Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Daily Gospel Exegesis podcast. We're all about helping you

understand the gospel reading from today's Mass. So we're really doing a deep dive into

the text. What did it

mean in its original context? How can we understand the words that are used? What's Jesus up to in

this passage? So really doing a proper verse by verse analysis of the text. And at today's mass,

you'll hear this passage from Luke chapter 9 verses 51 to 56. As the time drew near for him to be taken

up to heaven, Jesus resolutely took the road for Jerusalem and sent messengers ahead of him.

These set out and they went into a Samaritan village to make preparations for him. But the people would not

receive him because he was making for Jerusalem. Seeing this, the disciples, James and John said,

Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to burn them up? But he turned and rebuked them,

and they went off to another village.

So that's our short passage today, a bit of an interesting one.

Let's start by thinking about the context.

So Jesus has been doing ministry in Galilee and he's been teaching his disciples about

important matters, a whole series of different things, before setting out for Jerusalem.

And now we get to a very significant verse in Luke's Gospel, which marks quite a big transition.

So verse 51, as the time drew near for him to be taken up to heaven.

Now, what it actually says there, the word heaven is not in the original.

All it says is, when the

days drew near for him to be received up. Now, we probably think of the ascension when we hear that,

as in Jesus ascending to heaven, and that's certainly in view, but it seems that the way Luke

uses this term to be received up would include Jesus' passion, death, resurrection, and ascension. So Jesus

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