Weep Over Jerusalem
Luke 19:41-48
August 8, 2021 anno Domini
Jerusalem is God’s favorite city. That’s where God put Himself in the Old Testament – seated above the Cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant, in the Temple, on Mount Zion. Jerusalem was the City of God. The Kings of Judah lived in Jerusalem. David had his palace there. The prophets preached in Jerusalem and to Jerusalem. Jesus of Nazareth came there to save the world. It was there that He gave the New Testament of His Supper. It was in Jerusalem that He was arrested, tried, and convicted. Outside her walls He hung on the cross for your sin. It was into Jerusalem that the resurrected Christ came to show Himself alive to His disciples. Heaven is described as the New Jerusalem in Revelation.
In the first hymnal of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, every August 10, pastors were instructed to read the account of the destruction of Jerusalem to their congregations. Emperor Titus blockaded the city with hundreds of thousands of people inside. Then he breached the walls and on August 10, 70 AD his soldiers burned the temple. Jerusalem was no more. Between 150,000 and 600,000 died of starvation or by the sword of Rome. The account is gross and grizzly. It would never make the Sunday School curriculum. It didn’t make it into any of our English hymnals.[1]
Luke 19 records Jesus’ last trip into Jerusalem before Jerusalem destroys Him. He weeps over Jerusalem and prays for Jerusalem and from His prayer we learn from Jesus how to avoid our own destruction. We need to know the things that make for peace. We need to know the time of the Lord’s visitation and we need to hang on the words of Jesus.
Do you know what makes for peace? Jerusalem tried to make peace a hundred different ways with a hundred different gods and governments. Jerusalem’s kings tried to make peace with Egypt, Moab, Assryia, and Babylon. She tried to contemporize her worship by including a little Baal and Ashterah. She tried to get along by going along. But the Lord never asked Jerusalem to get along or to go along. He asked for her love, her undivided love, but as we heard last week, she was already fooling around during her wedding vows at Mount Sinai.
Instead of depending continually on God’s love and trusting His promises, she began to believe she was lovely. She started believing in herself. She thought she was so important God would not let anything happen to her. She believed in Jerusalem instead of Jesus. Instead of receiving what God gave her, she sought what she wanted – fun gods, powerful kings, comfort and convenience. When God sent his groomsmen – His prophets, to call her back, she imprisoned them and stoned them. When Jesus came along, she killed Him, because He upset her lovers, the Pharisees, the money changers, the men in power. Jesus was neither comfortable nor nice. He called her once again to return to her first love, but she would not. He loved her to death, but she would not have Him.
Here is lesson number one for us. We must not presume God’s love. Church is not about you. It is about God for you in the person of His son. He loves us in His way, not our way. We dare not think Redeemer or the Missouri Synod is so great the Lord couldn’t get along without us. Do not assume you’re so valuable to God that you can ignore His Word, be lax in your love, or get in bed with sin and He won’t mind. Do not seek a convenient or comfortable life from God. He loves you too much to keep quiet just so you can have peace and quiet.
Do you know what makes for peace? Jesus. Only Jesus. No substitutes. No mixing. No blending. No dividing. Full strength, 200 proof, straight up, neat Jesus. Jesus dead on the cross. Jesus buried in the tomb. Jesus risen on the third day. All of Jesus is for you, because you have nothing without Him. By nature you hated him. You were born His enemy and wanted nothing to do with him. But He loved you. He died for your sins. He didn’t wait for you to come around, He came to you and for you. By His love He changed you from enemy to friend, from sinner to saint, from orphan to child of God through the forgiveness of your sins. Peace begins with the blood of Christ being shed on the cross and washing over you in your baptism. You are loved by God when you should have been hated. You are forgiven by God when you should be damned. You are blessed and enriched by God when you should have been stripped naked and abandoned. You, like Jerusalem are the beloved of the Lord, not because you are lovely, but because He loves you.
Jerusalem presumed on that love and thought only of herself. Jerusalem existed only for Jerusalem. She was all about self-preservation, because she forgot the Lord and His promises and His purposes. But God never intended Jerusalem to be about Jerusalem. Jerusalem was about Jesus, and not just Jesus for Jerusalem, but Jesus for the world. Jerusalem was to receive the love of God and then in that love, by that love, bring Jesus to the world. Jerusalem was the Queen city, the bride of the Lord. Her purpose was to give birth to children of God, but she didn’t want any children. She didn’t want to love others. She didn’t want to serve, but to be served. She was all about herself. And she is no more.
Jerusalem loved Jerusalem and trusted in Jerusalem and lived for Jerusalem. She would not receive the love of God. She did not trust His promises in the midst of her troubles. She refused to live for others. And now she is no more. Are we like Jerusalem? Do we ever put our faith in the Missouri Synod or Redeemer instead of Jesus? Are we more concerned about our congregation surviving than our confession of Jesus? Do you receive God’s love in His way, or do you seek a comfortable God and a convenient faith? That’s what Jerusalem sought and she is no more.
You should seek Jesus and His truth. Your church should make you uncomfortable about your sins, amazed at God’s forgiveness, and should direct you outside of yourself toward your husband or wife, your children or parents, those who are near to you – your neighbors. The Church isn’t about you. It’s about Christ for you and Christ in you for those nearest to you.
Jesus visited Jerusalem to love her and through her to love the world. Jesus visits here to love you and through you to love the world. The time of His visitation is 9 am on Sunday mornings, at 2719 3rd Street North. When Jesus visits He brings what is His and what is His is what you need. You need forgiveness for your hatred at your neighbor. You need life when your doctor says you’re dying. You need the joy and future of the resurrection. Jesus always brings a better day for you because He brings the everlasting day. Jesus always makes your week better because He forgives you for last week and gives you the courage and hope to face next week. Don’t put your faith in Redeemer or the Missouri Synod. God isn’t going to ask for your membership card. He’ll know if you were there when Jesus visited.
The text ends “All the people were hanging on Jesus’ words.” Jerusalem wasn’t saved, but some of her children were. Those words should be on in your obituary or on your gravestone. Dad hung on Jesus’ Word. She hung on every word of Jesus. That’s a far better epitaph then he loved the Vikings or she never missed bingo. There’s no better place to hang than on the Words of Jesus, even if the world hangs you for it. Jesus’ forgiveness makes for peace. His visitation makes for life and hope. Jesus is God’s love for you and in you for others. Hang on His every Word. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
[1] (https://backtoluther.blogspot.com/2019/10/horrific-jewish-history-reformation-502.html)