When I make it To the City

Luke 19:41-48

WEEPING OVER REJECTION WHICH WOULD BRING RETRIBUTION!

Luke 19:41-44 is only found in the Gospel of Luke, neither Matthew or Mark's versions prophesying in this section of the coming destruction of Jerusalem.

Spurgeon - What a contrast! The King’s courtiers shouting for joy, and the King himself weeping over the guilty city where the greatest tragedy in the history of the whole universe was about to take place. The King saw, in the near and more remote future, what no one else could see, so, “when he was come near, and beheld the city, he wept over it.” 

When He approached Jerusalem - As he ascended from the other side of the Mount of Olives from Bethphage and Bethany the city would come into view as He reached the top of the mountain and could see the Temple on Temple Mount (His Own House!). 

Now take a moment and image this incredible scene. The crowd is rejoicing and shouting the words from the Messianic Psalm 118:26, even proclaiming Him as the "King of Israel" and yet Jesus, as He sees the city, begins sobbing, a visible show of emotion which would have been obvious to all who could see Him. One wonders what went through their minds at this "strange moment?" This has to be one of the most tragic, ironic contrasts in all of human history. On one hand, the Jews are expressing unbridled jubilance, while on the other hand, Jesus was expressing profound sorrow (an emotion of great sadness associated with loss or bereavement coming from deep within His Holy Being)! Let me apply this picture of Jesus seeing His sinful, rebellious city, for it makes me wonder whether Jesus weeps deeply now in Heaven when He sees us, His very own possession, (and He does see us) willfully turning away from His holy law and commiting heinous sin? Oh my! May our prayer frequently be that of God's choice servant David who sinned woefully against God and yet who God later declared to be "a man after My  heart who will do all My will."

A C Gaebelein - Before He utters the great prophecy announcing the doom of the city, He weeps. What a glimpse it gives of the loving heart of the Saviour-King, the friend of sinners!

He saw the city and wept over it - In John 11:35 when Lazarus died "Jesus wept," but wept there is the a different Greek verb dakruo (root word of English "tears") which means "He shed a tear," speaking of a quiet expression of grief. Now in His final approach to the Holy City He is in deep agony weeping and sobbing over the "death" (and coming destruction) of the city and the entire nation of Israel, for in His omniscience, He knows they will soon reject Him as their Messiah and King, even though for a brief moment they put on an external show of acceptance. The English word that comes to mind is "fickle" which is defined as "marked by erratic changeableness in affections or attachments."

Jerusalem was the same city of which the psalmist had penned such an eloquent description 

Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, In the city of our God, His holy mountain.  Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, Is Mount Zion in the far north, The city of the great King.  God, in her palaces, Has made Himself known as a stronghold. (Ps 48:1-3)

Jerusalem in the time of Jesus:

The Jerusalem Jesus knew was basically the same as Herodian Jerusalem. On one of his visits to the city, Jesus healed a paralyzed invalid at the Pool of Bethesda, north of the Temple Mount near the Sheep Gate (John 5:1–14). Portions of a double pool that could have been surrounded by “five covered colonnades”—one on each side and one in the middle separating the two pools—have been discovered just north of the Temple Mount. On another occasion Jesus healed a blind man whom he sent to the Pool of Siloam to wash (John 9).

Most of the information about Jesus in Jerusalem comes from the last week of his earthly ministry. Jesus evidently spent his nights with his friends in Bethany, 1.5 miles from Jerusalem on the east side of the Mount of Olives. He made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey that he had mounted in the Bethphage area. After crossing the Mount of Olives, he descended into the Kidron Valley to shouts of “Hosanna”; after entering Jerusalem, he took a look around the temple area.

On Monday he entered the temple area again, and this time he drove out the moneychangers who were possibly operating in the Royal Colonnade along the southern perimeter of the Court of the Gentiles. On Tuesday Jesus once again entered the temple complex and later in the day spent time teaching his disciples on the Mount of Olives.

After resting in Bethany on Wednesday, Jesus sent “two of his disciples” (Mark 14:13) into the city to secure a room and prepare a meal so that he could celebrate the Passover with his disciples. In spite of the fact that the structure on the traditional site of the Last Supper (the Cenacle) dates from the Crusader period (at least 1,100 years after the event), it is probable that the site itself, located on the southern portion of the western ridge in a well-to-do section of town, is close to where the meal took place. Then Jesus and his disciples went down to the Garden of Gethsemane, at the western foot of the Mount of Olives, near the Kidron Valley. There, after praying for a while, he was taken prisoner.

That night he appeared before Caiaphas the high priest, Pilate the procurator, and Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, who was in Jerusalem for the festival. The exact site of each interrogation is not known, but most likely the residence of Caiaphas was somewhere on the southern or eastern portion of the western ridge, and Herod Antipas was probably staying in the old Hasmonean palace on the eastern slope of the western ridge, overlooking the temple. Although Jesus may have appeared before Pilate at the Antonia Fortress, it is more probable that as ruler of the country, he was residing in Herod’s palace and Jesus was interrogated, humiliated, and condemned there.

The writer of Hebrews records that "In the days of His flesh, He (JESUS) offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety." (Heb 5:7-note, cf Lk 22:44-45-note)

Brian Bell tells this story - Finding his newly-appointed pastor standing at his study window in the church weeping as he looked over the inner city's tragic conditions, a layman sought to console him: "Don't worry. After you've been here a while, you'll get used to it." Responded the minister, "Yes, I know. That's why I am crying." The question for us is "Have we gotten used to it?"

Jesus cried out a similar plaintive lament "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem" t

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! 35 “BeholdDESTROYED IN 70 A.D.), your house is left to you desolate (PROPHECY FULFILLED WHEN TEMPLE WAS ; and I say to you, you will not see Me UNTIL the time comes when you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’” (Lk 13:34-35-note)

Comment: Jesus uttered this lament with a peculiar poignancy and pathos for the Holy City so near and dear to God's heart. But notice that while He uses the name Jerusalem, the city of God, it was a symbol of the entire Jewish nation, the majority of which refused to receive Him (Jn 1:11-note). Jesus' double declaration of the name Jerusalem is indicative of His deep sorrow. And so Yeshua with broken heart, sorrowfully laments over His beloved city. As you ponder these words from the lips of our King Who was soon to be rejected by the very city in which He would one day reign as King of kings, take a moment of respite from your study look out over our city and see.  

Is is not fascinating that Jesus quotes the very same Psalm (Psalm 118:26) which the Jews cried out as He made His "Triumphal Entry" into Jerusalem at which time He accepted their praises to Him as their King. Of course before the week was out they would say He was not their King and would demand His crucifixion. And so in both Luke and Matthew Jesus gives a prophecy to Israel (the prophecy in Matthew 23:39 was  the LAST public prophecy given to the nation (the Olivet Discourse was spoken to His disciples). In this final prophecy Jesus warned that Israel would not see Him again until the pressures of the Great Tribulation (the Time of Jacob's Distress) caused them (see especially Zechariah 12:10-14-note) to welcome Him as the Blessed One Who comes in the Name of the Lord.

And don't miss the time sensitive word UNTIL, as it is filled with Messiah's love and mercy, for it speaks of something happening (Israel's Temple desolate) up to a future point in time, in this case Messiah's Second Coming which is more accurately called the real TRIUMPHAL ENTRY and the believing Jewish remnant cries out "Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord!" 

Spurgeon - “As he approached and saw the city, he wept for it.” On three occasions we are told that Jesus wept. The first was when our Lord was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He saw the sorrow of the sisters and meditated on the fruit of sin in the death and corruption of the body, and he groaned in spirit, and it is written that “Jesus wept” (Jn 11:35). The third occasion was in the Gethsemane agony when a shower of bitter tears was mingled with the bloody sweat (Heb 5:7). The second occasion was here at the sight of the beloved but rebellious city. Our Lord, in weeping over Jerusalem, showed his sympathy with national troubles and his distress at the evils which awaited his countrymen. He suffered a deep inward anguish and expressed it by signs of woe and by words that showed how bitter was his grief. He is the Sovereign of sorrow, weeping while riding in triumph in the midst of his followers. Did he ever look more kingly than when he showed the tenderness of his heart toward his rebellious subjects? The city that had been the metropolis of the house of David never saw so truly a royal man before, for he is most fit to rule who is most ready to sympathize. Jesus knew the hollowness of all the praises ringing in his ears. He knew that those who shouted hosanna today would, before many suns had risen, cry, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” He knew his joyous entrance into Jerusalem would be followed by a mournful procession out of it when they would take him to the cross to die. Yet in all that flood of tears, there was not one for his own death. The tears were all for Jerusalem’s doom, even as he said afterwards, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children”

The song writer says that I am bound for mt Zion way out on a hill, and if anybody make it surely I will.