In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
In 2019 I had the immense blessing of visiting the Holy Land. I went with my mother who was eighty-three at the time. She invited me to go with her after a friend had to cancel. I have to admit that, initially, I was not all that enthused by the idea. Of all the places I might have hoped to travel someday, the Holy Land wasn’t anywhere near the top of the list. However, having now visited the Holy Land, I have a very different perspective. Quite literally, that visit changed my life and my ministry, because it changed my perspective on the stories of the Holy Scriptures and how I understand them and now teach about them. Seeing the general locations where historical biblical events took place, experiencing firsthand the culture of the people who live there, witnessing the actual distance, near or far, between villages, cities, territories, and nations all served to put “flesh on the bones,” so to speak, of stories that, at times, seemed foreign, distant, and abstract. I will go so far as to say that my visit to the Holy Land was incarnational in that seeing these places and reconsidering the biblical accounts in this new light drove me even closer to my incarnate Lord Jesus Christ who really and truly lived there and walked there and wept there and laughed and suffered there and died there, and really and truly rose again from death to life that cannot die. That matters. That matters very much.
Let me illustrate just a bit regarding our Gospel reading this morning which tells of Jesus’ visit to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Though I suppose I already knew it, I certainly didn’t give much consideration to the fact that Jesus did not live in Jerusalem and that most of His three-year ministry was not in Jerusalem but in Galilee approximately eighty miles northeast. As an observant Jewish male, Jesus likely visited Jerusalem three times per year for the high feasts of Passover, Shavuot (Pentecost), and Succoth (Feast of Tabernacles), maybe staying a week in Jerusalem for each feast. The rest of the year Jesus spent his days traveling from village to village primarily in Galilee and east of the Mount of Olives in Jericho and Bethany. In fact, if you read but a few verses earlier in Luke 19 you will read about Jesus entering Jericho and His healing of blind Bartimaeus. Next Jesus is in Bethpage and Bethany on the east side of the Mount of Olives where his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived. Indeed, Jesus’ triumphal Palm Sunday entry is not in Jerusalem at all, but it begins in Bethany and travels up and over the Mount of Olives culminating in the verses we have heard this morning from St. Luke’s Gospel, “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!” When Jesus saw Jerusalem, He had just passed over the Mount of Olives from Bethany and was coming down the other side, likely near the Garden of Gethsemane where He often prayed with His disciples. From there he could see the Holy City and the Temple Mount across the Kidron Valley. There is a church on that traditional spot called Dominus Flevit (“The Lord Wept”). The church is even constructed in the shape of a teardrop and upon its altar is a mosaic of a hen gathering her chicks under her wings recalling the words of Jesus in Luke chapter thirteen, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Behind the altar is a window overlooking the Temple Mount over which Jesus wept as He made His Palm Sunday visit to Jerusalem. A cross in the center of the window is centered over, not the Muslim Dome of the Rock which stands on the Mount where the Temple once stood, but a little to the right, over the blue domed roofs of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher built over Golgatha and Jesus’ empty tomb.
Jesus wept over Jerusalem because He was sent by her gracious and merciful LORD to call His people to repentance and to forgive them for their idolatry and apostasy. Jesus’ visitation was a visitation of grace, but they rejected Jesus and would soon hand Him over into the hands of the Gentiles to be crucified. Because they had rejected the LORD’s gracious visitation, within a generation they would experience the visitation of the LORD’s righteous wrath when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem and destroyed the city and the temple leaving not one stone standing upon another. I saw the evidence of that destruction when I visited the Holy City. All that remains of the temple is rubble. It is merely a perimeter wall built by Herod the Great at which Jews continue to wail and pray today. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because His people did not acknowledge the time of their gracious visitation.
The Greek word for visitation is ἐπισκοπῆς, from which we get the English words episcopy, bishop, visitor, and even pastor. All of these titles and offices imply a certain God-given authority to visit the Church and her congregations to see that all is being conducted according to the Word and Commandments of the LORD and in accord with orthodox doctrine and confession, that the Law is being proclaimed in its severity and that the Gospel is being proclaimed in its truth and purity. If anything is amiss, it is the vocation of the ἐπισκοπoς to reprove, correct, and train in righteousness. Old Testament history is the record of our LORD’s gracious and merciful patience, His gracious visitation if you will, culminating in the sending of His own Son, just as Jesus taught in the Parable of the Tenants and the Vineyard. But Israel killed the prophets the LORD sent to her, and when He sent His Son they rejected Him and handed Him over to the Gentiles to be crucified. Jesus was God’s ἐπισκοπoς sent in gracious visitation. From the Mount of Olives Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they did not acknowledge the time of their visitation.
The incarnation of the Son of God Jesus Christ was a visitation of God’s grace, mercy, and love. Jesus’ procession from heaven to Galilee, from Galilee to Jericho, from Jericho to Bethany and the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem was a procession of love incarnate. Love incarnate came to visit His people to gather them as chicks under His wings, but they were not willing. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they had rejected His visitation, they rejected the God of love.
God has visited His people, and His people rejected Him. But God is still visiting His people, God is still visiting you! For this reason God has sent you your Pastor in the stead and by the command of Jesus to proclaim that you are forgiven, to gather you to Himself again and again, to heal your wounds of sin and guilt, washing you clean in His holy, innocent shed blood, feeding you with His Word, body and blood, and forgiving your sins anew each and every time you gather here in this place in which He is really and truly present with His gifts! Your God comes to you who cannot, who would not, come to Him, to serve you with His gifts of love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness. Yours is a visitation of grace offered again and again, but not forever. Today is the day of salvation. Do not put off to tomorrow what you must believe and receive today, for God has not promised you a tomorrow, but He has promised to be with you here, today, in this place with His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.
Dominus Flevit, “the Lord wept.” Our Lord wept over Jerusalem for the destruction that would soon come upon her. For she did not recognize the time of God’s gracious visitation in Christ, who had come to bring her peace. Destruction was not what the Lord desired. Destruction was not the purpose for which He was sent. But Jerusalem rejected and killed the Prophets who came before Him, and they would reject and kill Jesus too. Jesus did not weep for Himself. Willingly He went to the cross out of love for His Father who loves you so much that He gave His only Son unto death that you might live. No, Jesus did not weep for Himself, but He wept for the children of Israel, and He wept for you and me, His children even now. Jesus wept because we are so easily deceived by the desires of our flesh, by our fallen reason, and by the devil. We so easily believe that we are righteous and justified by what we do or how we feel. We are lulled into believing we are at peace with God because we go to church or behave better than others. But, if our peace is not in Christ, and in Christ alone, then we have a false peace, which is no peace at all. The Lord has visited His people in the Messiah Jesus, in humility, mercy, and compassion. Repent; be turned, and find true Peace with God in Jesus.
For, the Lord is visiting you, His people, right now in His faith-creating, forgiveness-giving, and life-bestowing Word, Baptism, Absolution, and Supper. And the Lord will visit His people once again in power and great glory, and then every eye will see Him, and every tongue will confess Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father. He has come. He comes. And He is coming. Therefore, cleanse the temple of your soul from all self-righteousness, from trust in money and worldly possessions, from whatever idols you have created for yourself and submitted yourself to. For, today you stand in His forgiveness, at peace with God through Jesus Christ. He is unchanging, faithful, and true; He will never leave you or forsake you or break His covenant promise with you. Only you can reject Him, for He will not, and He cannot reject you.
And His gracious visitation amongst you now is for the purpose that your faith would be renewed and strengthened and that you would be preserved in His Parousia, His presence and His gracious visitation this day, and every day, until He reveals Himself in glory for all to see and know. For, the peace that He brings to you, the peace that He is for you, is not a light peace, peace as the world gives, but it is true peace, peace with God who, in and through Jesus, is not your enemy and judge, but your loving Father who graciously gives you all things needful for your body, life, and soul. You are members of His body of which He is the head. You are blocks in the walls of His holy temple of which He is the cornerstone and foundation. Your Lord Jesus was torn down in your death so that not one stone was left standing upon another, and He was raised again on the third day to life that never ends. He is present for you now in this house of prayer. His gates are open and His feast is prepared. Come and eat at His banquet and know His peace.
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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