Trinity 10

Text: Luke 19:41-48

Where is the peace?

As the armies surround the city on each side, the walls are torn down; no stone is left unturned. The inhabitants are slaughtered, crucified, and dismembered as blood fills the streets and the utter destruction of a civilization is at hand.

As food and water become scarce, daughters turn against their mothers and fathers against their sons. It’s every man, woman, and child for themselves.

So again, where is the peace?

No, this is not an image or illusion of the conflicts continuing to rage on in Israel and Ukraine; instead, it is the destruction of Jerusalem foretold by Jesus in today’s Gospel – a destruction carried out in 70 A.D. by the Roman General Titus.

Peace was not found in the city of Jerusalem, a city whose very name contains the word peace, “Salem.” Despite the name, Jesus sees a city in the Gospel that will not know or receive Him but will reject Him.

Thus, Jesus weeps for Jerusalem upon entering the great city on that joyful Palm Sunday.

He weeps for their unrepentant way of life and blindness.

He weeps for their failure to understand the things that make for peace, namely His death and resurrection.

He weeps that the armies of Titus will eventually lay siege on the city, destroying everything within its walls down to its very foundation.

Similarly, in wars past and in wars today, we should see them as a call to repentance as they are the consequence of sin in the world; true war is the armed conflict fought to destroy one’s enemies, to destroy any safe haven the enemy or sin may have by ripping down their foundations.

In WWII, in an effort to destroy the power of Hitler, cities were leveled, churches destroyed, and church bells fell silent.

As you fast forward to the twenty-first century and the conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, the very mountains in which the enemies hid were shaken and brought to rubble, or cities were surrounded as the military might suffocate an enemy that remained within the gates.

Titus and his armies did all this as they, too, conquered Jerusalem in 70 A.D., just as Jesus lamented.

Our world constantly reminds us of our sins and our need for God’s forgiveness. Look around you. We are called to repent not just today but every day, for repentance is faith, and where there is faith, there are the fruits of faith—such as prayer.

We ask for deliverance from evil; we ask for it in the Lord’s prayer. Jesus asks for deliverance even as He prays to the Father on the Mount of Olives on the night of His betrayal, saying,

            “Father if you are willing, remove this cup from me.”

For just as Jesus sees and knows what this city will do to Him in the coming days, He sees the great war that will be inflicted upon His flesh to destroy sin’s effect upon mankind as they will crucify and kill Him.

So Jesus laments over the sin of the city inhabitants, their “stealing, murdering, adultery, swearing falsely, and offerings to other gods.” (Jeremiah 7:9)

You see, in today’s Old Testament reading, we hear these words from the prophet Jeremiah, a warning delivered at the entrance of the first Jerusalem temple to those dwelling inside, that is, those within the Church. Jeremiah calls the children of Israel to repentance before the temple’s first destruction.

Likewise, we live in a world where we are just as comfortable in these sins as the inhabitants of Jerusalem; as long as we do not bother our neighbors or intrude on their lives, what business do we have with them?

In fact, we have begun to define sin so narrowly that it includes only those things that are known to directly and negatively harm others. We also prefer to see sin as something done to us rather than what we have or have not done to or for our neighbor and God.

In many ways, we are the same people of old.

Like the people of Jerusalem, we have become hardened, not always recognizing our need for repentance. As I once heard, we have become a world that has forgotten how to blush and be ashamed.

And for all of this, Jesus weeps.

He weeps in compassion.

Jesus weeps for the hardness and unbelief of man.

The visible consequences of sin remain even today after the cross.

We see these consequences of sin in the persecution of Christians around the world, in the deaths of our friends and family, in marriages that fall apart, the words that do more than hurt feelings and in the consequences of our decisions, which lead to emotional and spiritual anguish that troubles us in sleepless nights.

The consequences are still very real, but they often go unnoticed because we are unable to blush and feel shame.

However, death by crucifixion was one of the most shameful manners of death, yet God used it as a means of peace. For it is through Jesus’ death and resurrection that the world will know who He is and receive the peace that only comes in Him.

No matter the war that rages within your heart, the destruction you have caused to another with your words and actions, hear the call to blush and feel shame, repent of your sin, and then fix your eyes on the cross, the cross that now reveals the price of heavenly combat to you, paid in full. 

Yes, this is not the Gospel reading you’d imagine hearing today, but it is the Word of God appointed for today, the Word you must hear. 

But take heart, Christ has won, and as the conqueror over sin, death, and the devil, He now gives you His peace; He gives you of Himself in this heavenly supper. So come, gather as God’s holy people, people of His Holy Jerusalem, people of peace and forgiveness awaiting the day when weeping shall cease, and eternal joy will be your everlasting song. +INJ+

Rev. Noah J. Rogness
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Tomah, WI