When he came near and saw the city, he wept over it.
'If only you'd known,' he said,'on this day - even you! What peace meant. But now it's hidden, you can't see it. Yes, the days are coming upon you when your enemies will build up earthworks all round you, and encircle you,and squeeze you in from every direction. They will bring you crashing to the ground, you and your children within you. They won't leave a single stone on another, because you didn't know the moment when God was visiting you.'
He went into the Temple and began to throw out the traders.
'It's written,' he said,'my house shall be a house of prayer; but you've made it a brigands cave.'
He was teaching every day in the Temple. But the chief priests, the scribes and the leading men of the people were trying to destroy him. They couldn't find a way to do it, because all the people were hanging on his every word.
After the ending of that last parable in Luke 19v27, we might be quick to think...you see! Jesus is no different than Caesar! He's just as much a tyrant! It's his way or no way! Look how violent he is...he wants his enemies to be slaughtered in front of him...who does that!?!?
It is so very important, when talking about God's judgment and this type of justice that we understand it comes through tears...not cold, mean 'I told you so''s or arrogant and violent 'This is what you get!''s. Think back to the God who flooded the earth, killing millions...why?...he looked upon their violence towards one another and refusal to turn from it and the scriptures say...'it grieved him to his very heart.' That same God incarnate now looks upon the very city that he had birthed for the purpose of bringing Light into the world and he is again grieved to his very heart.
All the towns around the Galilee have been refusing his message of love, of peace reaching out to the Gentile world and here, he finds the epicenter of the problem...the very symbol of his love and faithfulness to his people has set itself against him and his purposes...and has therefore called down not just a lack of blessing, but absolute destruction.
When Jesus enters the Temple, the traders were somewhat of an issue, but the primary problem was that the authorities themselves were thieves and scoundrels. So all of Jesus' warnings and prophecies from earlier in Luke's gospel are now gathering up like a cloud around Jerusalem. Jesus, like Jeremiah, utters words of warning through tears and sobs...they just will not see...they just will not listen...If you believe, as previously discussed, that this is about so much more than just a prophet from Nazareth...but Jesus is in fact embodying the long awaited return of YHVH to Zion...then you must understand that these are more than the tears of an angry, frustrated prophet...but are the very tears of the God who is self-giving love...and if you believe that....then you understand...it had to be this Way.
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