Trinity 10
Lk
19:41-48
8/13/23
This summer
Ukraine launched a much anticipated counter offensive as it seeks to free land
that the Russians have captured in their invasion. NATO countries have provided
equipment and training as the Ukraine formed new armored brigades that are to
be the main striking force in this effort.
However,
thus far, the progress of the counter offensive has been very slow. In part this is due to the inexperience of
some of these newly formed brigades.
However, the main reason has been the huge defense system that the
Russians have prepared. Minefields that
extend for miles in depth protect anti-tank obstacles, trenches, and
bunkers. All of this is supported with
artillery and attack helicopters.
If United
States forces were facing this, we would apply the massive use of airpower to
destroy these defenses and allow armored forces to punch through. However, the Ukrainians do not have the
aircraft to do this. So they have found
themselves having to work their way forward in a slow and very bloody process.
It is always
easier to defend than it is to attack.
In the history of warfare, technology has often given the defenders the
advantage. That was the case in the
first century world when walled cities provided a significant obstacle that had
to be overcome. It could be done, and no
one was better at it than the Romans.
However, the act of laying siege to a city and taking it required large
numbers of troops and a great deal of time and effort.
Jesus
describes that process in our Gospel lesson today as he speaks about
Jerusalem’s future. He speaks of the
judgment that will come upon the city because they have failed to recognize in
Jesus that things that make for peace.
They have failed to understand that in Jesus the time of visitation had
occurred.
Our text
this morning is part of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Mounted on a colt our Lord rides into
Jerusalem accompanied by a great number of his disciples. They rejoice and
praise God because of all the mighty works they have seen Jesus do. They say, “Blessed
is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest!”
This is a
scene of exultation. But Jesus’ response
seems to be completely out of step with the moment. We learn in our text, “And when he drew near and saw the city, 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.’”
The people rejoice,
but Jesus weeps. He weeps over Jerusalem
because they have not recognized in him the things that truly make for
peace. Now the truth about Jesus is
hidden from them – they are trapped in their rejection of Jesus.
Then Jesus announces
what awaits them. Our Lord says, “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.”
The people of
Jerusalem did not know the time of their visitation because they did not
believe in Jesus. In their unbelief they
did not recognize that Jesus was God’s visitation bringing them salvation. At the naming of John the Baptist, Zechariah
prophesied about what God was doing in Christ when he said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he
has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a
horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he
spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.”
God’s visitation
occurred when he sent his Son into the world.
Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, the Son of God
was present in the flesh. He was God’s
visitation bringing the kingdom of God – the reign of God. Christ was the visitation of God turning back
the forces of Satan and sin.
When our Lord went to Nain, he encountered a
funeral procession that was leaving the town.
He said to the widow whose only son had died, “Do not weep.” Then he stopped the funeral procession as he
touched the bier. He said, “Young man I
say to you arise,” and the man was restored to life. Luke tells us, “Fear seized them all, and they glorified
God, saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us!’ and ‘God has
visited his people!’” They were right.
God had visited his people in the person of Jesus Christ.
God visited
his people in order to give peace. Christ came to the world to bring
peace. When the angels announced Jesus’
birth they sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” We hear an echo of that just before our text
as the crowd says, “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Jesus had come to Jerusalem to bring
peace. But he was going to do so in an
expected way. Just before entering the
city, our Lord predicted his passion for the third time. He said, "See, we
are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of
Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to
the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon.
And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will
rise.”
Jesus came to bring peace
by dying on the cross. On our own we
could never have peace with God. We
could never know real peace. As sinners,
we were hostile to God. We were opposed
to God, and our sin stood as the great barrier that separated us from the holy
God. Our sin provoked God’s righteous
judgment and wrath. The only outcome for
us would have been eternal damnation.
But Christ was the
visitation of God to bring us peace. He
was numbered with the transgressors. He
took our sin and died on the cross as he received God’s wrath in our place. St.
Paul told the Corinthians, “For our sake
he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God.”
Because of Jesus’ death for us we are forgiven.
But Jesus had
come to bring peace – complete and total peace. He came to bring a peace that
overcomes death itself. And so as our
Lord predicted, on third day he rose from the dead. By his resurrection he has given us life –
eternal life that can never be taken from us.
He has given us the living hope of sharing in Jesus’ resurrection life
when he returns in glory on the Last Day.
Sin and death have been defeated and so we have peace now – and we will
receive the consummation of that peace when Christ returns.
We are still
tempted to miss this peace. The world offers its own version of peace as it
holds out money and possessions as a false god.
It offers peace to those who accept its sinful ways. It says that if we will just abandon Christ
then we can have peace in our family instead of the division that is prompted
by the truth of God’s word.
Jesus came to
bring real peace – peace with God. He
gives a peace that defeats sin and death.
But he didn’t come to bring the absence of conflict. In fact, quite the opposite, our Lord said he
would be cause of conflict. He said, “Do you
think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather
division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three
against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against
son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against
mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against
mother-in-law.”
Jesus’s
word reveals the false peace that the world offers. He calls us to faith in himself so that we
may have peace. He calls us to recognize
his visitation that occurs in our day.
Jesus’ coming was not limited to his earthly ministry. It was not limited to the day he entered into
Jerusalem.
Our
Lord’s time of visitation continues in our day.
Christ visits us through his Word as it is proclaimed and read. The Spirit uses the inspired word of God to
deliver Jesus to us. He calls us to
faith and sustains us in faith as we face life’s challenges.
Christ
visits us through the water of Holy Baptism.
In your baptism you were buried with Christ. You were baptized into his saving death. You have shared in the death of the risen
Lord and so your baptism is the assurance that Christ will raise you from the
dead. It is the guarantee that you are a
forgiven child of God.
And
Christ visits us in the Sacrament of the Altar.
Here he uses bread and wine to give us his true body and blood. We sing “Blessed is he who comes in the name
of the Lord” because Christ comes to us bodily in the Sacrament. Here he gives us his body and blood, given
and shed for our forgiveness. Here he gives us food for the new man to
strengthen us in faith.
The
people of Jerusalem didn’t recognize the time of their visitation. They didn’t recognize the things that make
for peace because they had their own idea of what this should look like. They rejected Jesus and in the end the things
that make for peace were hidden from them.
Today’s Gospel lesson
alerts us to the fact that God works in his own way. He acted in the incarnate Son as he visited
his people and brought peace through the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. That visitation continues now
through the Means of Grace that take place in the Church. By faith in Christ we receive the peace that
he has won for us. We live at peace with
God now, and have the peace of knowing that eternal life is ours – a life that
will be lived with Christ in the new creation.
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