And when Jesus drew near and saw the city [of Jerusalem], He wept over it, saying “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” (Luke 19:42)
Let us pray: “Lord Jesus, we give you thanks that You have not hidden from our eyes what makes for our peace. We too often have ignored Your Word and love, but You have not withdrawn from us Your Word and love. Send Your Holy Spirit to enlighten us again so that we might know once again peace with You and peace with each other. Amen.”
What do you see when you look through the eyes of Jesus?
Today, we especially consider that we see an amazing thing from the Son of God! Tears! Jesus is weeping.
The word eklausen indicates this not simply watery eyes.
This is crying out loud! Weeping!
It is the word that used of a mother who was a widow and just lost her only son. Weeping because of death. Jesus will weep at Lazarus’ death.
It is the word that is used of Peter after he denied Jesus three times and remembered His Lord’s Words and the word used to describe the woman who washed the feet of Jesus. It is personal weeping because of sin.
The book of Hebrews reveals that Jesus cries out loud with tears from His cross where He bears the sin of the world, the sin that is the cause of death, and as He bears the wrath and hell we rightly deserve so that He might become the source of our salvation, the source of our peace with God and with man.
Today, as we look through the eyes of Jesus, we see tears caused by those who reject Him as their source of salvation and peace.
And when Jesus drew near and saw the city [of Jerusalem], He wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!”
After entering into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, with the cried “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Our Lord looks at a city and people that will largely reject His Word and His peace.
Our Lord has a long history of being rejected, beginning with the eyes of Adam and Eve seeing that the fruit was pleasing to the eyes and thus rejecting our Lord’s will and Word for them.
The prophet Jeremiah lived in a time where most people rejected the Lord’s Word.
How can you say, “We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us”? …They have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom do they have? (Jeremiah 8:8-9)
Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush! (Jeremiah 8:12)
Our Lords wants us to weep over what He weeps over. Our Lord wants us to weep and blush over the things that should make us blush – that should bring shame!
We ought be ashamed and blush as a Christian Church when we are bored with God’s Word and do not see God’s Word as we ought – as a Lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Would that we, even we, know on this day the things that make for our peace!
We ought be ashamed and blush as a community in Church and family over our anger, resentment, and selfishness and when we do not see each other as we ought as ones under the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God who empowers us all for the common good. Would that we, even we, know on this day the things that make for our peace!
We ought be ashamed and blush as American citizens as we see family, sex, marriage, authority and money dragged through the mud and used selfishly rather than see them as God’s gifts to be used His way for the good of society. Would that we, even we, know on this day the things that make for our peace!
We come together today to see ourselves through the eyes of Jesus and do something a bit necessary: we blush at our sins of thought, word and deed. We blush and confess we deserve His present and eternal punishment.
Our Lord weeps over those who reject Him because He doesn’t want them to receive the penalty for the crimes they committed. It hurts Him. He knows many in Jerusalem will not see His peace and will receive not only eternal punishment, but a temporal punishment was also coming soon. And He weeps even as He is warning them:
For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation. (Luke 19:43-44).
Our Lord does not the desire the death of a sinner. He does not desire the city of Jerusalem to reject His peace and receive temporal and eternal punishment. He desires all to receive His peace. Peace with God and peace with man.
It is this heartfelt desire that leads our Lord to weep for all who do not know His peace!
Even as He weeps and warns the city of Jerusalem that in the near future their enemies will surround them and hem them in on every side, He is getting ready, in only 8 days after this weeping, to allow Himself to be surrounded by those who mock and spirit, He is encircled by dogs Psalm 22 also says, hemmed in on every side.
All because He desires that God be at peace with them.
Even as He weeps and warns the city of Jerusalem that in the near future their enemies would tear them down to the ground, and they would not leave one stone upon another, He is getting ready, in only 8 days after this weeping, to allow Himself, the true temple of God, the place where the Son of God dwell bodily, to be torn down, for in three days He would build it up again.
How far His weeping will drive Him for them to know what makes for peace!
He desires for you today to know what makes for your peace.
To open your eyes to see that God is at peace with you because of the visitation of Jesus Christ.
O, that we would come to know His visitation and His Word as our peace.
O, that the Lord would enlighten our eyes again to see ourselves the way Jesus sees us.
His tears and blood have washed us clean. We are holy, blameless, and righteous in His eyes.
His crying out loud has made Him the source of our salvation and peace and wisdom.
His weeping is the foundation of the promise of eternal joys present now and a day in the future in which all our tears,
tears of repentance and frustration with ourselves and our sin,
tears of suffering in this body and with the sin of others,
tears of being ourselves rejected like our Lord is because we are Christian,
tears of mourning those we loved and still miss,
we are promised a day when God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. (Revelation 7:17)
As we wait, He visits us now, and brings us His peace and His Word.
O Lord, now let us, Your servants, depart in Your peace! Amen.