The Weeping King

Luke 19:41-44

Are there more poignant words in the Bible than these: "But as they came closer to Jerusalem and Jesus saw the city ahead, he began to cry" (NLT)? The Son of God, moved to tears over the pending destruction of the city of His Father's favor is so insightful a statement about who He is, what He longs for, and what His work in the world is all about.

Though he is looking toward events more than thirty years away, he sees very clearly the devastation of the city and its inhabitants at the hand of Rome. He longs for another outcome, but this is the one chosen by the people themselves. In their rejection of God's ways, not just once but repeatedly over generations, they would receive what that rejection must bring, namely the absence of His guiding, sustaining, protective hand. His tears demonstrate that the pending disaster was not a cause for God to declare "I told you so," with a note of vindication; it was from his knowledge that the evil of the world will overtake any without divine protection.

I cringe at the thought of how many times the exalted Lord has wept over His church in different places, in different times over the past 2,000 years? It must be many, beginning before the Bible itself was completed. The churches of Asia Minor addressed by John were, sorrowfully, only the beginning of a long list of those Jesus could see falling, their place left desolate, their surroundings void of vital Christian witness.

"I wish you would find the way of peace," are words directed toward all of us. That way is not missed because it has not been given, just as it was not missing in first century Jerusalem. But like its residents, we are so prone to balking at the way of life in favor of ways of living that seem to us to offer better prospects, even better avenues for the advance of the kingdom. They usually seem attractive at first, justifiable exceptions to what has been revealed. But ineffectiveness should tell us something; compromise should tell us something. Our prayer should be that we hear the warnings before the next words of the text are uttered bythe Lord regarding our congregations: "But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from you."