Jesus wept over Jerusalem

And as he approached Jerusalem and saw the city he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace- but now it is hidden from your eyes. Luke 19: 41 – 42

…. because you did not recognise the time of God’s coming to you Luke 19: 44

Jesus was entering Jerusalem in triumphal procession on a donkey with the crowds waving palm branches and shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’. As he approached the city, he wept over it. He knew he was going to be tried, condemned, mocked, beaten and crucified in Jerusalem yet he wept over it. He was not weeping for himself or for the terrible things that would happen to him but because this city, chosen by God to be the place where his glory dwelt, had not recognised the one that God had sent to them.

Jerusalem, where the temple was with all the temple worship, teachers of the law, Pharisees and Sadducees should all have recognised the Messiah when he came, but instead had rejected him and would shortly put their Messiah to death. The religious leaders would have been familiar with the Scriptures about the Messiah but when Jesus came doing all the things that had been promised, they plotted and finally succeeded in killing him.

Jesus also wept over this city because he saw that in years to come Jerusalem would be overthrown and destroyed and the temple with it because of their unbelief. This happened when the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70AD. What sorrow he must have felt.

Unfortunately that same spirit of unbelief that opposes the things of God is just as prevalent today. Often God is doing something and it is the religious people in churches who oppose it, not the sinners outside the church. They will be welcoming what God is doing just as the crowd in Jerusalem welcomed Jesus. God may well arrive in an unexpected manner or way that we do not like. We may think things are undignified or not strictly Biblical because not everything that happens can always be found in Scripture but are people being saved, healed, set free? The fruit of God’s love and presence should be evident; people falling in love with God in wonderful ways. Yet there will be the religious people who refuse to recognise what God is doing and miss the blessing.

Let us be open hearted to what God is doing without being gullible but let us trust the Holy Spirit to keep us from error and root out the religious spirit that opposes that which it cannot understand or control. I want God to rejoice over what is happening in our churches not weep over what we missed because we failed to recognise that God was visiting us.