In 1900, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton placed an advertisement in London newspapers in an effort to recruit men for an ill-fated expedition to reach the South Pole. The advertisement read:

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.

And the response was overwhelming. Shackleton would later say that “it seemed as though all the men in Great Britain were determined to accompany me.”

Harrowing journeys can be quite appealing to people if the right rewards are made available. In Shackleton’s case, he only had to say the word glory, and the perilous adventure became the journey of a lifetime. 

But if the men were told that they would become human popsicles and be scorned for their stupidity (as was the case for some of them), then perhaps they would have been less willing to set sail on a ship set for freezing temperatures. Glory, fame and success are seductive sirens, aren’t they? But if you were told you would be rejected, that you would be mocked and jeered, would you take those steps forward? Would you accept the call to press on?

Luke 9 says that Jesus “sets his face to go to Jerusalem.” The purpose for this journey is not made immediately clear, but we know. Jesus is going to Jerusalem to die. Jesus is going to Jerusalem to die and to be rejected.

By the time we reach chapter 13, the journey has been pretty amazing. Already he has fed the five thousand, conversed with Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, healed an epileptic, cast out demons, told off the Pharisees and healed a paralytic. That’s in addition to the myriad of jaw-dropping parables. 

Apparently he had been causing quite a stir and winning some popular friends, because in verse 31 we read that the Pharisees – people who weren’t exactly friendly to the cause of Jesus – actually took it upon themselves to warn Jesus that Herod was looking to assassinate him. And Jesus’ response was kind of “Dirty Harry”-like, don’t you think?

“You tell that fox (Ooh! Resorting to a little name-calling, are we, Jesus?) that I’m going to be done when I’m going to be done. I’m casting out demons and performing cures right now, and I’ll leave when I’m good and ready. But don’t worry about trying to kill me, because it’s impossible to be in Jerusalem as a prophet (which I am) and escape with your life (so go ahead and ‘make my day.’).” 

Okay, he didn’t say that last part, but my paraphrase isn’t too far off. Jesus’ tone is quite aggressive, full of machismo that isn’t normally present in our gentle caricatures of him. He is terse, he is antagonistic, he has attitude. If you didn’t know how serious he was about getting to Jerusalem before, you know it now. And there’s part of me that likes Jesus this way. I like a determined Savior who will shake his fist at earthly monarchs and call him names. Yea, Jesus! You tell him! Go get him!

I feel kind of like the residents of Camano Island off the coast of northwest Washington state, many of whom have been cheering for a 6-foot 5-inch kleptomaniac. His name is Colton Harris-Moore, and already he has got over 8,000 members of his Facebook fan club. He’s 18 years old, good-looking, and is becoming quite brazen in his criminal activity. He steals primarily from the rich, taking joyrides on speedboats and even small planes. 

Recently, after stealing a rifle from a deputy’s car, the police raided his mother’s trailer home. He escaped and left a note which read:

“Cops wanna play, huh!? Well, it’s no li’l game. … It’s war?! And tell them that!”

Notes like these add fuel to the rising popularity of this fugitive who does his stealing in bare feet. We love guys like these: brazen underdogs who subvert the system, “sticking it to the man” in order to accomplish their mission. These Huckleberry Finn, Robin Hood, John Dillinger, Billy the Kid-type characters – that’s the fabric of America. And it’s probably why I love reading Jesus’ response to a villainous King Herod. That’s the kind of hero I want to be!

But then Jesus’ tone changes. … Gone are the bravado and Dirty Harry defiance, and in its place is a moan, a lament with deep emotion. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” he says like a jilted lover, “how I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings … but you are not willing.”

Jesus’ lament reminds me of a time when my son was about a year old, and he was so curious about our cat, wanting so badly to touch her and pull her tail. But each time he reached out to touch or grab her fur, he was repelled by a swat from the cat’s paw. Danny would whine and whimper and reach out again … whack! Whine, whimper, reach out. … Whack! Whine, whimper, reach out. … Whack! Plaintive cry. … “Why won’t you let me love you?” Danny seemed to be saying.

Jesus has set his sights on a people who will not have him – who would not let him love them. He reaches out for those who will eventually whack him. He has set his GPS to follow the coordinates for an address that means nothing but heartbreak. He’s determined to get there. This is the will of God, to follow a path that leads to rejection.

The will of God is a curious and confusing thing. We spend a great deal of time worrying about it. In fact, for many of us, when we pray to God, this is precisely what we are searching for … the will and desire of God. What college should we choose? What course of medical treatment should we pursue? What career path should we choose? What major purchases should we make? Where should we move? 

And the way we determine which way we should go, the way we decipher God’s will for our lives, is whether or not God “opens a door.” “God,” we pray, “if you want us to do this, we pray that you would open a door and make it possible for us to do so. God, we just pray for clarity. That your will would be made crystal-clear to us. Amen.” 

Open doors become a type of confirmation that we made the right decisions in the past. We say things like, “Looking back, we see God’s will clearly because God just opened so many doors.” 

But, I wonder, are “open doors” really the best way to determine the will of God? 

I’m not saying that God doesn’t weigh in on tough decisions, or that God doesn’t care about what we do or don’t do. But I am saying that success isn’t always the best litmus test for figuring out God’s will. 

In the winter of 1998, I was struggling to decide which seminary to attend. At the time I was working as a youth pastor in Illinois, and I had two options before me: stay close to home or move thousands of miles away to attend Fuller Seminary. And I remember my pastor taking me aside one day and asking me where I was going to seminary. I told him I wasn’t sure, and he said again, “Tell me where you’re going to go to seminary.” I repeated, “I don’t know.” 

And this time he said, “DJ, God can’t move a parked car. All you can do is turn on the turn signal and begin moving in a direction. If God doesn’t want you to go, he’ll stop you. Something will be there that will keep you from moving.”

Now, looking back, I appreciate what my pastor told me at the time. Because of those words I made a decision that completely changed the course of my life. I would not be the person I am today if I had stayed closer to home, and I probably wouldn’t have ended up in Texas, either. 

But the problem with my pastor’s guidance was that it sought to solve the puzzling, mysterious will of God through finding clues in “open doors.” “Open doors equal go ahead.” “Closed doors equal don’t go.” And if we’re not careful, this fixation on open doors can morph into a theology which claims that God’s work can best be seen through success.   

Jesus’ behavior here in this account shows us that sometimes closed doors, not open doors, are the best indicators for God’s will. A paranoid monarch stands in his way, making him a wanted criminal rather than an invited guest, but Jesus presses on. A city looms before him, promising death, not a happy retirement or a prosperous ministry, and Jesus presses on. 

Jesus may dramatically and suddenly shift from defiance to sorrow, but he is consistent in his determination move past the closed doors and make his way to Jerusalem. He doesn’t look for an open door; he breaks through several closed ones. He doesn’t perceive the easiest route; he chooses the most difficult one. He doesn’t select the path that promises the most personal success and comfort; he looks for a way that promises rejection.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t seek the best or wisest decisions, nor does it mean that we should be reckless or cavalier, tempting disaster and pain. In fact, in the Gospels we read that at times Jesus kept his distance from volatile situations and was very careful about who knew his identity as messiah. 

But what I am saying is that rejection, pain and difficulty are not clear markers of God’s “no.” In fact, rejection may be precisely what God is calling us to. Sometimes the will of God isn’t a straight and open road; sometimes the will of God is the way of the cross: one which promises challenges, difficulty and pain and the rejection from the ones who had supported you. 

In the second installment of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, we follow the journey of two unlikely heroes, Frodo and Sam.  They have been burdened with an excruciating task and have been enduring a perilous and nearly impossible journey to destroy a ring of great power in the volcanic center of Mt. Doom. 

At one point the two begin to face the reality that their mission may very well be hopeless and that they won’t live to see their homes. But indomitable Sam remembers those “great stories, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger. And sometimes,” Sam says,

… you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

That something was hope. This journey may lead to rejection and through rejection, but there is hope that rejection was one destination, but not the final destination. 

And Christ accepted the call to set out toward rejection. And as he did this, he depicted the story of Scripture and the posture of God who will do anything to restore Creation. He reflects the God who longs for his people and moves toward them with steely determination, even if that meant a cross of rejection, reminding us that God’s will sometimes is found not through open doors appealing to our longing for tangible success, but behind closed ones that point to the cross.