Lent 2C-- Gathered by God

Lent: “35 Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Luke 31:35)

Am I just preaching to the choir this morning?

This is a really huge text. “Your house is forsaken...” Jesus declares. This is equivalent to the moment that the glory of God departed from the temple just before the Babylonians came in and destroyed everything. Up to then, there was still a thread of hope. God’s grace was still there. It was still available if they would only turn back to Him. It was still there because He was still there, behind the curtains, in the Holy of Holies. As long as He was still there, He was their God and they were His people. They were the children that He had promised to Abraham; they were the people that He had set free from Egypt with plagues and miracles; they were the people that He led through the wilderness for 40 years, feeding them each day with manna and giving them water from a rock. He had led them across the Jordan River, into the Promised Land, telling them: “ 8 It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed” (Deuteronomy 31:8). There in the land, generation after generation, He provided for them and protected them.

Along the way, He constantly had to forgive their sin in general— a holy God can not dwell among an unclean people because nothing sinful or unclean can survive in His presence— but also their constant chasing after other gods. A constant stream of prophets called them to repent. But finally they had pushed Him so far out of their hearts and minds, so far out of their daily lives, that He was done.

He reminded them that His dwelling at Shiloh hadn’t protected them, in the end. He withdrew from there and from their persistent, deliberate evil. The house of the Lord was forsaken and they were destroyed (Psalm 78:60-66).

He made a final plea through Jeremiah: “5 But if you will not obey these words, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation” (Jeremiah 22:5). God was done. He gave them over to destruction.

That’s the point Jesus has reached. The Pharisees— the party who was preparing to kill Him— ostensibly warns Him that Herod wants to kill Him. Whatever this is; whatever political game is going on here; Jesus doesn’t care. He doesn’t have time for it. He doesn’t have time for them arguing over who gets to kill Him— because He’s too busy going to Jerusalem to die. “Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” I’m done trying to gather you to myself. I’ve told you who I am. I’ve told you why I’m here. I’ve shown you with miracle after miracle. You wouldn’t hear it. You accepted me and my message as well as you accepted the messages of every previous prophet that I’ve sent you— which is to say that you killed them. You see your great city, Jerusalem, as the Holy City? as the city of the Great King? as the place where my house is? Well, all I know is that Jerusalem is where prophets go to die. The house of David is forsaken. It is cut off. And the house you’ve built me? Keep it. It’s yours. You don’t want me there, literally or figuratively. So it’s yours. And your house is forsaken. I’m not there any more. You’re on your own. The next time you see me, it will be for me to do what I came to do— for me to act in my full capacity as the Messiah.

It’s a huge text.

But am I preaching to the choir this morning? You’re the ones who are here. You’re willing to be gathered here by God as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. Am I preaching to the choir?

Somewhat. You know the names and the faces better than I do— the many people who just aren’t here any longer; who drifted from God. Some ‘drifted’ to other congregations, to be sure. But many of them simply refuse to be gathered by God. They were lured away by sin. They were deceived by the world’s view of right and wrong. The cares of this life pushed God our. And this text is a warning to them that the day of salvation is coming to an end. He is here, ready to forgive. But the day is coming when that door will be closed. Yes, they are the ones that this passage is talking about.

You are not as obstinate as the people in Jerusalem. You have not rejected Jesus and His Word. You have not refused to be gathered by God. And yet… each of us, in our own sinful way, resists the goodness and mercy of God.

In what ways are you resisting Jesus as He longs to gather you to Himself? From which parts of our lives are you refusing to receive His help? Those are questions that we need to ask ourselves regularly, but especially on this second Sunday in Lent when we pause to take a closer look. Even regular church-goers are not immune from resisting the One who longs to gather and protect them.

And it is no small thing to resist God— to allow yourself to be gathered as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but only so far. You allow yourself to be gathered, but only so far because you just can’t accept a god who would.... You only allow yourself to be gathered so far because there’s that one little sin that you never quite give up. Or, perhaps, it’s sort of the opposite: you only allow yourself to be gathered so far because you can’t accept that God would have mercy on those kind of people (whoever ‘they’ might be). Jesus doesn’t judge like you and I do. There are no ‘harmless’ sins in His eyes because He knows what sin really does. He knows that even the most seemingly ‘harmless’ sin separates you from God and from those around you.

It is no small thing to resist God— to allow yourself to be gathered, but only so far. The day may very well come when Jesus is forced to lament over you: “How often would I have gathered you to me, but you were not willing. Your house is forsaken.”

That is what He came to address. He didn’t have time for their politics, He didn’t have time for their games. He came to suffer and to die. "And I,” He said, “when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

It’s easy to leave that as some grand, mystical statement about some vague sense of giving people salvation, about giving them faith in Him. But it’s not. Let’s put it in concrete terms this morning.

He was headed to Jerusalem to finish His course. To say that Jerusalem was where prophets went to die is a little bit of an exaggeration (although not much!) but, in His case, it is literally true. The prophets who had come before Him had done more than just call the people to repent. They had also made it very clear who He was and what He had come to do. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned— every one— to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:3-5).

That is how He draws all people to Himself. He took your sins upon Him— all the ways that you and I refused to be gathered to Him— and took them to the cross where He was forsaken by the Father in your place. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He cried out so that you would never have to.

While you and I are tied up in our own arguments and politics, the prophet Isaiah’s words are being fulfilled in your hearing: “And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.” Because, no matter how far you stray from God, He continues to seek you out.

He drew you to Himself by commanding that you be brought to the waters of baptism so that He can join Himself to you, not just bringing you close to Him, but making you a member of His very body. That baptism gives you the power to draw near to Him every single day.

He drew you to Himself by promising that, whenever even just 2 or 3 of His people are gathered in His name, He is there with them.

He draws you to Himself by inviting you to come and receive His very body and blood to feed you and to bless you with His protecting love.

He has gathered you beneath the cross to forgive you. He has gathered us into a community to support and defend you. On the last day, you will find that not even death can separate you from Him as He gathers you, fully and finally, into His household.

Yes, to some extent, I’m preaching to the choir. But, even among His people, Jesus never stops gathering. He never stops drawing you to Himself. He is your protector. Your provider. Your Savior—even from yourselves— so you will never be forsaken.