Opening Prayer
God, make us partakers of the heavenly kingdom of Your grace and love. Amen.
Text: Luke 19:41-48
Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Then He went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house is a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.'” And He was teaching daily in the temple. But the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people sought to destroy Him, and were unable to do anything; for all the people were very attentive to hear Him.
Devotion
What the Lord foretold about Jerusalem has been fulfilled in every detail. Because the people of Israel “did not know the time of their visitation,” but crucified God’s Son who was to save them, the judgment of wrath had to come and the condemnation fell on them as an armed man. For God is just and punishes all who despise His grace, without regard for persons. Jerusalem and the unbelieving Jews should be a powerful warning to us, for they show with the striking illustration of the truth that God is not mocked, but that each and every person reaps as he sows. See from the judgment on Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jewish people to this day that God’s Word is true and that His righteous wrath surely and harshly falls on the obstinate.
But chiefly our Gospel shows that the Lord’s heart is full of zealous mercy toward His people, and this again in two respects should serve to edify us.
1) He does not want sinners to perish and die; there is something in His heart that revolts against this, that cries out with a loud voice over all the earth and into the souls of every prodigal son: “Repent! I beg you with earnest heart, with My tears and My blood! Repent, and live!” Jesus weeps over the obstinate city and speaks these words of His indescribable pain: “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace!” These words irrefutably show us that judgment on the impenitent is unavoidably necessary for righteousness, but they also show just as clearly, if not more clearly, that God does everything for our salvation, so a sinner’s death is completely his own fault. These tears and these painful sighs assure us that Jesus has the most fervent desire toward sinners. If only Jerusalem, bloodied and torn apart by Satan, would hear the Lord’s call and seek mercy at His feet! He would lay it on His heart, cleanse it with His tears and His blood, and carry it in to the Father, and what rejoicing there would be in heaven! – And the Lord still is the same: He has the same tender heart for you and me and everyone.
2) Jesus’ friends must grieve with Him over the misfortune of the Jewish people. Jesus wept over them, and Paul wished to be accursed from Christ, if they could be saved in that way. Shouldn’t we feel pain over their misfortune? Should we see the need of the Daughter of Zion and be silent? Shouldn’t our eyes overflow for the deep humiliation and tribulation of the people chosen by God? The children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the people from whom Christ came, He who is God, greatly praised to eternity—these people are His worst enemies and condemn the glorious One who was to be their blessing and to make them a blessing for all the earth. And instead of the heavenly heritage as the sweetest son: love and eternal life, they chose mammon and earthly wisdom, and sold themselves to what is not God. The joy of their heart is ended, their dancing is changed into sorrow; their crown has fallen off; their heart is weak, their eyes darkened; Mount Zion is laid waste, the fox runs there. But Lord, will You always reject Your people? Is there no more hope for them? There is still hope for them, and we will not let it go, we will weep and pray day and night for Israel.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, send us Your tears for Your own people. Amen.
Hymn
O how blind in darkness heightened,
Wretched Israel, how you are!
Deeply troubled, even frightened
Are all those who have a heart;
Hard to watch, painful to know
Our Lord Jesus’ deepest woe,
Crown of thorns and harsh reviling
Brings about our reconciling.
But those days of pain and sadness,
Bondage, now have seen an end;
Grant, Lord, that with truest gladness
They receive You as a Friend!
Keep Your cov’nant from of old,
Come with mighty Spirit bold,
Make of Salem’s stony vengeance
Magdalene’s sincere repentance.
Though your sins are red as scarlet,
Cup of sin is more than full,
Though your stains are red as crimson,
You can make them white as wool.
O my Savior and my God,
Seek the souls that You have bought,
Your lost sheep again retrieving,
Heav’n’s eternal thanks receiving.
Landstad: Brødre! Vender eders Blikke L 504:2-4 tr. DeGarmeaux;
tune: Over Kedron (ELH 295); alternate hymn: Zion mourns in fear and anguish ELH 550:1.3.4