In the Name of Jesus
Luke 19,41-48
10. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 055
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius, Algeria, † 430.
28. August 2011
1. O Heavenly Father, You loved humanity in spite of its rebellious nature. You exhort us to pray, but many times we do not pray as we should. We know, however, that our borough desperately needs our prayers. Guide us, then, and teach us to pray for our community and neighbors. We begin with the Lord's Prayer and offer up specific petitions for the needs of those in our midst so that Your mercy and love are are manifested to Your great glory. Amen.
2. Our sermon text for this morning, dear brothers and sisters, is from the Gospel according to Luke where the holy evangelist writes: 41And when Jesus drew near and saw Jerusalem, He wept over it, 42saying: „Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43For 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 44and 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.“ 45And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46saying to them: „It is written: »My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of insurrectionists.«“ [Isaiah 56,7 ; Jeremiah 7,11] 47And 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, 48but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on His words. This is our text.
3. 10. August 70 is a date that lives in Jewish infamy, for that is the day the Romans, under General Titus, destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. Forty years prior Jesus was approaching Jerusalem where He would soon suffer, die and rise again for His people. As He approached the holy city, Jesus paused and gazed upon her splendor. He lifted up His eyes and beheld Jerusalem seated upon the hills in all her glory and the magnificent temple glittering in golden beauty. Jesus wept with sorrow over the impending judgment upon the city and the nation.
4. Before Yahweh’s wrath struck down Jerusalem, Jesus had granted His people one last visitation before Divine events would unfold. The time of the visitation of God in Christ involved two things:
1. The warning time before the judgment.
2. The saving time of preaching in the house of God (Wenz § 6).
5. Jesus, and John the Baptizer before Him, preached the law of Yahweh’s forthcoming destruction. John was »proclaiming a baptism of the repentance for the forgiveness of sins« (Luke 3,3). He exhorted the barren trees of Judah to fruits in keeping with repentance, for the ax was already laid at the root of the trees (Luke 3,8-9). John therefore threatened that »Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire« (Luke 3,9).
6. Many people heeded John's cry of repentance. Average Jewish people shared with their neighbors. Tax collectors stopped overcharging people. Roman soldiers ceased extorting people and treated the Jews with respect and dignity. Others refused John's preaching. Pharisaic lawyers and Sadduccean priests scoffed at John and the Messiah whose way he prepared. After John was arrested, Jesus took up His older cousin’s call as He proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favor was manifested in Him (Luke 4,19.21). His neighbors ran Him out of His hometown as an unwelcome preacher.
7. The rotting corruption of unrepentant Jewish hearts and disrespectful behavior was deeply centered at the core of Judaism. Yahweh’s temple revolved around the Holy Scriptures and the sacrifices for forgiveness, but the priests and Pharisees had turned the sacramental temple from a house of prayer and worship into a den of insurrectionists. Jesus had attempted to reform the temple, but each time He left the temple reverted back to its damning corruption. This rot manifested itself in defiant rejection of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and it oversaw His trial, suffering, and crucifixion.
8. The same threatens this place. If you reject Jesus, and refuse to receive Him as your savior, then God’s wrath will condemn you on the last day when Divine judgment is meted out. If you reject Jesus’ Word and the preaching of the same, you risk God’s punishment upon you in this temporal life. If you ignore Yahweh’s law and refuse to repent of your sinfulness, then you likewise reject His grace that is given for the sinner’s forgiveness. If this church ever shifts the focus of her existence from the Divine Service to that of some other reason to exist, such as a merely a culture club or only a concert hall, then she will have rebelled against God and must return to the reason for her existence: to offer the Word and Sacraments in the liturgy for the comfort of distraught sinners.
9. It was not Yahweh’s will and desire that Jerusalem and the temple be destroyed. Jesus was born into this earth in order to save the world and spare Judah from destruction. For three years Jesus preached and taught in Galilee and Judea. Finally, as His hour drew near, Jesus taught in the temple every day during Holy Week. This Holy Week visit to the temple is „a time of purification and separation. Jesus does at the temple what is needed to avoid the judgment: He cleanses the temple from all earthly corruption and brings in the heavenly glory: prayer and the preaching of His Word“ (Wenz § 17).
10. Jesus has wept over Jerusalem. Her fate is destruction because she rejected both her Messiah and His salvation. During Holy Week, Jesus teaches in the temple so that He plants seeds that will survive the temple's destruction and Yahweh's judgment. From the ruins and rubble of the temple, Jesus would raise a new temple. This temple is not built with marble, stone and gold, nor is it built with brick, mortar and stained glass. The new temple is Christ's Church and she exists where two or three Christians gather for worship in His Holy Name. The new temple, the holy Church, is founded upon Christ and His Word. At the end of Holy Week, Jesus promises that: »Heaven and earth will be destroyed, but My Word will never be destroyed« (Luke 21,33).
11. This fallen, corrupt world is journeying headlong toward Yahweh's judgment that will be far greater than Jerusalem's destruction in A.D. 70. As Yahweh delays that inevitable and terrible day, the Holy Spirit uses the present time to plant seeds and prepare people to stand before Jesus and His judgment seat. Our church exists to plant and water these seeds. The Holy Spirit creates and strengthens faith in Jesus through His Word and Sacraments. Yes, our Evangelical-Lutheran church on the corner of Broad and Homestead exists to proclaim the gospel of salvation to a community that speeds toward the final judgment. Our small and seemingly insignificant church? Our gathering of sinful and suffering people? Yes, you and me! The Holy Spirit has gathered us and placed us here to proclaim the precious gospel of Christ crucified.
12. »Let your prayers rise before Yahweh as incense« (Psalm 141,2). Pray, struggle and weep over those who now reject Jesus and His grace. Pray that He would be merciful to them, spare them and bring them into the Christian fold. Petition the Holy Spirit to bless our church and synod in the proclamation of the gospel. Beseech Jesus that the gospel seeds would grow and be fruitful unto saving faith. Now is the time of salvation: make the most of it. Amen.
13. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus, You are our God and we are the people of Your pasture and the sheep of Your hand. Bless our house of prayer so that we may worship here in solemnity and be refreshed by the gospel of our forgiveness and encouraged to share the same with our neighbors Amen.
One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you!
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the New Testament Greek Manuscripts, Luke © 1995 by Reuben Joseph Swanson.
Wenz, Armin. A sermon preached on 10. August 2010 (10. Sunday after Trinity) in Oberursel, Germany on Luke 19,41-48. Copyright © 2010 The Rev. Dr. Armin Wenz. The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind, Tr. © 2011.
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