10th Sunday after Trinity + Luke 19:41-48

Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

On Palm Sunday, as Jesus is riding to Jerusalem on the colt, the crowd of disciples shouts, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!' Peace in heaven and glory in the highest” (Luke 19:38). Some Pharisees beg Jesus to them to be quite. Their rejoicing is too much. But Christ responds by saying “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:40). Jesus has indeed come to bring peace in heaven, peace between man and the God man has offended with his sins. This is such a joyous occasion that even if the crowd of disciples to put their hands over their mouths, the creation itself would cry out in joy. Yet in the midst of such joy and the hope of peace which Jesus brings, as He draws near the city He weeps over it. He weeps in pity at the sight of the city of David because He knows full well that the inhabitants of that city will reject Him. Four days from now they’ll arrest him and on the next crucify Him. He weeps over the city because they don’t recognize that this is their day of salvation. They don’t see that Jesus comes to bring peace between God and man. They’d rather attempt to earn peace with God by their own works and striving and worthiness and the desire of self-righteousness clouds their eyes so that all the things Jesus brings to them are hidden from them.

He weeps in pity because He knows what will happen to this city and all its inhabitants. “For days will come upon 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.” Those words come true in the year 70 AD, almost forty years from the day Jesus spoke them. The Roman general Titus laid siege to Jerusalem for four months, from April to August that year, finally taking the city in a week long battle and then razing it, and the Temple of the Lord, to the ground. Most of the inhabitants were slaughtered, the remainder, enslaved, not simply out of Roman cruelty or sport but because the Jews had revolted against their rulers. This was more than Rome destroying a rebellious city though. The Romans were the tool of divine wrath, the sword in God’s hand which He used to execute judgment on the city that rejected, and killed, His only-begotten Son and then continued, for almost forty years, to reject the offer of peace with God His apostles preached. He had come to gather the children of Israel together but they were not willing.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem the first place He goes in the Temple, the very Temple that will in the next generation be laid waste. Then He does something curious. He drives out those who bought and sold in the Temple. I don’t know what they would have been buying but they would have been selling sacrificial animals to pilgrims there for the Passover celebration. There’s nothing wrong will selling animals for sacrifice but there is something wrong with doing it in the Temple itself. So Jesus drives them and He does it with Scripture on His lips. “It is written, ‘My house is a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.” He clears the Temple out to restore it to its proper, divinely-instituted purpose: the teaching of the Word of God and prayer. He cleans house so that He can spend the last days before His rejection and crucifixion teaching. Just like on the road to Jerusalem, there are those who seek to quiet Him, secretly seething in hatred against Him. But they were unable to do anything, “for all the people were very attentive to hear Him.” Even though the city will soon be destroyed, Jesus continues to teach about the peace He brings, so that, even though Jerusalem will be utterly destroyed, there might be a remnant who believe, and believing His word, flee Jerusalem and save themselves from the wrath to come.

The fall of Jerusalem is a warning for Christians, much like last week’s examples of the Israelites in the wilderness and the parable of the shrewd manager. The Jews of Jesus day didn’t recognize their day of salvation and the things that made for their peace. They were destroyed because they didn’t know the time of God’s gracious visitation. So it is for all men in every age. Many don’t recognize that today is their day for salvation. St. Paul tells the Corinthians, and all of us in 2 Corinthians 6:1-2, “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says: In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” So many people put off repenting of their sins because they imagine they can wait until the end of their life to sort things out with God. But we are only given today. God may require our souls tonight, nor has He promised us tomorrow. He has only given us today. The author of Hebrews writes “Exhort one another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). The Jews didn’t recognize that that day was the day of their salvation. Many today fail to recognize that God gives them today to repent and believe the things that make for their peace.

The Jews rejected God’s gracious visitation among them in the person of His only-begotten Son. Jesus’ entire first coming was characterized by grace and mercy. He called sinners to repentance and judged their wickedness so that they would see their need for mercy. He preached God’s mercy to them. He was merciful to those who repented of their sins by forgiving their sins and giving them peace with God. When people remain in their sin they have no peace with God, because God takes no pleasure in wickedness and unbelief. But when sinners repent and believe the Gospel that because of Christ they have a gracious God, God forgives their sins, justifies them, and acquits them of all their guilt. St. Paul says in Romans 5:1, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Too many people today are like the Jews of Jesus’ day. They want to make peace with God on their own and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. They want to do even the slightest work to earn peace with God. But peace with God can only be achieved by faith in Christ, by believing that God accepts Christ’s sacrifice for the sins of the world, and is therefore gracious to all who come to Him, trusting in His mercy. Others want only peace with themselves and try to placate their conscience as best they can, while ignoring the gracious visitation of Christ which still happens wherever His gospel is preached.

Christ’s first visitation was gracious and merciful. His second will not be so. On the Last Day Christ will come to judge the living and the dead. There will be no mercy on that day. For that day is not the day of salvation. That day is today as long as the day is called “today.” You, dear Christians, be on your guard against sin and unbelief, lest, like the Jews, you trust in yourselves or believe that God’s grace cannot be lost. Don’t neglect Christ’s gracious visitation that still happens through His Word and Sacrament which forgive the sins of all who believe. Let the weeping of Jesus and the punishment of the Jews remind you to daily lay hold of the things that make for your peace. Like those in the temple, be attentive to the Word of God, the gospel and the sacrament. Lay hold of these, and use them steadfastly each day to escape judgment and enter life everlasting.

May the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.