Introduction
If you could ask Jesus one question, and you knew He would answer, what would you ask Him, especially when pain hits close to home? Here is the central teaching I want you to carry into Luke 13: Jesus doesn’t explain away tragedy; He uses it to wake us up to repentance and to offer us real hope before death comes for us all.
As we continue our journey through the Gospel of Luke and step into Luke chapter 13, we notice a pattern: many of Jesus’ interactions begin with people bringing Him questions, disputes, and real-life confusion. That invites a personal “thought experiment” for you and me: what is the question of your heart right now? When I think back, my questions have changed over time. As a child, my questions were small and competitive, like wanting God Himself to settle whether the ping-pong ball was in or out. Then I grew and started asking bigger theology questions: How does salvation work? What about the age of the earth? Why is the world the way it is? But eventually, life brings nearly everyone to the “question behind the questions.” For many, it came into focus through major tragedies, moments like September 11th, when people found themselves asking, “God, where are You? What is Your purpose in this?” A survey even found that the number one question people want to ask God is: “Why is there pain and suffering in the world?”
Luke 13 meets us right there. Jesus is on His way to the cross, and the path is narrowing. He will not give us a shallow answer. He will disciple us into a worldview that can stand up in a broken world.
Main Points
If you could ask Jesus one question, and you knew He would answer, what would you ask Him, especially when pain hits close to home? Here is the central teaching I want you to carry into Luke 13: Jesus doesn’t explain away tragedy; He uses it to wake us up to repentance and to offer us real hope before death comes for us all.
As we continue our journey through the Gospel of Luke and step into Luke chapter 13, we notice a pattern: many of Jesus’ interactions begin with people bringing Him questions, disputes, and real-life confusion. That invites a personal “thought experiment” for you and me: what is the question of your heart right now?
When I think back, my questions have changed over time. As a child, my questions were small and competitive, like wanting God Himself to settle whether the ping-pong ball was in or out. Then I grew and started asking bigger theology questions: How does salvation work? What about the age of the earth? Why is the world the way it is?
But eventually, life brings nearly everyone to the “question behind the questions.” For many, it came into focus through major tragedies, moments like September 11th, when people found themselves asking, “God, where are You? What is Your purpose in this?” A survey even found that the number one question people want to ask God is: “Why is there pain and suffering in the world?”
Luke 13 meets us right there. Jesus is on His way to the cross, and the path is narrowing. He will not give us a shallow answer. He will disciple us into a worldview that can stand up in a broken world.
Tragedy Brings Questions to Jesus
Luke 13 opens with people bringing Jesus the “headline news” of their day:
“There was present at that season some who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” (Luke 13:1)
They essentially say, “Jesus, did You hear what happened?” It’s immediate, tragic, and disturbing. Pilate, an evil ruler, apparently slaughtered people in a place of worship. That category of suffering is familiar: evil people doing evil things.
And we know that category today too. We hear of shootings, violence, oppression, and cruelty, and our hearts cry out, “What is going on in our world?”
But Jesus doesn’t respond the way we might expect. He doesn’t begin with a public statement of sympathy, nor does He immediately condemn Pilate and outline a political strategy. Instead, He does something startling.
Jesus Ups the Ante With Another Headline
Jesus answers their report by bringing up another tragedy:
“Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them…” (Luke 13:4)
Now we have a second category of suffering: not evil men committing evil acts, but what looks like a “freak accident”, a tower collapses and people die.
That category also feels familiar: floods, fires, accidents, sudden loss, death that seems random and undeserved. Jesus is refusing to let us limit our theology of suffering to only one kind of tragedy. Whether suffering comes through human evil or through calamity, the question remains: where is God, and what does this mean?
And I need you to hear this with sobriety and love: at some point, tragedy will touch your life personally. Not only “out there” in the news. Something will land in your world and bring you to your knees. Jesus prepares us for that.
He told His disciples plainly:
“In the world you will have tribulation.” (John 16:33)
So I’m discipling you toward a realistic, biblical expectation: following Jesus is not a promise of uninterrupted prosperity until heaven. We need a theology that matches the world we actually live in.
Reject the “Worse Sinners” Explanation
Twice, Jesus challenges a common assumption:
“Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners… because they suffered such things? I tell you, no.” (Luke 13:2–3) “Do you think that they were worse sinners…? I tell you, no.” (Luke 13:4–5)
Jesus is dismantling the simplistic equation: bad things happen to bad people; good things happen to good people. He says, “Don’t go there.”
This matters because if you believe suffering is always a direct punishment for personal sin, then when your own suffering comes, diagnosis, loss, death, you’ll immediately spiral into, “God, what did I do to deserve this? Where did I mess up?”
Jesus also corrected this kind of thinking in John 9, when His disciples saw a man born blind and asked whose sin caused it:
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.” (John 9:3)
Now, I want to be clear: Jesus is not denying that sin has consequences in this life. If we walk in destructive paths, we often reap painful outcomes. But Jesus is teaching us not to treat every tragedy as a neat, personal “payment plan” for someone’s moral failure.
Reject Karma and Embrace Biblical Reality
Jesus’ words also confront a popular cultural instinct: karma. The idea that the universe reliably pays out good to good people and bad to bad people may feel comforting at first, but Jesus refuses it.
If you lean on karma, then when tragedy strikes you’ll either condemn the sufferer (“they must have deserved it”), or invent hopeless explanations (“maybe in a past life…”). Jesus offers something truer, and far more honest.
He insists the issue is not that they were worse sinners. The emphasis still lands on the word sinners.
Which leads us to the uncomfortable but necessary foundation: we live in a broken world because sin entered the world. We cannot navigate suffering without a theology of sin and the fall.
Scripture puts it plainly:
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“Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin…” (Romans 5:12)
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“The wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23)
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“It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27)
Death and tragedy are not part of God’s original good design, they are intrusions tied to humanity’s rebellion. That’s why we hate them. That’s why they feel wrong. They are wrong.
Tragedy Wakes Us Up to Mortality
Tragedy doesn’t make death “more real” in a statistical sense. It makes death more present to our minds and hearts. It wakes us up.
A helpful reflection (in the spirit of C.S. Lewis’ wartime writing) is that tragedy doesn’t increase death’s frequency, 100% of us die. The only question is which death: now or later.
So when towers fall and rulers murder, Jesus is not merely commenting on the news cycle. He is confronting us with reality: you will not live forever on this side of heaven, and you cannot afford to sleepwalk through life spiritually numb.
Repentance Is Jesus’ Purposeful Call
Here is Jesus’ repeated conclusion:
“Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:3, 5)
Jesus is not saying, “Repent so Pilate won’t get you,” or “Repent so towers won’t fall on you.” He is saying: if you do not get right with God, your death will be the ultimate tragedy, because you will perish without Him.
Tragedy becomes a mercy when it functions as a wake-up call: You are not in control. You are not guaranteed tomorrow. Turn to God now.
Paul describes our natural condition apart from Christ like this:
“You were dead in trespasses and sins… and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” (Ephesians 2:1–3)
There isn’t a “worse sinner class” that gets tragedy while everyone else is safe. There are sinners who remain spiritually dead, and there are sinners made alive in Christ. Jesus is pressing the question: Which are you?
And I’ll speak pastorally and plainly: I have seen that the most tragic funerals are not defined by how someone died, but by the state of their soul, by whether they died with hope in Christ or without Him.
I’ve stood in rooms where the best comfort people could muster was vague and imaginary, “Maybe he’s at some party somewhere in the universe.” That is not gospel hope. That is grief with nowhere to land.
And I’ve also witnessed something entirely different: the death of a young believer, still deeply painful, still filled with tears, yet surrounded by a steady, defiant hope because Jesus was trusted and confessed.
When someone dies with Christ, even if their age feels unbearably “too soon,” their death is not the end of their life. They can say with confidence: in the end, Jesus wins.
Conclusion
Luke 13 teaches me to stop trying to solve tragedy with shallow equations. Jesus refuses the idea that sufferers must be worse sinners. He refuses karma. He refuses spiritual sleepwalking.
Instead, He gives me the most loving warning: you will die, and you will stand before God, so repent and receive His mercy now. Tragedies, both evil acts and sudden disasters, are not just stories to discuss; they are alarms that call me to face eternity honestly.
So I want you to hear Jesus’ words as an invitation, not merely a threat: turn to Him. Repent. Come out of death into life. The world is broken, but the gospel is real. And Jesus is walking toward the cross to save sinners like us.
Lord Jesus, You see the pain, evil, and loss in our world, and You are not indifferent to it. Teach me not to harden my heart or to explain away suffering with false comfort. Give me a clear view of my sin and my need for You. Lead me to repentance that is real and lasting, and give me faith to trust Your goodness even when life hurts. Prepare me to face death with hope, and help me live today awake, humble, and ready to meet You. Thank You for going to the cross for sinners like me. Amen.
Conclusion
Luke 13 teaches me to stop trying to solve tragedy with shallow equations. Jesus refuses the idea that sufferers must be worse sinners. He refuses karma. He refuses spiritual sleepwalking.
Instead, He gives me the most loving warning: you will die, and you will stand before God, so repent and receive His mercy now. Tragedies, both evil acts and sudden disasters, are not just stories to discuss; they are alarms that call me to face eternity honestly.
So I want you to hear Jesus’ words as an invitation, not merely a threat: turn to Him. Repent. Come out of death into life. The world is broken, but the gospel is real. And Jesus is walking toward the cross to save sinners like us.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, You see the pain, evil, and loss in our world, and You are not indifferent to it. Teach me not to harden my heart or to explain away suffering with false comfort. Give me a clear view of my sin and my need for You. Lead me to repentance that is real and lasting, and give me faith to trust Your goodness even when life hurts. Prepare me to face death with hope, and help me live today awake, humble, and ready to meet You. Thank You for going to the cross for sinners like me. Amen.