When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem. St. Luke uses geography to illustrate the plan of God. Jerusalem is the locus of salvation, the place where the salvific death and glorious resurrection of Jesus took place. Here at the mid-point of his gospel Luke depicts Jesus as “resolutely determined to journey to” (the Greek is more graphic “turned his face toward”) Jerusalem, to put into motion the events which would lead to our salvation. In the Acts of the Apostles Luke then shows how salvation ripples out from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. The lesson for us: the plan of God doesn’t just happen. We must turn our face toward a life of compassion, forgiveness, generosity. There will be opposition and difficulty in trying to keep our resolve but, like Jesus, we must keep on the journey with our eyes on the prize.
