A sermon on Luke 19:41-48 for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity. Delivered by Pastor Caleb Strutz.
People can cry for any number of seemingly contradictory reasons. Usually we associate crying with being sad but that’s not necessarily the case. People can cry tears of joy, you might cry when you’re really passionate about something, you can cry when you’re angry, or even when you just have something in your eye. Tears usually communicate some form of emotion but which emotion exactly can be more difficult to pin down.
In Scripture, it is recorded that our Lord wept on three occasions. Jesus wept at the death of His friend Lazarus (Jn 11:35). The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus offered tears with His prayers in Gethsemane (5:7). And He weeps here as He beholds the city of Jerusalem. As we ponder our Savior’s tears, we see what’s causing Him to cry. He weeps at the sight of the judgment that Jerusalem will receive, but these tears are not tears of anger, but they proceed from His deep love.
I. At the Sight of Judgment
This lesson seems a little out of place at this spot in the Trinity season. We’ve been covering Jesus’ teaching and growth in the Christian life and all of a sudden judgment and destruction. Well, the church has placed Jesus’ prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem on the tenth Sunday after Trinity because this Sunday usually falls, as it does this year, in the beginning of August, which is when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD.
There’s a Lutheran custom of reading Josephus’ account of the destruction of Jerusalem in connection with this Sunday. Josephus was a secular Jewish historian who defected to the Romans and witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem firsthand. His account matches Jesus’ prophecy so exactly that critics assume that this section of Scripture must have been added after the fact. Of course, that’s simply the nature of prophecy, especially when it comes from Jesus’ lips.
Now, we won’t be reading from Josephus’ account today. I briefly considered it when I heard about that custom but it’s really long and horrifically gruesome. The judgment that God would pass on Jerusalem was horrendous. And that’s what Jesus sees when He looks at this beloved city.
The point of God’s judgment against and the destruction of Jerusalem isn’t that God is mean or harsh or vindictive. No, when Jesus sees it, He weeps. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. But it was the path that they had chosen.
Jerusalem had every advantage. It was the Holy City, the place God had selected as the religious center of the world. Here was the temple, the focal point of God’s presence and the place where pleasing worship was offered to Him. God had sent prophet after prophet and now the Christ Himself to Jerusalem, but they “did not know the time of your visitation.” They did not know “the things that make for your peace.” No, they had rejected God at every turn and called down His judgment upon them.
The destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple is a monumental event. And in it we see a warning that extends to us today. Elsewhere in Scripture, the destruction of the temple is used as a preview of the end of the world (Mt 24, Mk 13, Lk 21). These prophecies can intertwine and sometimes can be difficult to separate because they are, in essence, a picture of the same thing. God’s judgment against His people and destruction they would face serves as a reminder to us of what is to come.
Jerusalem is also used in Scripture in a spiritual sense, referring not to the city but to God’s people as a whole. As those who have been grafted in to Israel, Jesus’ prophecy of destruction also cries out to us.
We have received every spiritual benefit as members of the church. We have received the grace of baptism, we hear pure preaching, we receive the Sacrament rightly administered. The deck is stacked in our favor. Do we know the time of our visitation? Do we know the things that make for peace? Or at times do we, like them, take it all for granted? Are we inattentive or careless at the preaching of Jesus?
We see what waits for those who reject Him. Destruction. Do we take that warning seriously? Or is it not that serious after all? Are we moved by the fate of those who do not have faith? Or will Jesus weep over us, too? Do we take God’s judgment lightly, give a pass on complacency in us or in others? God’s judgment is real. And terrible. And inevitable for those who reject Him. Christ’s tears show His sorrow over the destruction to come.
II. Proceeding from Love
As Jesus sees the future destruction of Jerusalem, He does not do so as an angry, righteous judge, but with weeping. Even in the midst of judgment, we see His great love for His people.
The first half of our text, the prophecy of judgment, takes place on Palm Sunday. Jesus is riding on a donkey from Bethpage to Jerusalem. He is travelling up and down the ridges of the Mount of Olives, glimpses of the city peeking in and out of view. He reaches the top of the ridge and the whole city bursts into view. The magnificent panorama of Jerusalem. Jesus weeps at the punishment this magnificent city is bringing upon itself.
Because what else does Jesus see at the top of this ridge? He sees Gethsemane, where He will weep again as wages battle with the prince of darkness and sheds the blood of His sweat. He sees Golgotha, the place of the skull, where He will be cast out of the city and slain as a sacrifice. He sees the tomb nearby, where His body will be laid, but will not remain. He sees this great city and all that He will do for it. He pronounces judgement not with anger but with a longing for repentance. Christ’s tears show His great love for us.
We have been saved from the destruction of God’s judgment. That judgement has been placed on Christ. We hide in His wounds to weather the storm. Those who stand outside of Christ must weather that themselves. But we have been united with Christ. We are safe under His protection. The destruction that we merit, the hell that we deserve, He has suffered on our behalf.
We are the true Jerusalem. Not the worldly Jerusalem who spurned their Savior and faced His judgment. We are the spiritual Jerusalem, the sons of Abraham who share his faith in the Messiah. We belong to the heavenly Jerusalem, the everlasting city bought with His blood and secure from all of its enemies. Christ’s tears show His desire for repentance and He rejoices when it is found.
As Christ pronounces judgement on Jerusalem, we see in the inverse the nature of true Jerusalem, the Church. The Church knows “the things that make for your peace.” We know and cling to Christ and His death and resurrection because by Him, we have peace with God. They are not hidden from us, but are in full view and the center of our attention.
Although enemies surround the Church militant in this world, they shall not triumph over us. The day will come when our enemies will be vanquished and defeated and the heavenly city will descend.
Although not one stone was left upon another of the earthly temple, we are as the apostle Peter says, “living stones… being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:5).
As we gather, we supersede the temple, for God “does not dwell in temples made with hands,” (Acts 17:24), but wherever two or three gather together in His name (Mt 18:20). Our worship is centered on Christ, whom the temple foreshadowed, the true locus of God’s presence with His people, present for us in His Word and on our altar. As a holy priesthood, we offer spiritual sacrifices, not the blood of goats and calves, but “a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart” (Ps 51:17). We see the judgment we deserve and repent of our sins. Let us listen to the voice of our Savior in His Word and see the love He shows for us.
As we see the tears of our Savior, we, too, are led to weep. We weep at the destruction to come and the judgment that those outside of Christ will face. Seeing this does not lead us to arrogance or pride but motivates us to rescue others from destruction. For our Savior’s tears show His great love, for He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). As those who have come to this knowledge by faith, we rejoice that our Savior shed for us His tears and His blood. And we long for that great city, the heavenly Jerusalem. Amen.
