Week 38 Luke
It would have been front-page news: Governor Sanctions Murder of Galilean Pilgrims.
People in the crowd reported the story to the Lord.
The Lord could have gone on a Pilate-is-a-homicidal-tyrant rant but he just asked the crowd: do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than other people from Galilee?
It was a good question. It’s a pretty safe bet the Lord asked that exact question because that’s exactly what people did think – if some guy dies violently and prematurely he was likely a bad person.
But the Lord’s his own answer to his own question was: not at all!
That really gave people something to think about because thinking that bad-things-happen-to-bad-people was a pretty good and satisfying try-to-make-sense formula.
But the bigger surprise was that that wasn’t even the Lord’s point. Right away he said: you will also perish unless you turn from your evil ways and turn to God (he repeated this two verses later: I tell you again that unless you repent, you also will perish).
So the Lord seemed like he wanted to make a distinction between dying – which no one can avoid – and perishing – which people can avoid.
Conditional on if they repent and turn to God.
Which if it’s true seems like a key thing to keep in mind when it comes to personal post-mortem planning.
Note: quotes from Luke 13:2, 3 & 5 (NLT)