TITLE: “The Things that Make For Your Peace”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for today is Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, from the Gospel lesson just read.

There are different ways to give the Law, aren’t there?  If you are disciplining your child, you don’t have to speak harshly at them or spank them in order to get the message that what they did was wrong.  Sometimes a look is all it takes, or simply a word of disappointment.

For the last couple weeks, we’ve heard some pretty harsh Law from our Lord.  Beware of false prophets!  The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.  Our Lord has shown us in very clear terms the dangers of taking God’s Word for granted, and the dangers of placing anything before Christ and the Gospel.

This week He takes a different approach, at least at the beginning of our text.  Our Lord draws near to the city, His city, the Holy Jerusalem, and He weeps over it.  If you had known, he cried, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace!  But now they are hidden from your eyes.  Jerusalem.  God’s city.  Even the name means the city of peace. It was God’s capital city, and was the city of His beloved people, the Jews.

But something had happened.  Their day was upon them, the day of God’s visitation in the person of Jesus Christ.  Their God had entered into the city with cries of Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!  Our Lord Jesus entered the city, but they did not recognize what was truly going on.  God’s people had rejected Him.  They rejected the Messiah, and Jesus knew the terrible judgment that would come upon them.

You see, just 40 years after Jesus’ made this prophecy, the Roman Emperor Titan came down from the north and wiped out the city of Jerusalem.  No two stones stood upon one another.  The people endured a horrible siege, many thousands were killed, and the Jews were scattered to the winds.  It was a terrible judgment, and Jesus said that it came upon them because you did not know the day of your visitation.

It is a hard thing for us to hear, but God’s mercy lasts only a time.  There is a time for each of us when God’s mercy is past.  For the unbelieving people of Israel, their judgment was when they rejected the Messiah.  But we can see this pattern throughout history.  Many years ago the center of the Christian world was in Alexandria in Egypt.  North Africa, including the city of Carthage, was the center of the Christian world.  But today, it is illegal to even be a Christian in most of the region.  Or think of Germany, where many of our ancestors came from.  There was a time when you could hardly throw a rock without hitting a Lutheran Church in Germany.  The Gospel had free reign throughout so much of the land, thanks to our Lord’s mercy in the Reformation.  Well, today many of those churches still exist, but they are empty.  Churches that could seat hundreds or even thousands have five, ten, or thirty people in church.  And the message they hear is weak, and hardly has any Gospel in it at all.  We find ourselves in the unique circumstance where we should be sending missionaries back to Germany and the rest of Europe, to convert the lands of our ancestors.

 But we shouldn’t be too hasty in feeling good about ourselves.  I wonder sometimes if our land is far behind.  There is a veneer of Christianity that many hold up.  Surveys say that most of the people would still call themselves Christians, but going to church doesn’t matter a whole lot.  It’s kind of like saying “I love my wife, I just don’t want to see her or talk to her anymore.”  You can’t do it.  This is what the Jews rejected so many years ago.  God’s visitation was upon them, yet they rejected Jesus and crucified Him.

When we place other things in our lives before Christ and the Gospel, we are rejecting God’s visitation by His Word and Sacraments.  Last week we hard how the thing that made the unrighteous steward wise was that he knew what was important, and did what he had to do to insure his future.  This week Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, because it missed the opportunity.  It rejected God’s Son.  They rejected God, and so the things that make for peace were hidden from their eyes.

This is also why Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the Temple.  They had turned God’s house of prayer into a marketplace for bartering and making deals.  They had forgotten that God’s house isn’t about making money; it’s about forgiveness of sins through the blood of the Messiah.  They had forgotten the things that make for peace.  So Jesus drove out the moneychangers and made room for His Word.

So what are the things that make for peace?  Clearly Jesus is talking about Himself first of all.  Apart from Christ, there is no peace.  It is His sacrificial death and resurrection that gives us peace.  And how does He give you that peace?  He gives you that peace through His Word and Holy Sacraments.  God continues to visit us today.  He is longsuffering and patient, and doesn’t simply give up on His people.  So He visits us with His Word and gives us His very body and blood.  Truly that is God’s visitation with His people.

What did Jesus do after He cleaned out the Temple?  He taught daily in the temple, in God’s house.  Once He had cleared out the dross with the whip of the Law, He then filled the temple with His very presence and teaching.

In our collect for the day we thanked God that He declares His almighty power above all in showing mercy and pity.  Where was the mercy and pity in our text?  Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, and then goes and dies for the sheep that love to wander.  He clears the temple and makes room for His presence and teaching.

This is how God works today.  Through simple Law and Gospel, our Lord cleans out your heart and makes way for His message of forgiveness and reconciliation.  And this message must be heard again and again and again.  We are slow of heart, and easily forget.  This is why we pray that our Lord would open our hearts to the hearing of His Word.  This is why we pray in the liturgy, Lord, have mercy!  Don’t give us what we deserve!  Give to us out of your bountiful goodness!  And He does.

It is true that God’s mercy lasts for a time.  The time for you is now.  Repent, and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  For He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  He will give you the faith to declare that Jesus Christ is Lord.  That can only come from the power of His Holy Spirit given in His Word.  He has adopted you as His children, and will bring you to the heavenly Jerusalem, the true city of peace that knows no end.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting.  Amen.

Copyright © 2001 by Todd A. Peperkorn.