Tenth Sunday After Trinity, August 4, 2024
Tenth Sunday After Trinity, August 4, 2024
Jesus weeps over the city. Jesus weeps for the city that is filled with unbelief. Jesus weeps even now, as he had lamented earlier (Lk. 13:34) over the deadliness of the city’s idolatry. It spurned the true Word of the Lord and its messengers, stoning them or killing them. Jesus weeps over the city and its coming destruction (vs. 44). Jesus weeps just as when he stood outside the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus weeps over the death of his friend. Jesus weeps over the death of the city. Jesus weeps over the death of his people. He takes no joy in the consequence of their sin, yet the Lord delights in repentance (cf. Ez. 13:21-32). There is no smug “I told you so!” in the love of Jesus or the almightiness of God. There is only the promise, “Though he die, yet shall he live” (Jn. 11:25). Jesus, confronted with the reality of death staring him in the face… with the promise guaranteed by nothing other than the trustworthiness of God’s Word… even Jesus grieves.
And so, we too grieve. We grieve at the death of those we love. We grieve at the losses of life. We grieve over the brokenness of our sin and its consequences. We grieve that this world, full as it is with human accomplishment, must pass away. We grieve even though there is the resurrection from the dead… even though we have the forgiveness of sin… even though the New Creation in Christ surpasses any achievement by human hands. We grieve because Jesus has given us permission to grieve for he himself grieves. We grieve because it is fully human to do so; we and Jesus are fully human.
But, as the Apostle Paul preaches to us, we do not grieve as others do who have no hope (1 Th. 4:13). All of sin’s brokenness… all of the losses incurred during our fleshly existence… all of the deaths… all these do not nullify the trustworthiness of the promise. God does not lie. The resurrection is certain… the New Creation is certain… all the promises are certain simply because God has said so. God’s work and God’s Word are unthwartable. “Who can turn it back?” (Is. 43:13). Our certainty does not rest in the things of nature, nor in the events of human history, nor in our own reason or strength. Our certainty rests in God and God’s Word.
Table Talk: Discuss how you look to things other than God’s Word for your certainty.
Pray: Heavenly Father, grant me the certainty of your promise so that I trust not in my own reason or strength. Amen
Luke 19:41-48
41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 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 44 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.
45 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46 saying to them, It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.
47 And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, 48 but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.