For the first time in this Gospel, the mission belongs to someone other than Jesus. 1"he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases." It is the authority he himself has been exercising since the wilderness, now handed outward to twelve ordinary men, fishermen, a former tax collector, and a Zealot. He sends them out 2"to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal."
The instructions are almost startling in their bareness. 3"Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics." Every ordinary form of self-protection is stripped away on purpose, leaving them dependent on the hospitality of whatever house receives them and, underneath that, on the God who sent them. 4"whatever house you enter, stay there," settling for the first hospitality offered instead of searching for something more comfortable. If a town refuses them, they are to shake the dust from their feet as a testimony against it and move on, without lingering to argue for a hearing that has already been declined.
They go, and the result is immediate. 6"they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere." The power that healed a leper, calmed a storm, and cast Legion out of a tormented man now works through twelve sets of ordinary hands, in Jesus' physical absence, as effectively as through his own.
The scene then cuts to someone watching from a distance, unsettled by what he hears. 7"Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening, and he was perplexed." The reports do not fit any category he can dismiss. Some say John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. Others say Elijah has appeared, and others that one of the prophets of old has risen. Herod's own response shows what is troubling him. 9"John I beheaded, but who is this about whom I hear such things?" It is the sound of a guilty conscience circling back on itself, a man who ordered a prophet's death now facing rumors that death may not have been the end.
9"he sought to see him." On the surface it sounds almost like faith, or at least like interest. But everything Luke has shown us of Herod suggests anxiety, a man who cannot rest until he has confirmed whether the prophet he silenced has found his way back to trouble him. Herod's question, "who is this," is the question the rest of the chapter exists to answer, through the feeding of five thousand, the mountain of transfiguration, and Peter's confession still to come. The Twelve will reach an answer because they are given a front-row seat. Herod never will. When he finally meets Jesus near the end of this Gospel, he is glad, because he has long wanted to see some sign done by him (Luke 23:8), and the meeting brings him none of the resolution he seems to want here.
Two responses to the same reports sit side by side in one short passage. Twelve ordinary men receive authority and go out with nothing, trusting God for every meal and roof, and the kingdom advances through their obedience. One powerful man hears the same news secondhand and grows only more anxious, more curious, and more unsettled, without being willing to give up anything in response.
Which are you today, the one traveling light or the one merely wondering?
Prayer
Father, thank you for entrusting authority to ordinary hands, unprotected by anything except your provision. Teach us the dependence the Twelve carried out with them, willing to travel light because you have promised to be enough. Where our conscience, like Herod's, has grown uneasy at rumors of you in place of glad, meet us honestly, and give us courage to seek you out of desire to see you as you are. In Jesus' name, amen.