Sunday, March 17, 2019

Sermon - Luke 13:31-35 - Lent 2


Luke 13:31-35
“O, Jerusalem”

In 2007 I had the opportunity to visit the Holy Land.  It was a typical sight-seeing trip geared toward Christian pilgrims.  We saw all the usual sites, many of them churches.  One of the sites we stopped at was a church named “Dominus Flevit”, in Latin, “The Lord Wept”.  It was founded in the mid 1950s by the Roman Catholics to mark the location, half-way down the Mount of Olives, where Jesus stopped as he was approaching Jerusalem, the place where he wept over the city that would ultimately reject him.  It is one of the few churches that faces West instead of East, the same direction Jesus faced.  It is shaped like a teardrop, to symbolize Christ’s weeping.  And it also has, prominently featured, a beautiful mosaic of a hen gathering up her chicks, echoing these words of Jesus in our Gospel reading for today. 

It’s a powerful image, a mother hen, brooding over her chicks.  Gathering them up to lead and protect them from harm.  Of all the images that God uses to describe himself – husband, father, king – here is one that is actually a feminine picture.  It speaks of the deep and compassionate love that Jesus has for people, and for this capital of his own nation, his earthly tribe.

It’s all the more powerful, knowing the slaughter that was to come, as Jesus surely did.  Throughout the Gospels he predicts the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem that would come to pass in 70 AD under the Romans.  They finally tired of Jewish rebellions and destroyed the Holy City, even its temple.  Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells the history of those days, describes the horrors, as the Romans laid siege, and built a hill of dirt surrounding the city – and ringed the entire city with crosses.  No wonder Jesus weeps.  No wonder he describes these events and weaves it all in with his description of the end of the world.  For those ancient people, it must have seemed very much like the end of the world.

But the judgment poured out on Jerusalem is just a shadow of the final judgment that is coming to this corrupt world, and to all those who reject their savior.  This is not what Jesus wants.  He weeps over those who have gone astray, who have given up the truth for a lie, and have gone after false gods. 
What a great text this is for the season of Lent!  Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, and so are we.  We are setting our face toward the cross, toward our annual observance of his suffering and death and resurrection – all to take place at Jerusalem.

And as we look toward Jerusalem in this penitential season, look also at the tender heart of Jesus, longing for the repentance and salvation of his people.  Look at his compassion.  He wills to gather them up and protect them, cover them from all harm, and keep them safe.  But he does this without force, without compulsion.  He says, “but you were not willing!”  No, we are not saved, nor do we come to faith of our own will.  But we can willfully reject the gifts he offers and brings.  Even repentance is a gift of God, brought about by the Spirit working in the word, and without any merit or worthiness in me.  But those who refuse to repent have to answer for that themselves.

So, repent!  Turn from your sins, again, even today, and find shelter under the wings of your Lord Jesus.  He will gather you up, keep you from death and devil and judgment.  And there, with Jesus, you can rest safe and secure.

And he laments, weeps, mourns for those who would turn away from him and from his salvation.  Not because his feelings are hurt.  But because he knows the judgment they face.  He’s much like Jeremiah, who shows up through no mere coincidence, in our Old Testament reading today.  Jeremiah is known as the “weeping prophet”, because he had the bitter calling to preach repentance to Jerusalem, a Jerusalem who would not repent.  A Jerusalem who would not hear.  And Jeremiah would live to see its destruction in 587 B.C., and himself be carried off to exile in Babylon.

Jesus also mentions that Jerusalem is the city that kills the prophets.  And while not every prophet is killed there, Jerusalem in this sense stands for the whole nation of Israel, and really, for all who oppose the Gospel.  Jesus elaborates in the parallel text to this from Matthew 23:

Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

The fate of a prophet, all too often, in Scripture, and in every day and age, is persecution, and often death.  Jesus even says in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12)

And if this is true for the prophets, it is certainly true for the Prophet of all Prophets, Jesus himself.  He knew his destination, and his destiny.  He knew the cup that he must drink.  He knew the betrayal was coming.  He knew his friends would abandon him.  He knew they’d let a murderer go instead of him, an innocent man.  He knew both Jews and Romans would conspire.  And he knew it would be a cross. 

Think of the parable of the wicked tenants, who mistreated servant after servant, until the master sent his own son, saying, “they will respect him”.  But the tenants murdered him.  The master then returned and destroyed them.  Yes, Jesus knew exactly what awaited him at Jerusalem.

And yet he weeps and laments, not for himself, but for Jerusalem.  For his people who would reject him, who send him to the cross.

The cross.  It is the center of gravity in all things for us Christians.  It is the chief aim and focus of Jesus’ earthly work.  It is the culmination of the Old Testament and the foundation stone of the New.  It is the fruition of the first promise, and the basis for all other promises God makes.  The Lamb of God is slain from the foundation of the world, and the people washed in his blood will sing his praises into eternity.  The cross, the death of the prophet of God in the city of God for the people of God. 

The Jews tried to shoo Jesus away from Jerusalem by threatening him with Herod.  “He’s out to get you Jesus!  Run away!”  But Jesus isn’t afraid of Herod or death.  Jesus is not deterred, and calls Herod a “fox”.  A sly and deceitful politician won’t stand in the way of this plain-speaking prophet with a mission. Death is precisely the thing.  And Jerusalem is the place.

And isn’t it interesting that Jesus has “three days” in his mind – he says, “I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.”  Certainly he means that his work of preaching and healing must precede his work of suffering and death.  But this talk of the third day seems an oblique reference to Easter, the resurrection of the third day – the necessary epilogue to his passion and death.  Jesus outfoxes his enemies on earth, and even the devil himself, by turning death into life – both for himself, and for all he gathers up.

If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for you – a prophet’s reward, a prophet’s death, and a resurrection that was both prophesied and fulfilled.  So, you, bear your own cross, whatever it may be.  Repent when you sin.  Remain faithful in all things.  Take comfort under his wings of protection.  His cross was not for nothing.  And it is your everything. 

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.  He who wept for you has died for you.  Repent and believe.  And take comfort under his wings. 


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