Vicar Martin Hill
St. Paul, Int’l Falls MN
Church of the Lutheran Hour, Ft. Frances ON
Tenth Sunday after Trinity
August 5, 2018
Waiting for a Visit
Luke 19:41-48 ESV
Summer is the perfect time for having your family over for a visit. The timing is as good as it gets: kids and grandkids are out of school for the summer, you can use those weeks of vacation and bring them over to your house, maybe a weekend out at the cabin, or an afternoon on the lake. Whatever you do, you know that hosting visitors always takes preparation. You’ve got to clean up the house, wash the sheets and towels, go grocery shopping, plan the huge feasts, buy gas for the boat, the list goes on and on. You know that preparation is necessary to make a visit enjoyable and smooth. You are either prepared, and everyone is fed and happy; or you aren’t prepared and everyone’s grumpy and grouchy. Either way, the family’s coming to visit, ready or not.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus talks about being prepared for visits. Except it’s not the grandkids visiting, it’s God. But it’s the same too with God: either you are prepared, and you receive God’s peace; or you aren’t prepared, and you receive God’s wrath. You will be visited, either in peace or wrath.
In the Gospel today, we hear the promise that Jerusalem will be visited in wrath: they weren’t prepared. When we hear of the way that God will visit Jerusalem in wrath, “not one stone left upon another,” it’s easy to think that God didn’t care about Israel and Jerusalem all along; that the visit was going to be wrath no matter what they’d done, that God strung them along only to smash them. But when we read through the Old Testament we read that God truly did love Israel. He called Israel his beloved bride. He delivered them from the hand of Pharaoh and his mighty army. He brought Israel through the desert, led them with pillars of fire and smoke, God lived with Israel, he dwelt in the tabernacle, and later, in the Temple at Jerusalem. God did love Israel, but the beloved people of God left God behind. They turned away from his face, away from his commandments and Law, choosing to worship other gods, new gods, golden gods, false gods.
Yet even when Israel turned away, God, in his desperate love, continued to visit Israel through messengers; he sent prophets, prophets who spoke his true Word to the lost and wandering people. Read the Old Testament, and you’ll constantly hear God calling his people back to him through the mouth of the prophets, saying “Repent, and receive my peace, not my wrath.” You see, God isn’t waiting for people to misstep so he can duke out his wrath; he wants people to repent and receive his peace.
But what do the prophets report of the people? In our Old Testament reading for today, Jeremiah the prophet reports that “no man relents of his evil, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turns to his own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle” (Jer 8:6). The prophets plead with the people of Israel, and yet Israel carries on stubbornly with hardened heart and closed ears, plunging wildly like a runaway horse. Jeremiah mourns, “Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush.” Listen closely to the last part of this verse: “Therefore they shall fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord” (Jer 8:12)
“Therefore, they shall fall.” As we said, God will visit his people, either in peace or in wrath. Israel rejected God’s prophets and God’s message, and thus chose not peace, but wrath. So, the wrath of God is poured out on disobedient Israel, and Babylon destroys Jerusalem and the temple, and the people are led far off into exile. God mourns, the prophets mourn, the people mourn.
So we shouldn’t be surprised when we fast forward to the New Testament and read that Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. Because Jerusalem is once again being visited by God; not through just any prophet, but through the prophet, the promised Messiah. Jesus weeps because Jerusalem will reject him as they did the prophets before him; Jesus weeps because Jerusalem will kill him as they did the prophets before him; Jesus weeps because Israel has once again chosen the visitation of wrath. “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!” (Lk 19:41-42).
All the prophets had spoken of Jesus’ coming, all the Scriptures had pointed to him, all the faithful had waited with bated breath, and yet when he did finally come, Israel did not recognize him. It’s not as if he just passed through the crowd unnoticed: no, Israel killed the Son of God, that’s how little they recognized him. Their bloodthirsty voices cried out “His blood be on us and our children” (Matt 27:25). Little did they know that his blood would be on them and their children.
And so Jesus, in the midst of his tears, prophesies the manner of God’s wrath: “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” (Lk 19:43-44). And his prophecy comes true. In 70 A.D., the Romans surrounded beloved Jerusalem and laid siege to it, eventually breaking in and setting fire to the city and to the holy Temple, killing 1.1 million Jews, and leading thousands more into captivity, as Josephus the historian reports.
If the old Jerusalem was destroyed for its unfaithfulness, we are saved in God’s faithfulness, because God has faithfully visited us in his Son. We recognize that the man dying on the cross isn’t just a rabble-rousing prophet who got unlucky; we recognize that the man dying on the cross is none other than the Son of God, who came to visit his people by becoming one of them. His visitation was more than just a prophet’s preaching too; he came with a purpose, an unalterable mission to save the world by his death on the cross. This visitation isn’t a pleasant visit with the grandkids, eating cookies and hearing about their friends at school. No, this visitation is ugly and violent, with blood and death, cries of agony, and cries of forgiveness.
The visit of Christ on the cross creates a new Jerusalem: his Church. Jesus does not weep at the sight of his Church, like he did with the old Jerusalem, but he rejoices at the sight of his redeemed bride. God visits us in his Word, as he did with the old Jerusalem, but we hear it gladly, read it, know it, obey it. We repent of our sinful ways, unlike the old Jerusalem. God visits us in his Sacraments; quite literally, he is present in the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper. It’s as true a visit as the incarnation.
Yet there is one last visitation we wait for. When Christ’s final visitation comes in judgment at the end of time, will we get mostly peace and mercy but a couple of harsh words for the bad things we did? No, we get full peace and mercy. As the old Jerusalem received complete wrath, and as today’s unbelievers will receive complete wrath, we will receive complete peace and mercy. Because Jesus himself will have prepared us for his final visitation; do not be afraid. He is preparing us now, through our time of trial in this world, our time of persecution, our time of darkness. Our Lord will lead us through the darkness, usher us into that complete peace that only he can give. And there will be no such thing anymore as God’s “visitation,” because we will be in the presence of God forevermore. Amen.
St. Paul, Int’l Falls MN
Church of the Lutheran Hour, Ft. Frances ON
Tenth Sunday after Trinity
August 5, 2018
Waiting for a Visit
Luke 19:41-48 ESV
Summer is the perfect time for having your family over for a visit. The timing is as good as it gets: kids and grandkids are out of school for the summer, you can use those weeks of vacation and bring them over to your house, maybe a weekend out at the cabin, or an afternoon on the lake. Whatever you do, you know that hosting visitors always takes preparation. You’ve got to clean up the house, wash the sheets and towels, go grocery shopping, plan the huge feasts, buy gas for the boat, the list goes on and on. You know that preparation is necessary to make a visit enjoyable and smooth. You are either prepared, and everyone is fed and happy; or you aren’t prepared and everyone’s grumpy and grouchy. Either way, the family’s coming to visit, ready or not.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus talks about being prepared for visits. Except it’s not the grandkids visiting, it’s God. But it’s the same too with God: either you are prepared, and you receive God’s peace; or you aren’t prepared, and you receive God’s wrath. You will be visited, either in peace or wrath.
In the Gospel today, we hear the promise that Jerusalem will be visited in wrath: they weren’t prepared. When we hear of the way that God will visit Jerusalem in wrath, “not one stone left upon another,” it’s easy to think that God didn’t care about Israel and Jerusalem all along; that the visit was going to be wrath no matter what they’d done, that God strung them along only to smash them. But when we read through the Old Testament we read that God truly did love Israel. He called Israel his beloved bride. He delivered them from the hand of Pharaoh and his mighty army. He brought Israel through the desert, led them with pillars of fire and smoke, God lived with Israel, he dwelt in the tabernacle, and later, in the Temple at Jerusalem. God did love Israel, but the beloved people of God left God behind. They turned away from his face, away from his commandments and Law, choosing to worship other gods, new gods, golden gods, false gods.
Yet even when Israel turned away, God, in his desperate love, continued to visit Israel through messengers; he sent prophets, prophets who spoke his true Word to the lost and wandering people. Read the Old Testament, and you’ll constantly hear God calling his people back to him through the mouth of the prophets, saying “Repent, and receive my peace, not my wrath.” You see, God isn’t waiting for people to misstep so he can duke out his wrath; he wants people to repent and receive his peace.
But what do the prophets report of the people? In our Old Testament reading for today, Jeremiah the prophet reports that “no man relents of his evil, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turns to his own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle” (Jer 8:6). The prophets plead with the people of Israel, and yet Israel carries on stubbornly with hardened heart and closed ears, plunging wildly like a runaway horse. Jeremiah mourns, “Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush.” Listen closely to the last part of this verse: “Therefore they shall fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord” (Jer 8:12)
“Therefore, they shall fall.” As we said, God will visit his people, either in peace or in wrath. Israel rejected God’s prophets and God’s message, and thus chose not peace, but wrath. So, the wrath of God is poured out on disobedient Israel, and Babylon destroys Jerusalem and the temple, and the people are led far off into exile. God mourns, the prophets mourn, the people mourn.
So we shouldn’t be surprised when we fast forward to the New Testament and read that Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. Because Jerusalem is once again being visited by God; not through just any prophet, but through the prophet, the promised Messiah. Jesus weeps because Jerusalem will reject him as they did the prophets before him; Jesus weeps because Jerusalem will kill him as they did the prophets before him; Jesus weeps because Israel has once again chosen the visitation of wrath. “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!” (Lk 19:41-42).
All the prophets had spoken of Jesus’ coming, all the Scriptures had pointed to him, all the faithful had waited with bated breath, and yet when he did finally come, Israel did not recognize him. It’s not as if he just passed through the crowd unnoticed: no, Israel killed the Son of God, that’s how little they recognized him. Their bloodthirsty voices cried out “His blood be on us and our children” (Matt 27:25). Little did they know that his blood would be on them and their children.
And so Jesus, in the midst of his tears, prophesies the manner of God’s wrath: “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” (Lk 19:43-44). And his prophecy comes true. In 70 A.D., the Romans surrounded beloved Jerusalem and laid siege to it, eventually breaking in and setting fire to the city and to the holy Temple, killing 1.1 million Jews, and leading thousands more into captivity, as Josephus the historian reports.
If the old Jerusalem was destroyed for its unfaithfulness, we are saved in God’s faithfulness, because God has faithfully visited us in his Son. We recognize that the man dying on the cross isn’t just a rabble-rousing prophet who got unlucky; we recognize that the man dying on the cross is none other than the Son of God, who came to visit his people by becoming one of them. His visitation was more than just a prophet’s preaching too; he came with a purpose, an unalterable mission to save the world by his death on the cross. This visitation isn’t a pleasant visit with the grandkids, eating cookies and hearing about their friends at school. No, this visitation is ugly and violent, with blood and death, cries of agony, and cries of forgiveness.
The visit of Christ on the cross creates a new Jerusalem: his Church. Jesus does not weep at the sight of his Church, like he did with the old Jerusalem, but he rejoices at the sight of his redeemed bride. God visits us in his Word, as he did with the old Jerusalem, but we hear it gladly, read it, know it, obey it. We repent of our sinful ways, unlike the old Jerusalem. God visits us in his Sacraments; quite literally, he is present in the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper. It’s as true a visit as the incarnation.
Yet there is one last visitation we wait for. When Christ’s final visitation comes in judgment at the end of time, will we get mostly peace and mercy but a couple of harsh words for the bad things we did? No, we get full peace and mercy. As the old Jerusalem received complete wrath, and as today’s unbelievers will receive complete wrath, we will receive complete peace and mercy. Because Jesus himself will have prepared us for his final visitation; do not be afraid. He is preparing us now, through our time of trial in this world, our time of persecution, our time of darkness. Our Lord will lead us through the darkness, usher us into that complete peace that only he can give. And there will be no such thing anymore as God’s “visitation,” because we will be in the presence of God forevermore. Amen.