Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Have you ever been moved to tears with news of something terrible that will soon happen? Perhaps it’s a great and destructive storm coming that no human effort or plan can stop, but we anticipate terrible destruction? Perhaps a planned military action that will cause terrible casualties?
Yesterday I left you watching Jesus WEEP over the city of Jerusalem! I suggested it was in part because He was God incarnate and was therefore able to look down through the corridors of time past and future to see all the horrific things which would happen in that great city when the people would over and over, in so many different generations, reject God and God’s reach to them.
Yes, on that Palm Sunday, Jesus could see only 5 days later that crowds would be calling for His death and then, of course, Jesus could foresee every terrible detail of His torture and crucifixion. Perhaps more dreadful was the separation Jesus would experience, for the first time ever, from His Heavenly Father as He received the wrath of God poured out on the sins of the world which Jesus would bear on that cross. Oh, the pain of rejection by people you love, people you’ve helped, people who should be grateful! Have you ever experienced that, my friends?
But Luke tells us Jesus said something very profound as He wept over Jerusalem: “The day will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.“ (Luke 19:43,44)
What do you think Jesus meant? What would the people who overheard Him imagine He was telling them? Do you hear a very clear warning of soon coming disaster and demolition? Do you also hear an explanation as to WHY the disaster?
Sadly, the terrifying prediction of Jesus did come true! Within 10 years a great Roman empire wide persecution began to grow against Jews and Christians. In the year 49ad Caesar Claudius actually expelled ALL Jews from the capital city Rome! In Acts 18:1 when traveling the apostle Paul arrives in Corinth, he tells of meeting Aquila and Priscilla whom he describes as Jewish Christians who had settled in Corinth, having been forced to leave their home in Rome.
About 20 years later, in the year 68ad, the patience of Rome ran out on Jerusalem. By then Jerusalem was a city filled with two types of people the Caesar’s increasingly hated… Jews and Christians. The city was surrounded, a siege works built against it and finally in ad70 under Caesar Vespasian, Jerusalem was destroyed, and the great Jewish Temple demolished, true to the description Jesus spoke as He wept on Palm Sunday. As we know in the centuries which followed, that city and the region of Palestine have been ravaged by armies of many different nations and people groups. And while in 1948 the United Nations established a land for Jews and named it Israel, Jerusalem to this day remains a divided city, torn too often by bloodshed, and during these 2000 years, the great Temple has never been rebuilt.
But I believe the tears of Jesus and His words were even more significant. John, the close friend of Jesus, began his account of the life of Jesus with these words in John 1:9 “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him.”
Jesus had been sent from heaven, by God the Father, first to His beloved Jewish people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the people of Israel. The schemes of the dark kingdom to oppose God’s Redemption plan for humanity were obvious and extreme from the beginning. From this very same Jerusalem, King Herod had sent soldiers to slaughter babies in Bethlehem. Soldiers only one generation older than those watching from the top of the Jerusalem city walls, milling around in the crowd, standing on the alert at every city gate.
Even now Satan was working overtime in the hearts and minds of some high ranking, prideful, fearful religious leaders in this city who should have their lives dedicated to leading the people, especially this week, in seeking spiritual renewal with God. Through the tears in His eyes, everywhere Jesus looked, He could see people, almost all the people, blinded by the deceptions and fears and lies of the dark kingdom.
Oh, how true, those who should have been joy filled to receive Jesus were instead confused and angry and rejected Jesus. And that rejection of God, as it always does, brings a heavy price of separation from God, hardness of heart, and eventual eternity far from God in ‘Perish’.
Jesus evidently disembarked from that donkey colt and walked into Jerusalem; I presume surrounded by a cheering throng. That would have drawn the attention of everyone. Jesus went straight to the Temple, His eyes again filling with tears as He reflected on the demolition and the slaughter of people which would soon occur in the sacred place. But rather than joy and songs of worship His ears were filled with the merchant calls, barking out prices and calling people to purchase all manner of things. Once again tears flowed but this time the emotions were pity for the helpless people and anger at the disregard of a place designed for holy worship.
Matthew gives us a glimpse of the scene of sudden chaos: “Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written, My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.” (Matt. 21:12,13)
My dear friends, on this Tuesday before Passover/Easter weekend, I call all of us to look closely at the busyness of our lives and how we have perhaps cluttered the sacred and simple relationship Jesus invites us to have with Him as our Savior and His Father as our loving, forgiving, heavenly Father. Jesus invites us to consider how the Holy Spirit is seeking to refresh and renew our relationship with Jesus today and in these precious days leading to Easter.
Let’s take some time right now to imagine Jesus cleaning out the clutter in our lives, and here’s a powerful song to help us join Jesus in that cleansing work.
Today’s Scripture is Luke 19:41-46.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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