Luke 19:41-48; 1
Corinthians 12:1-11; Jeremiah 8:4-12
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
One of the most poignant ecclesial
symbols of Christ’s atoning sacrifice is known as The Pelican In Her Piety. You will find that symbol pictured in
your divine service program today on page seven. In a time of famine and
distress, the female pelican has been known to pluck her own feathers from her
breast and to pierce her own flesh in order that she might feed her tender
brood with her own blood that they might live. It should be easy to see why The Pelican In Her Piety became a symbol
for Christ as He sacrificed His own life and shed His precious blood that we
might be forgiven and restored and have life in Him, even His life in us. So
powerful and evocative was this image that St. Thomas Aquinas wrote of it in
his communion hymn Thee We Adore, O
Hidden Savior saying (LSB 640), “Thou, like the pelican to feed her brood,
Didst pierce Thyself to give us living food; Thy blood, O Lord, one drop has
pow'r to win Forgiveness for our world and all its sin.”
Today’s Gospel was not the first time
that Jesus visited and wept over Jerusalem. In chapter thirteen of St. Luke’s
Gospel Jesus lamented, “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! Behold, your house is
forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who
comes in the Name of the Lord!’” Notice how Jesus compares Himself to a hen
seeking to gather her brood under her
wings, just like the pelican, but He adds that Jerusalem, that is, the
children of Israel, and particularly her religious leadership, were unwilling
to be gathered to Him. Thus, Jesus continues, “And I tell you, you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is
He who comes in the Name of the Lord!’”
I wish to draw your attention for a
moment to the words “you will not see
me.” In the Gospels, seeing is
often more than general eyesight and vision, but it is a seeing in faith, a spiritual
seeing, a seeing what is really real
and true rather than what only appears to be true. Many people could see
Jesus. They saw Him as the carpenter’s son from Nazareth. They saw Him as an
itinerant rabbi. They saw Him as a prophet, maybe even John the Baptist returned
from the dead. They saw Him as an instigator. They saw Him as a threat to their
power, authority, and wealth. That’s what that whole dialogue with His
disciples in Caesarea Philippi was all about: “Who do people say that I am?” “Who do you say that I am?” Many,
most, seeing people didn’t see Jesus
rightly. But, then there were a few blind people, even a few Gentiles, who
could see what others could not; they
could see that Jesus was the Christ,
even the Son of God. When Jesus lamented over Jerusalem, He prophesied that
they would not see Him until they
would see the prophecy of Zechariah fulfilled, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!” That day would
be Palm Sunday, the very day Jesus wept once again over Jerusalem and spoke the
words in today’s Gospel, “Would that you,
even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they
are hidden from your eyes. 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.”
They did not see Jesus with the eyes of faith, but they were spiritually blind
to Him, and this moved Jesus to weep over the city of Jerusalem, for He knew
the end of the path they were walking. They were His people, His children, His
brood. He was about to pluck His own breast and tear His own flesh and die for
them all that they might live in Him, but they refused to gather with Him. And,
because of their blindness, because of their rejection, they could not see the things that would make for peace
with God. In fact, the LORD hid these things from them so that they could not see and believe and be saved. People
commonly say, “seeing is believing;” In this sense, they are right! Those who see believe, but those who do not
believe cannot see, for they are
blind. Though Jesus proclaimed the Word of the LORD and called them to
repentance that they might find peace with God, they considered themselves
secure saying, “We are God’s people, we
have Abraham as our father; No evil can possibly overtake us.” As Jeremiah
prophesied to Israel long ago, “They have
healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no
peace.” Still, Jesus remained among them, teaching daily in the temple, but
instead of believing in Him and finding peace in Him and His Word, they
believed that He was a deceiver and that His doctrine was false and dangerous,
and the religious leaders of the people sought to destroy Him.
What the people of Jerusalem could not see was that God was visiting His people
in grace in His Son, His Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. Jesus had visited
Jerusalem before. He and His disciples had ministered and taught the Word of the
LORD there that hearts might be turned in repentance and that they might know
peace with God. However, they did not know the time of their visitation. Now, the Greek word
translated visitation here is episkopē, which also means bishop, overseer, and pastor.
That word is used of your pastor every bit as much as it is used of your
District President, or Bishop, who will visit you next Sunday. Both the weekly
visitation of your pastor, and the occasional visit of your Bishop, are
visitations of grace. They come to you, not in judgment, but with the things
that make for your peace with God: The preaching of the Gospel. The forgiveness
of sins. Holy Baptism. The Lord’s Supper. Every time we gather here is the time
of the Lord’s gracious visitation. This is what St. Paul is getting at when he
says, “Besides this you know the time,
that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to
us now than when we first believed.” However, when Jesus comes again in
glory at the end of time, His visitation will be one of judgment. And, that is
why Jesus wept over Jerusalem. He saw that so many of the children of Israel,
and particularly the religious leadership of Israel, did not believe and could
not see the things that made for peace. They found peace in their obedience and
works under the Law, as they interpreted it. They found peace in their outward
works of piety, in their prayers, in their temple rites and rituals, but they
could not see that these things were
truly signs of promises made and kept by God in the sacrifice of His Lamb, His
Son, Jesus Christ. Once again, the prophecy of Isaiah rings true: “This people
honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.”
Jesus wept over Jerusalem because He saw
the coming judgment of their unbelief. The terrible prophecy Jesus proclaimed
described the utter destruction and decimation of Jerusalem at the hands of the
Romans in 70 A.D. The Romans laid siege to the city and barricaded it so that
no fresh food and water and supplies could get in, and no refuse, sick and
dying, or dead corpses could get out. This went on for a few years before the
Roman army destroyed the walls of Jerusalem and entered the city. They found a
decimated populace, weak and diseased, with evidence of suicide and
cannibalism. The Romans destroyed the city and the temple, leaving not one
stone standing upon another, and the remaining Jews were sent out and dispersed
into the surrounding nations – because they did not know the time of their
visitation.
Jesus wept, not because this destruction
could have been averted, – maybe it could have been, maybe not, but that’s not
the point – rather, Jesus wept because everything had been provided for them
that made for their peace with God. Peace in Hebrew is shalom, which means fullness
and completeness. The name Jerusalem
contains a form of shalom and means “Foundation of Peace.” Jerusalem’s
history, however, is anything but peaceful, full, and complete. Again, Jesus
recounted that city’s infamous history calling it “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!”
As Jerusalem did to the prophets whom God sent, so would it do to God in the
flesh, His Son, Jesus Christ. The city named the Foundation of Peace would reject and destroy the One who is Peace
with God, because they did not know the things that make for peace, but they
found peace in things that made for death and destruction, saying to the
people, “‘Peace, peace,’ where there is
no peace,” and they did not know the time of their visitation.
Jesus is our shalom, our fullness and
completeness, and the Foundation of our Peace with God and with one another.
Jesus is our Sabbath Rest in whom we find shelter, refreshment, and protection.
In His Son Jesus, God has visited His people and has redeemed them. And, when
we gather here in His Name as His baptized children, members of His body, He
visits us anew, not in judgment, but in grace, mercy, love, compassion, and
peace. When you come to church, you must not think that you are doing a good
work, that you are serving God, or anything else of the sort, but rather you
must believe that you are coming into the presence of God’s Peace, that you are
entering His Sabbath Rest, and that you are knowing the Lord’s gracious
visitation. I am not suggesting that this congregation alone, let alone
Lutherans, have cornered the market on the Lord’s gracious visitation, – not at
all – but I am saying that God Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is
present with you here, for you here, in a way that He is not present for you
elsewhere, though He is truly present everywhere. Here, in this place, in Word
and Water, Body and Blood, He is present for you in grace, that He may gather
you under His wings and heal you with forgiveness, feed you with His flesh and
blood, strengthen you with His Word, and send you bearing His gifts just as The Pelican In Her Piety sacrifices
herself for the sake of her brood that they might live and flourish and fill
the world.
This is the day the LORD has made; let
us rejoice and be glad in it! This day, and every LORD’s Day, is the day of His
gracious visitation; may we always see
it and know it, and may it be
marvelous in our sight! Though the Romans, the Gentiles, the world and its
culture have us barricaded, surrounded, and hemmed in, though they threaten to
tear us down to the ground, we gather in the LORD’s house of prayer, taking
shelter under His gracious wings as we hang on His every Word and are made
partakers of His heavenly treasures. Let us never forget the things that make
for our peace, and let us cling to them and preserve them, for they are our
life and salvation, even Jesus Christ our Lord.
In
the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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