerusalem was a step taken for us, in our place, on our behalf.

The cross was not an accident of history. It was not the tragic end of a promising ministry cut short. It was the destination toward which all of Scripture had been pointing since the first promise of redemption spoken in the garden. When Jesus set His face toward Jerusalem, He was fulfilling the plan of a God whose love had never wavered, whose mercy had never run dry, and whose purpose for broken humanity had never been abandoned. As Peter would later write: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18, NIV). That phrase, “to bring you to God,” is the heartbeat of the entire journey.

What It Means to Follow Him There

Jesus did not walk to Jerusalem alone. He called His disciples to follow, and He calls us still. But He was always honest about what following Him requires. In Luke 9:23 (NIV), just verses before He sets His face toward Jerusalem, He says: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” The cross He calls us to carry is not the same cross He bore for our sins. That cross was His alone, and the work accomplished there is finished and complete. But there is a cross of daily surrender, daily dying to self, daily choosing the kingdom of God over the kingdoms of this world, that belongs to every follower of Christ.

As Holy Week draws nearer with each passing day of this Lenten season, we are invited to slow down and pay attention. Not to rush past the suffering toward the resurrection, as though Good Friday were merely an obstacle between Palm Sunday and Easter morning. The road to the empty tomb runs directly through the cross, and there is no shortcut. Jesus did not take one. He walked every step.

There is something both sobering and strangely comforting in the image of Jesus setting His face toward Jerusalem. Sobering, because it confronts us with the full weight of what our sin required. Comforting, because it tells us that His love for us was stronger than His knowledge of the cost. He saw everything that was coming, every detail of the suffering ahead, and He went. For us. That kind of love does not leave us unchanged.

As we walk these final days of Lent together, let us walk them with our eyes open. Let us see Jesus Christ not only as the risen Lord of Easter morning, glorious and triumphant, but also as the One who walked with resolute love through the shadow of death so that we would never have to face that darkness alone. The road to the cross is the road of His love made visible. And because He walked it, we walk in hope.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, as this Lenten journey moves toward its deepest and most sacred days, I ask that You quiet my heart and help me pay attention. I confess that I am often too quick to move past the weight of what Christ endured, reaching for the joy of resurrection without pausing long enough to stand in the shadow of the cross. Forgive me for the times I have treated the suffering of Jesus as a theological detail rather than as the most profound act of love ever performed. Help me to receive it fully, to let it do its work in me.

Lord, as Jesus set His face toward Jerusalem with unwavering resolve, set my face toward You with that same kind of whole-hearted commitment. I want to follow Him not only into the celebration of Easter morning but into the honest, costly, daily surrender that discipleship requires. Thank You that He did not walk this road for people who had earned it, but for people who desperately needed it. That includes me. Strengthen my faith in these coming days, and let the love that carried Jesus to the cross be the love that carries me through everything I face. In His holy name I pray, Amen.

The road ahead in these final days of this Lenten journey is sacred ground. Walk it slowly. Walk it prayerfully. And walk it knowing that the One who set His face toward Jerusalem did so with your name already on His heart, your sin already counted, and your redemption already decided. You are deeply and permanently loved.

To God be the glory.

Pray, praise, and give thanks, for God is good and His mercy endures forever.

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