Jesus Weeps over Jerusalem
41 But as they came closer to Jerusalem and Jesus saw the city ahead, he began to weep.42 “How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes.43 Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side.44 They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not accept your opportunity for salvation.”
Luke 19:41-44 (NLT)
Or … Jesus Weeps Over US
As this Christmas season draws ever closer to an end, it is important that we remember the divine reason for this birth of the Christ-Child. It wasn’t simply for the purpose of giving us a name to put our humanity around, as if just pronouncing the name “Jesus” was all we had to say and therefore everything would be right again. No, this name is intimately tied to everything Jesus represented, and to that which we are called to today.
The “Prince of Peace” is just one of those names, which points to Jesus specifically whenever we hear it spoken, but it also declares the undertaking of that one so named. “Prince of Peace” – the child who would grow to declare in various teachings and actions the importance of incorporating his peace into our lives, and who showed us how: by loving our neighbors and praying for our enemies.
Yet, we, as the Church today, on a whole, have miserably failed as the peacemakers that our Lord yearns for us to be. Instead of turning the other check to those who strike out at us, many have too often aligned ourselves with the secular god of patriotism and then strike up the bands of war and revenge. As an alternative to working for peace (Matthew 5:9) in our communities and around the world, many have turned inward in a mode of self-survival, instead of offering both our coat and cloak to those suffering in our midst. And as a replacement for the embrace of peaceful love and welcome, far too many in the Church have remained silent or, worse yet, have cried out for deportation or imprisonment or even death for those unlike us. Peace as our Savior lived it, and calls for us to live, is much too often an illusion for the church; talked about but not acted upon, and only given lip-service at best.
My best guess is that such a non-embracement of the peace that Jesus offers as the example of human relationship will have its price.
"… he began to weep.42 'How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes.'"
“But now it is too late’, Jesus proclaimed to those who stood around him. They had listened, but had not heard. They saw him, and watched his intimate interaction with their community, but had not seen the way he was pointing for them to walk and live. He wept, for them and for the city, and in the outpouring of his grieving informed them that they would never experience the divine beauty of the peace which he had offered to them.
Will it be the same for Christ’s Church in the world today? Will we hear the voice which speaks that which we need so desperately, and have longed for, for so many years, and which is still not realized? Is it too late for us today? My prayer is that it will not be so; that we, as the Church, will begin to see anew the life and message of this one whom we call the Prince of Peace, and will live that high-calling – a life of peace with our neighbors and all those who share God's Creation, as our brothers and sister everywhere.
Precious Savior – the Christmas Babe – the "Prince of Peace", I pray this day that you will awaken within my spirit, even now, the life of being a peacemaker in the midst of the chaos of our time. Shape me, I plead, that my arms will reach out to embrace all those in need whose paths I may cross. Help me to welcome the poor, homeless, unemployed, and outcasts into my life, as you stretched out your arms to receive them all into your life. Let my life – all my remaining years – be that of a peacemaker, for the Kingdom sake; for your sake. Let it be, before it is too late.
Amen.
Rev. Michael Kirchhoff
based on Like 19:41-44
