2nd Sunday of Lent

Vicar Gary Schultz
Text: Luke 13:31-35

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken.

Jesus longs to care for His people as a hen takes care of her little chicks, protecting them, loving them, doing what’s best for them. Jesus longs to be their refuge and fortress, to cover them with his feathers, to hold them with complete trust under the wings of His mercy. But His own chosen people aren’t interested. They weren’t interested in the messages of the prophets sent before; they aren’t interested in the message of God’s own Son sent now. They would rather sit in judgment in opposition to the Word of the Lord. It is with great concern and anguish for His people that Jesus laments about the killing of the prophets and the stoning of the ones sent to Jerusalem. While He knows that He is next in line to be killed, His grace and mercy to His people never ends.

How often we go off on our own way, leaving behind the way of Our Lord. How often we are tempted to stray from the love and protection of the wings of Our Lord. How often would we rather listen to messages other than what God’s Word and His messengers teach. How often we would rather sit in judgment in opposition to the Word of the Lord. It is for us also that Our Lord longs to gather us under His wings into Jerusalem, to bring us from the emptiness of our own way to the perfection of His way.

Jerusalem was the site of the temple – the place where God promised to be present among His people. King Solomon built the temple after King David had obtained Jerusalem to be the capital city. The temple was the dwelling place of God, where the ark of the covenant sat, on the holy hill of Mount Zion. At the temple the priests offered sacrifices for the people that brought God’s forgiveness. Jerusalem was the magnificent city of God’s people – the heart and center of religious life and government.

As the years go on, however, Jerusalem’s image changes. It becomes known as the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. We see it already in the Old Testament with the prophet Jeremiah. When Jeremiah is called upon to speak the Lord’s word, calling the people to turn from their evil ways and walk in the ways of the Lord, they responded: You shall die! This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city.

Despite His desire and longing for Jerusalem to be gathered together under the Lord’s word – as a hen gathers her brood under her wings – Jesus acknowledges that He must journey to Jerusalem where He will be killed. I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.

It is tragic that the holy city with its prestigious temple and beautiful religious life became associated instead with violence in opposition to the Lord’s word, whose visible presence with His people was in the nearby temple. This was supposed to be the place of the pouring out of God’s mercy. Now it had turned against the Lord and His teachings and His messengers. But God uses this in His plan, in His will for the salvation of His people – indeed for our own salvation! It is Jesus’ will to go to Jerusalem after His ministry of casting out demons and performing cures to finish His course on the third day at the holy city.

Jesus takes what’s bad and uses it for our good. It cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem. Jesus shows that He’s the prophet of the Father as He dies in Jerusalem. While the deaths of other prophets for speaking the Word of God was an abomination, the ultimate abomination – the death of God Himself – was for our salvation. It was necessary for Jesus to die in Jerusalem. It was in Jerusalem, in the temple, where the sacrifices were offered up. And now, Jesus – the true sacrifice, the true temple, offers up Himself on the cross on the hill outside the holy city. The greatest prophet – our Lord Jesus – makes right the sins of all people, makes right those things the prophets spoke against in order to give His people salvation. On the third day – Jesus says – I finish my course. On the third day, Jesus, who was killed for our salvation, rose triumphantly over death and the grave.

As Jesus had promised, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Behold, your house is forsaken. The ethnic people Israel is no longer God’s people. The government of the old Jerusalem is finished. The old temple is gone. There are no longer Levites sacrificing animals for forgiveness. That’s not a problem for God’s people anymore. The physical city of Jerusalem and the physical nation of Israel have no bearing on the message of God’s people today. Jesus became the New Temple. The New Jerusalem is heaven, and the New Israel is the kingdom that includes all those who confess the teaching of Scripture – God’s kingdom of the church. Those people who think they need to take over lands in the Middle East to fulfill God’s will for His kingdom are missing the fact that God’s promised kingdom has already been fulfilled in Christ. That’s why we confess: The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer, but we pray that it may come to us also.

Just as Jesus foretold of the destruction of the temple, He told of the destruction of His own body. Destroy this temple – He said of His body – and in three days I will raise it up (Jn 2:19). On the cross, Jesus – the true temple – was destroyed. But on the third day, He rose to conquer destruction and to bring life. Christ gives us Himself – the True Temple – as we partake of Him today in His body and blood, clothed in bread and wine, given today at this altar. The Temple of His body brings to us the forgiveness that was foreshadowed by the countless bloody sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is brought to us in the Sacrament.

In the Old Testament, God’s people lived primarily in the land of Israel. But our citizenship is in heaven. The church, made of both Jews and Gentiles who trust in Christ, is the New Israel and the dwelling we inherit from this citizenship is heaven. In heaven we will see Jerusalem as St. John testifies: I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coing down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Rev 21:2-4).

In Holy Baptism, we are brought under the wings of Christ’s mercy in the strength and security of His shield and buckler. We are now citizens of the New Jerusalem, even as we wait for that day when we will be drawn by Christ to Himself in heaven, where we will see fully the glory of Christ our Temple.

Jerusalem, O city fair and high,

Your towers I yearn to see;

My longing heart to you would gladly fly,

It will not stay with me.

Elijah’s chariot take me

Above the lower skies,

To heaven’s bliss awake me,

Released from earthly ties. (LSB 674:1)

In the new Jerusalem of heaven, we will be perfectly sheltered under Jesus’ wings forever. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.