Lent 2

In the history of the people of God, the city of Jerusalem was a grand and storied city. While its history goes back to the time of Abraham, during the reign of David it was inhabited by the Jebusites. David conquered Jerusalem and turned it into the capitol city of the nation of Israel. Once Jerusalem was captured David built for himself a palace and his son Solomon built for the Lord a temple. The city of Jerusalem became a symbol for the Jews of their nation, but also of their faith. It has been called to Holy City because it was there that the Jews went for the feasts and festivals that God had given to them, it was to Jerusalem that the Jews went for fellowship with the Lord.
Yet in spite God's continued faithfulness to the descendants of Abraham, and in spite the fact that God actually established a dwelling place on earth in the Jerusalem Temple, the Israelites were faithless. They turned their backs on the Lord who lived among them and they insisted on following the ways of their pagan neighbors. The Jews conquered the Jebusites and claimed their city, and while they expelled the people, as time wore on they invited their gods to return. The Jews worshiped the false gods of their pagan neighbors.
The idol worship of the Israelites caused God no end of grief and sadness. God wanted the hearts of his people to return to him. So he sent prophets, men like Jeremiah from our Old Testament text, to warn the Jews of the consequences of their idolatry. False gods would offer no protection from their enemies. False gods do not have the ability to save. Jeremiah approached God's people with all the words God had commanded him to say, but they would not listen.
Our reading tells us the even the priests and the prophets, the people who were supposed to be the spiritual leaders and in tune with God's Word actually were the leaders in the rejection of God's message. All together they gathered around Jeremiah and they grabbed hold of him and they wanted to kill him.
“This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.”
It is ironic, isn't it? God called on them to repent. God called on them to turn away from sin. Not because God hated them. It wasn't because he wanted to spoil their fun. God sent prophets to his people because he loved them. He didn't want to punish them. God wanted them to repent of their sin and return to him. Instead they rejected God's messenger. They were angry with the man who brought God's Word to them. They plotted violence against Jeremiah and virtually every other prophet when they came with a warning of God's punishment, but the message wasn't just punishment. The message was God's plea that they return to him and that they be restored to him.
There are many parents who understand this grief and sadness from their experience with wayward children. From time to time and for whatever reason a son or a daughter will decide they have their wild oats to sow and they will turn away from the family that loves them. Instead of the fulfilled life filled with love and comfort from their family they will insist on an empty life filled with the worst things the world has to offer. Parents will beg and plead, they will condemn the destructive behaviors. They will invite their child to return. For whatever reason, often that child just will not. That hurts. For parents who want only the best for their children, when they see that their child has chosen the things that hurt them and abandoned the things that help them, parents feel grief.
In the same way, Jesus felt grief. Grief for his wayward children. The nation he built from the descendants of Abraham, the people he gathered to himself when he rescued them from slavery, the home he built among them in the city of Jerusalem.. He sent his invitations to return, He sent His prophets to bring His Word, but they just wouldn't come. Instead his prophets were abused and even murdered. In our Gospel text we hear the words of Jesus, “How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you would not.”
As we consider the actions of the Israelites and the response of Jesus, there are two things for us to consider. Comfort at the love and the action of Jesus, but also warning.
It is easy for us to see that the Jews were wrong. They rejected God. They murdered his prophets. They even murdered his son. They were evil, idolatrous, and violent. But let me ask you: do you think this change happened over night? Do you think that one night they all went to bed as faithful servants of the Lord and then the next morning woke up idolatrous murderers? Or do you think it happened gradually? Over weeks and years, over the span of a generation? A compromise here, an excuse there? I know idol worship is wrong, but I don't want to be rude. My friend invited me to go with him to his temple. I'll just try it out this once. It won't hurt anything. And so it goes... Overlooking a sin here, a false teaching there, a little concession to evil. And all of a sudden, before you know it, faithful servants of God have become servants of false gods, pagans and unbelievers.
And here's the next question: Are we so naïve to believe this will not also happen to us?
I think sometimes we are. I think sometimes we believe, sometimes we take it for granted that God is on our side. We tell ourselves that we can't fall, that we won't fall. “I'm a Christian. I grew up in a in a Christian home. My parents were Christians. I went to Lutheran School. I belong to a church.” We think that lets us off the hook. We think that makes us immune from sin and error. We think that as long as we hold on to those things we can say and do and think and believe anything that we want.
It's not true. It never has been. It never will be. This is a sin that has made us all guilty. We all need to repent, every last one of us. We all need to search our hearts and ask the Holy Spirit to point out this sin so that we can confess it and turn away from it – spiritual pride. Spiritual laziness. Acceptance of a self-defined status quo.
So our text issues a warning. But it also provides for us great comfort. There are two things that comfort us.
The first is this. Jesus weeps over his city. He speaks of gathering his people to him for protection as a hen gathers her brood. This should sound familiar. The same image, the same metaphor was used last week in our text from Psalm 91. The psalm said that God would gather us under his wing and cover us with his feathers.
God wants to draw us all to himself where he can offer us love and protection. He wants to cover us. He wants to save us and offer us salvation. The day is coming when it will be too late, but that day has not yet come. There is still time. Still time to repent. Still time to be gathered. Still time to receive God's love and forgiveness.
The last day, judgment day, the day of resurrection has not yet come. It's not because God is late or slow or caught up doing other things. Instead he is loving. He is patient and he is waiting for sinners to repent, to turn from their sin and be forgiven. There is still time.
That's the first comfort. Here's the second: notice how committed Jesus is to fulfilling his mission. In our text Jesus was warned by some pharisees that Herod had in mind to arrest Jesus. For you and me, a message like this might turn on our “self preservation” instincts. IT might make us feel the need to run away and save ourselves from judgment and suffering and even death.
Not Jesus. He has no fear of earthly power and authority. He calls Herod a “fox”. He defies Herod's power and authority. He sets his own agenda – Today and tomorrow and the next day I am going to cast out demons. I am going to heal the sick. And then, when I am done, then I will go on my way. And Herod can't touch me.
Jesus knew where he was going. He knew what he was doing. He had his plan set in motion and no one could stand in his way and no one could keep him from accomplishing it. Not the Pharisees and scribes, not Herod, not even Satan.
Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem – that Holy city that had received so much... so many blessings and had turned their back on all of them. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, the city he made holy when he built his temple there. Jerusalem was a city of sacrifice, a city where sinners could go to receive forgiveness because it was a city where sin was exchanged for the death of a substitute. Jesus came to be that substitute. The stand in, the go between for you and for me. Jesus came to be sacrifice for you and for me for all time.
Jesus went to Jerusalem, the Holy City, the city of sacrifice so that he could be the sacrifice. He went to be the one sacrifice, the one death that would take the place of all others. Jesus went to Jerusalem so that sinners could be holy.
Sinners used to go the Jerusalem the Holy City, the city of holiness because that was the city of God's presence. Jerusalem was the place where sinners would go to exchange their sin for God's holiness. They would come to the city, come to the temple, participate in the temple rites and go home as God's forgiven and holy people. God's holiness was given out when God people met with him at the temple.
But then Jesus went to the Holy City. He went as the sacrifice. He went to offer himself on the altar of the cross. The one sacrifice to end all sacrifices. So that sinners themselves could be holy.
Friends because of what Jesus has done for us we don't need a plane ticket to Jerusalem and a visit to the temple to be holy. God has made us holy in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God has even said that we are temples of the Holy Spirit.
The blood of goats isn't needed, trip across the ocean to the Holy City are needed. God has given to us his forgiveness right here. God has made us his children right here. Our sin is forgiven.
Amen.