This verse is one of Jesus’ hard sayings. What did Jesus mean when He said it? Was Jesus dishonoring the commandment of ‘honoring thy father and mother?’ Was He telling the one he called to follow Him, to just get up and leave his dead father without burying him? Did Jesus not value funerals? These were some of the questions that this writer would personally ask himself when reading this part of scripture in Luke’s gospel. To get a better understanding of this text, we will look at doing three things. Firstly, we will look at the cultural context in understanding Jewish burial in Jesus’ day. Secondly, we will delve deeper into the Biblical context in trying to understand this text. And thirdly, we will look at what lesson we can learn from this text for today. 

1.       Cultural context of Jewish burial in Jesus’ day:

The first question we need to answer is, what were the burial practices of Israel during Jesus’ day? When a person died the usual practice was to take the body on the same day of death to a burial place which was often a cave. In Jesus’ day, the burial would take place within hours of the death due to the hot climate quickening the decay of the body (a). Before they take the deceased body to its resting place, they would first prepare the body for burial. This would involve washing and embalming (b). For example, we read in John 19:38-42 where Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus would take the body of Jesus, anoint it with aloe and myrrh then wrap His body in linen cloth with the spices according to Jewish burial customs.

After a year, family members would then take the bones of the deceased person and place them in an ossuary box. An ossuary box is a box where the final resting place of the deceased bones would be placed. They would then take the ossuary box and place it into a family tomb (c). This part of the Jewish burial custom was also known as the second burial because it placed the deceased remains in its final resting place.

1.       Understand the biblical context (Luke 9:57-60)

Now that we have a bit of an understanding of the cultural context of Jewish burial customs of Jesus day, let us now delve deeper into the Biblical context of this text. Before Jesus said this hard saying, He turned to a man on the road along their journey and He said, ‘follow me’ (Luke 9:59). When Jesus said this, it required an immediate response as this was His invitation for this man to become His disciple. We see, earlier in the gospel writings with the 12 disciples, when Jesus gave them the invite ‘follow me’, they immediately responded, and they followed Jesus that  very moment and day (Matt 4:18-19;21-22; Mat 9:9). This man in Luke 9 however procrastinated with his decision in becoming a disciple, asking Jesus to let him go bury His father first.

A few things to think about with this man’s response. If the man’s father had just died, he would not have been there on the road with Jesus. According to Jewish custom of that time, the man would have been busy burying his father that day. The other possibility was that this man’s father has not passed away yet and that he wanted to wait until his father died before deciding to follow Jesus. Another possibility was, this man’s father passed but he wanted to wait until the year had passed for him to complete the traditions of the Jewish burial of that time, where he would go and bury his father’s remains in his final resting place. It’s not clear whether this man’s father was still alive or dead. But the issue here was that this man was saying to Jesus that, he will follow him but just not today. Something else took priority over following Jesus. He didn’t see the urgency to follow Him.

Matthew 10:37a, Jesus says, ‘He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.’  Jesus isn’t saying that it’s wrong to love your father and mother. This would mean breaking the 5th commandment of honouring your father and mother. What Jesus is saying is, if your love for your parents is greater than obeying God’s Word and teachings, then that is wrong. You have got your order wrong. You are making an idol of your loved ones by loving them more then Jesus. The order is to love God first, then your neighbour. Loving parents come second to loving God.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:30-31)

Now back to Luke 9. When Jesus, replied to him, ‘let the dead bury their dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God’ (Luke 9:60) He meant the spiritually dead go bury the dead. Those who are spiritually dead do not know God. They do not know the voice of God or obey His word. They are too concerned with the things of this world and don’t care about the things of God. Those who belong to Jesus, will know His voice as a shepherd’s sheep would know the voice of their shepherd. What Jesus is also saying to this man is, make your decision today whether to follow Me or not.

1.       What can we learn from this today?

The man who Jesus made this comment to, was hesitant to follow Him. He was telling Jesus he had another duty to deal to first, and then he will follow Him. In reading this scripture, we don’t know whether this man becomes a disciple of Jesus or not. The bible is silent about what decision this man made. The choice to follow Jesus today and set his mind on heavenly things. Or go back to being spiritually dead and worry about the things of this world. To follow Jesus today, be forgiven of all his sins, past, present and future and the promise of eternal life. Or to die in his sins and to suffer eternal damnation for all eternity. Scripture says, ‘For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Romans 6:23). Jesus paid this heavy price for us through the shedding of His blood on that cross. If you haven’t made the decision to follow Jesus, we encourage you to do so today. By believing in His death, burial and resurrection we have an opportunity to be in right relationship with God. The Bible says in James 4:13-14, “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” Turn to Jesus today, repent of your sins, and trust in Him for your eternal salvation while you still have time. Don’t delay.

(a) Ancient Burial Practices (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

(b) 7 Funeral Rituals from Jesus’ Time that Still Exist Today – Funeral Basics

(c) HistoricalIndex

The Holy Bible – New King James Version