The Gospel for November 27, 2004
Luke 19:41-48
As he drew near and came in sight of the city he shed tears over it and said, ‘If you too had only recognised on this day the way to peace! But in fact it is hidden from your eyes! Yes, a time is coming when your enemies will raise fortifications all round you, when they will encircle you and hem you in on every side; they will dash you and the children inside your walls to the ground; they will leave not one stone standing on another within you, because you did not recognise the moment of your visitation.’ Then he went into the Temple and began driving out those who were busy trading, saying to them, ‘According to scripture, my house shall be a house of prayer but you have turned it into a bandits’ den.’ He taught in the Temple every day. The chief priests and the scribes, in company with the leading citizens, tried to do away with him, but they could not find a way to carry this out because the whole people hung on his words. -- The New Jerusalem Bible. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995, c1985
A Study
Three separate stories are recounted within the breadth of these eight verses.
- As Jesus' party came down from the Mount of Olives and looked onto Jerusalem as the city came into view, Luke's writers describe what happened to Jerusalem after the Romans decided to put an end to the temple as a center of political intrigue against Rome. They have Jesus speak as a prophet, though he could have easily spoken as a historian, since Jerusalem had been the target of so many successful attacks in the past -- and many from the same cause. And the city, too, had a well-deserved reputation for hosting the demise of Israel's prophets.
- Luke's writers arrange the money-changer-assault incident toward the end of the story as a more compelling proximate incident motivating Jesus' murder.
- Jesus -- to fearful people, in a foolhardy act -- took on the religious authorities in the temple by speaking and preaching every day to the crowds who were enamored of both Him and His message.
A Reflection
We sometimes hear of people who use the strategy of "living to fight another day" by surrendering a bit to an adversary and then returning to re-engage later.
Jesus is not recorded as having been that sort of human. In most of what we have in writings about Him, He displays the sort of love towards others that results in the lessening of conflict, or its avoidance altogether. As He nears the end of His portion as fully human, the record seems to turn toward increasing conflict.
Again, we don't know whether this is what Jesus did, or what Luke's writers recorded. Knowing what happened is not possible for us, but we have decided as Christians that the record left is sufficient for understanding.
And the understanding we have, here, is that Jesus is bringing His earthly ministry to its crisis so that our ministries may come into being, and so that death is disempowered. Jerusalem will see the end of the eartly walk of yet another of God's emissaries, as we look forward to his coming again.
A Collect
Grant, O God, that your holy and life giving Spirit may so move every human heart and especially the hearts of the people of this land, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
2:58:03 PM 
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