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Author: Stephen Weller
622 words, 3 minutes read time

Again, Jesus Weeps

Scripture: Luke 19:41-44

With the previous lesson we finished the section with the crowds rejoicing, the Pharisees complaining and Jesus beginning to weep as he rode into Jerusalem. With this lesson we will cover a very short section about Jesus weeping over Jerusalem as he drew near the city.

^{Lk 19:41} 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.”

At the time the city of Jerusalem had around 25,000 to 30,000 people and as Jesus draws near, he weeps over their rejection of him and the resulting suffering and death they will experience. As Jesus has traveled from place to place, he has taught on who he was and their need to believe in him and his message, but even though they said he taught with authority and did many miracles they could not grasp the fact that it was God who was standing before them. The Word that was from the beginning, who spoke the universe into existence, who took on human flesh, teaches them the things that make for peace, but they did not understand, and they reject him and nail him to a cross.

The things that would lead the Jewish people to salvation and provide them with access to peace, he made known to them. That peace was not just the absence of conflict and turmoil, but peace with God through a right relationship with him. With their rejection of Jesus these things are now hidden from their eyes and they remain spiritually blind.

Throughout the Old Testament, we see the protection and blessing of God being removed from time to time as the Jewish people turn their backs on him and do their own thing. Their rejection of Jesus will result in God allowing their enemies to set up a barricade around them and surrounding them and hemming them in on every side. Their inability to leave the city to obtain needed resources will cause them to become defenseless and soon overcome.

In 70 A.D. the Roman army under Titus came and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. The temple was torn down, stone by stone but not all of the temple mount as some still exists today. To “not leave one stone upon another” may have thus been intended to be a metaphor to indicate total destruction not the removal of all stones. All of this will happen because they did not know the time of their visitation; the time when God stood before them in the person of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

These that Jesus is weeping over are his enemies who reject him making them vulnerable to be overcome by their enemies and then to face the enemy of death in eternal suffering. As we turn our backs on Jesus, the blessing of his righteousness diminishes in our country and our enemy, the powers of darkness, take up positions in their strongholds as they prepare to destroy us as they did Jerusalem and all of Israel. Are the things that make for peace being withdrawn from us today?