Weeping
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Have you ever had
the experience where you just know that something horrible is going to happen?
Have you ever been convinced that the worst thing possible cannot possibly be
avoided? Perhaps there’s a car stuck on the tracks, and you know the train is
going to plow through it. Our Lord weeps today because He knows the trouble that
is coming. He knows the wages of sin is death. He knows Jerusalem,
that Holy City,
will soon be destroyed by Rome.
He knows the people will pay the price for unbelief. He knows. After all, the
Lord has visited them, time after time, to warn them against their unbelief,
their disregard of God and His prophets. All His Ministry, Christ has been
preaching to turn the hardened hearts of men to God's mercy and salvation.
This is not the
first time Christ has mourned for Jerusalem.
Only chapters before, our Lord cries out in anguish for the city and her people:
“O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, the
city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I
would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her
wings, and you would not!” He has been among His people there since David
brought the Ark of the Covenant into the city. He had dwelt there in the
sacrificial service of the priesthood in her Temple. He kept the Law there at His infancy,
when He first shed blood for His people in His circumcision. He was found in
her Temple on
the third day by His parents, sitting among the teachers, rejoicing in His
Father's Word. He Himself was everything the City and her Temple represented. But all the people want
to do is go on with their sinful ways. They care nothing for God's Word! Jesus
weeps over that. He came to bring them so much good. Why must they insist on
turning it into their harm?
That's the way it
is with sinful men who do not fear the Lord. If you told the victims of
terrorist attacks about the coming carnage, most of them would not change their
life one bit. If you tell a child that a man in a white truck will take her off
one day, she will only shrug. We are a stubborn, sinful people! That's why He
weeps. If only His people paid attention to His Word! If only they knew the
things that make for peace!
So what makes for
peace, dear people? Knowing the future? We all know the future. We will die one
day. Not even atheists deny that. But does it bring us peace? Look how hard we
work to stave off age, how much we spend, how frantically we cling to our
youth. So what makes for peace? That you are not now in some terrible
condition? That you don’t feel sick right now? That someone else’s child is the
one whose tragedy we see? That you're a pretty decent person? That you're a
Lutheran and you know your doctrine better than the rest? It is my sad duty to
tell you that death is stalking you. It’s my sad duty to tell you that your
body is falling apart. It is my sad duty to tell you that your enemies line up
against you. Even now they do, with every line and wrinkle, every ache and
pain! They will tear you to the ground, and your children with you.
The Lord is trying
to open your eyes. He doesn't want the things that make for peace hidden from
your eyes or kept out of your ears! He wants to save you, so that even when
death draws near, even when the enemies surround you, you will live. What a
Savior! He hasn't come to condemn the world, but to rescue it. He's come to
take your sins upon Himself, to die in place of every sinner. He's come to be
your life when death is all you've got. He’s come to be your righteousness when
all you know is sin, your hope when all you feel is sorrow and despair, your
confidence before God when all you ought to do is tremble. He came to be your
Peace when everything's against you!
Jesus is your Temple from above. When He
visits you, that is your peace. And God visits you this morning in the
preaching and the teaching of His Word. He visits you with peace that passes
understanding. He has raised you in the waters of Holy Baptism, where He bathed
you in that peace. He gave you that peace again when your pastor absolved you
here this morning. He's preaching peace right now: the peace that outlasts all
your sinning.
The One Who wept
for you also bled for you, and now He sets a table here before you in the
presence of your enemies. But He is present there with you too! This means
that, even when your body fails, you have the Lord’s body and blood to raise you
up and give you peace. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
The
peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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