Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem? He wept over it because of everything it says in the Jeremiah passage. Take a look at that passage again. In the Jeremiah passage it describes the human condition under sin. The Jeremiah passage pulls no punches but calls you out for all the sin you do. This is why Jesus wept. He wept because this chosen people turned their back on God and they had no idea how to make it right. He wept because this people that said they loved him would shout the words “Crucify Him!” the next. He saw the condition of mankind, He saw the sin that corrupted His people and wept. Jerusalem the city of peace was corrupt to its very core and contained no peace at all.

Remember that this reading takes place right after the triumphal entry. As Jesus is entering Jerusalem as their Savior He weeps as He sees the city. For you the hearer as Jesus goes toward Jerusalem riding on a donkey Jesus says, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!”.

This reading helps you understand the parallel between what Christ did for the world and what Christ does for you. Before a person is a Christian their life very much mirrors what you hear in Jeremiah. Mankind rejoices in their sin and shuns God. What happens to change that? The Word enters in. Now, remember that mankind used to be one with God. Man could be in God’s presence, but it was man who broke that because of sin. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. But you used to have peace with God. However, sin has corrupted that. In Jeremiah you also get that there is nothing that you do or can do that can repair that peace. You only seem to make the situation worse. Your Jerusalem, your peace has been blocked by sin, death and the devil. God seeing this condition wept. Yet, He came to you. What did Jesus do after He wept? He went and cleansed the temple. He drove out all those who block the path to salvation, who block the way to peace. The Word came to you and what did the Word do? Jesus, the Word drove out sin, death and the devil as He enters your temple, your heart. The Word comes to you and cleanses your heart.

Jesus says, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!” You know that this peace Jesus speaks of comes at a high price. This peace Jesus speaks of as He enters Jerusalem is to sacrifice His life for the world. This peace comes at the cost of feeling God’s cup of wrath poured out on Him for all the sins of the world. This peace comes from Christ being nailed to the cross and dying in our place.

Jesus wept because He saw your condition and had compassion on you. He knew and saw that the relationship between God and man was broken and He went willingly for you so that you could have peace. That you who could not save yourself could be saved through Him.

Just as Jesus went to Jerusalem to die for the sins of the world. He takes you into His death and resurrection so the peace you were originally meant to have could be restored. He not only clears your temple, but tears it down and builds a new one. He takes you into death and brings you into life with baptism, the washing of water and the Word. He creates a new temple within you upon which He is the chief cornerstone. Now you have the forgiveness of your sins, your relationship with God is restored so much that you can call Him Father and you are given the Holy Spirit to reside with you. You have eternal life and Christ’s robe of righteousness placed upon you.

Jesus continually has compassion on you. You are forgiven your sins in your absolution. You are fed with His body and blood to strengthen you in both body and soul. You are given the Word so that you could be reminded of what Christ has done for you. Just as He taught in the temple at Jerusalem He continues to teach you with His Word and Sacraments.

What does Christ want you to know? He wants you to know that you do have peace with Him. That He has restored you. That your sin is as far away from you as the east is from the west. He wants you to know that your perpetual backsliding, your deceit, your relentlessness in evil, your greed, your false dealings all that is said in Jeremiah has been forgiven in Christ. You who had no peace now have Peace in Him. He wants you to have faith in this fact. In the fact that He did clear the temple, but He destroyed it and built a new one in three days. He, Christ died and rose again so death, sin and the devil could be defeated once and for all. That you are more than conquerors because He has given you the spoils of war without you having to fight. He won! He is Christ the Victor. You have peace that He has bridged the divide between God and man with the cross.

How do you know all of this? Through the Word, the life saving Word, that is not a stumbling block for you. For you know this peace that Christ gives you is not by your works. It is nothing you can do, but it is what He, Jesus Christ, has done for you. It is faith in the fact that when He rose that easter morning everything that Christ said and did came to fruition. It is faith in knowing that Jerusalem finally received peace when Jesus died on Golgotha. It is faith in knowing that sinners have been forgiven with the blood of the Lamb. That this righteousness you are given is attained by faith. This is what the Word teaches you. It is through this Word that you are given life and peace.

Yes, Jesus did weep. He wept for your condition. He wept for the condition of all mankind. He saw it in it’s depravity and went to Calvary because He knew He was the only one that could change it. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. However, even though He wept for the state of man He did not wallow in that state. His love for you was so much that He wanted to remove the curse you and mankind were under and He did. He gave you righteousness and eternal life for you will never weep.

His entrance was truly triumphal. He came lowly riding on a donkey not to rule over and lord over mankind, but to serve it, to be the sacrifice for it. This triumphal entry in which He had compassion upon the whole world, in which He saw the need of all peoples gave Himself up and laid Himself bare so that a new creation could be ushered in. That mankind could be washed clean and be part of this new creation. You have the guarantee that through Him you are granted this. That through Him you are saved.

These are the Words you hang on to. These are the Words Christ spoke that the people were hanging on to. That through Him peace will be given to you and where you will never be put to shame.

SDG

Pr. Daniel Holm

Luke 19
41 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! 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.”

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”

And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.

Jeremiah
You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:
When men fall, do they not rise again?
If one turns away, does he not return?
Why then has this people turned away
in perpetual backsliding?
They hold fast to deceit;
they refuse to return.
I have paid attention and listened,
but they have not spoken rightly;
no man relents of his evil,
saying, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone turns to his own course,
like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
Even the stork in the heavens
knows her times,
and the turtledove, swallow, and crane[a]
keep the time of their coming,
but my people know not
the rules of the Lord.

How can you say, ‘We are wise,
and the law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
has made it into a lie.
The wise men shall be put to shame;
they shall be dismayed and taken;
behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
so what wisdom is in them?
Therefore I will give their wives to others
and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest
everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.
They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.
Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
No, they were not at all ashamed;
they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among the fallen;
when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,
says the Lord.

Romans 9
30 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.