Word to the Wise
Thursday, November 20, 2008 - Thursday in the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
[Revelation 5:1-10 and Luke 19:41-44]As Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If this day you only knew what makes for peace - but now it is hidden from your eyes.
I remember well that April day in 1988 when I first laid eyes on Jerusalem. My dad and I were on a tour with Knights and Ladies of the Holy Sepulcher. We had been jtouring all over the Holy Land and had been to Jericho earlier that day. We now learned what it meant to go UP to Jerusalem! We rounded a bend in late afternoon and there it was! I was really moved by the whole sight! Of course, it would have looked differently in Jesus' day because the Second Temple was there instead of the great mosque known as The Dome of the Rock. Our hotel was across the Kidron Valley from the city and we had a magnificent view of the temple mount. A visit to the "Wailing Wall" is a reminder of the total destruction of the city by the Romans in 70AD after the first Jewish revolt. It is this revolt that is the subject of Jesus' lament! Just as Jerusalem is more than a city but a symbol in our day, the same was true in Jesus' day. The opposition to Jesus' message and ministry would come to a climax in Jerusalem and he would be put to death. The Messiah of Peace was not the conquering Davidic king expected by many in the Jerusalem religious establishment! Since it was clear to them that Jesus had no regiments and that his attraction to the crowds would make him (and anyone associated with him) suspect to the Roman authorities, the "establishment" rejected him and plotted against him. Jesus knows that his journey will come to an end at this great holy city and he weeps for its blindness! In our own day, it is a very saddening experience to realize what a symbol of division this great religious site has become! It seems that any one group would rather tear it down than allow another group to have it! The blindness of those who rejected Jesus would lead them to put their hopes on a political "Messiah" and the ultimate result was the utter destruction by the Roman army! The Messiah of Peace is often forgotten in our military muscle-flexing-this-is-the-real-world type of thinking. Is the "real" world to be the continued deaths of thousands because of political and religious hatreds? No wonder Jesus wept! We should, too! AMEN
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