↓ Our Savior Lutheran Church, Grants Pass, OR
↓ Faith Lutheran Church, Medford OR
Luke 19:41-48
JESUS’ DAILY TEACHING & CLEANING
He was teaching daily in the temple. But the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people sought to destroy Him, and were unable to do anything; for all the people were very attentive to hear Him. This is Your Word, Heavenly Father. Sanctify us by Your Truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.
WRONG PLACE/? RIGHT TIME Jesus goes where He is NOT wanted when He enters His Father’s House, and He goes about His business in the presence of those who declared themselves His enemies. – That tells you something about Jesus. Those who had declared themselves Jesus’ enemies, who did not want Him in His Father’s House, who would strike and murder Him did not, because all the people who were very attentive to Him. – That tells you something about the enemies of Jesus. Jesus standing alone is greater than all His enemies the devil, the world, and all sinful men conspiring together. And while Jesus is courageous, the enemies of Jesus are cowards.
SOME TOUGH DUDES The enemies of Jesus were powerful men.
Sinners were rampant in the House of the LORD. The City of God itself was so overtaken that when Jesus looked on Jerusalem He wept. Dreadful things had happened there. Dreadful things were upon them, dreadful more would come to both the City and the House, and all who dwelt therein, who saw themselves invulnerable, who considered the stones of Temple and City to be their constant guardian and protection, who against all mention of their sin and offense replied that theirs was the Temple of the LORD, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, [Jeremiah 7:4, OT reading] were blinded in their evil, and saw the goodness of God as worthy only of death. These powerful men were in error, and their error was very great indeed. What they considered their true, lasting refuge would itself become their prison–house, and at last, these who sought the murder of the good,
the very stones of Temple and City would prove to be their slaughterhouse. WEEPS OVER HIS TEMPLE Jesus saw all this in a glance, as He beheld the City He once had given, and He gazed on the Temple He had raised up for a sign to the [whole] world of His peace and grace. … And He wept.
The hands of evil men were already raised against Him, but for the moment, until the fullness of time it didn’t yet happen, so those pitted against Jesus could not act, until His time. Because the City did not belong to those who saw themselves as its masters, and the Temple was not their
habitation, but the House the Lord Himself had given. And the people they supposed were theirs to command were themselves the sheep of this Shepherd whom they thought and sought to condemn.
TIME FOR A GOOD CRY… Look, O Christian, behold the bright spires and vaulted chambers of the House of the LORD and weep. In our day too, a time of weeping is in order. Sin declares itself our master, and the devil would make the very Bride of Christ, the church Herself his mistress to use and defile and bring into dishonor. Trust is placed in our churches, gleaming, shining on their hilltops, that we in our sin may do as we please. False ministers, “priestitutes,” and slicker tricksters in the “religion business” [for the money] are praised as priests, pastors, bishops, and masters in the eyes of the world’s religion.
WHERE GONE/SO/WRONG And the world looks on, some approving, many in silent disgust, the blind not seeing a great light, but a deeper darkness if possible, from the precincts where the Faithful once were to be gathered. Childhood and parenthood and family are despised, for the
Father and the Son in their eternal unity are disregarded, and brides and grooms too are redefined into rank meaninglessness, as men are wed to men, women to women, and these trump their supposed superiority. And religion, then society, and finally very heart of society = the family, the
nursery of our children is brought down to utter ruin.
SIN RUNS WILD So we too look upon “our city,” the church as it is widely known, and with Him who once looked over His Jerusalem, we too weep. And we see how much of the sin has run rampant within even our own hearts and how the desire for it is possessed in our own minds, and permeates our own flesh, and we weep more bitter tears.
LOOK AT OURSELVES So before you look down in disgust at those who would put Jesus to death, remember, we see in them a mirror of our own time, of our own flesh, and it is all despair.
THANKS BE TO GOD… But, now lift your eyes to Jesus, and see an entirely different Thing. Look to Jesus and see Him Who goes about His business, Who walks into the valley of death, without fear or hesitation, and prepares a Table before you even here and now in the presence of such dread enemies. Look to Jesus. Hear Him. He sees to your sin, acknowledges your failure, sees your shame to its utter extent, but is not ashamed to call you, and do all that must be done to make you ‘brother’ and ‘friend.’
HE CAME THEN HE COMES TO YOU Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, but enters it unafraid. Jesus sees you in this present sorrow but comes to YOU and ME without hesitation. As men today would strike
and kill off any mention of His Word, preferring their new teachings – the lies they call truth, even as the chief priests, scribes, and leaders of the people then too sought to kill Him, Jesus continues on. He gathers, as a mother hen would gather her chicks under her wings, the people in His House and makes them to lie down around Him in green pastures, leads them to Himself beside the still waters, to restore our souls by His true Word, washing, feeding us on Himself; unafraid.
HE’S STILL IN CONTROL Though it seems all against Jesus, He goes where He goes, and He accomplishes what He accomplishes, and He does all things well. None can stop Him [until it is His time] because man cannot command God.
PRESENT.DAY Today we look upon society and the church and we have much to fear; even great reason to weep. The flames leap very high and are very near, and it seems so many around us are
blind and insensible to the doom that surrounds us. So too Jerusalem and Temple in those days. We look and with Jesus, we dare to weep. But we do NOT lose heart. Jesus is still with us, and Jesus is able.
[THEY] JUST CAN’T WIN Look! The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people sought to destroy Him, even as the powerful would do to the Body of Christ which is the Church today. But they could not then, and they cannot now. They may be very powerful in the world, but they are only powerful in the things of the world. Jesus the Only-Begotten Son of God is NOT subject to them. Evil may look fearsome, but it is restrained by Him who is The Good One. And God alone is Good. Evil has a boundary, God is unbounded.
NOT IN THEIR TIME The God of all creation for the moment frustrated those [powerful] men from laying hands upon and murdering Jesus, until He would be lifted up for our iniquities and make His suffering and death our eternal reconciliation and life.
TAKE-HOME APPL. The World IS Very Evil, [TLH 534] and the false prophets even within the church do great harm. But Jesus Still Leads On, [ELH 587] and His Voice is known to us; it does not change. We hear Him and know His Word, and we follow, even where it does not seem possible. With men it would be impossible, but with God all things are possible. And Jesus speaks tenderly even in the midst of a place overtaken and made a house of thieves, to His own. And [what He speaks is], “You
are forgiven, and at peace even in the midst of the tumult of a raging world.” His own know the Voice of the Good Shepherd, and they follow Him.
Though often obscured by earthly appearances, the Church goes on, pure and undefiled, for where the Word is rightly proclaimed and the Means of His Grace is administered according to that Word, the Church is and ever shall be found. Do not turn to the left or the right, but remain in Jesus,
remain in His Word, because it’s there He empowers you to remain, and He remains in you. And He will never forsake us, no matter how hell-bent the world around us may be. We gather to His Voice, His Word. We are washed in His quiet waters of Holy Baptism. We feast on His Body and Blood, and we find peace that the world cannot know.
CONCLUSION He speaks and we hear. We say His word in prayer, and He does not hide Himself from us, because He does not disown His own. Let the devil rage, and those who would rage with him rage on – we will follow Jesus. And those who dwell in darkness all around us may yet see the Great Light of Jesus shining through. The world may change, but we will not, we are in the Unchanging One who is our Peace,
Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.