“THE TEARS OF PEACE”
Saint Luke 19. 41-48
The Tenth Sunday after Trinity: 31 July Anno Domini 2005
Fr Watson
Your Lord and friend wasn't shedding tears over Peter, James and John. The Christ wasn't weeping over the condition of the Magdalene, Martha of Bethany or Susanna. The Son of God was grieving over the hardness of heart, and stiff-necked rejection, of Caiphas and Annas; of Herod and the Scribes; and of the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
Everyone has a "day." Everyone has a period of life, the receipt of creation and sustenance which the good giving Creator bestows as pure gift.
God wants, desires and yearns, for all His children to be with Him at the festive banquet table: "...God our Savior, Who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." [1 Tim. 2.4] Indeed, Jesus Himself knew that His upcoming passion and death would be for all the resistant, lukewarm, and militantly hostile non-believers in Jerusalem, as well as all the other prideful enemies scattered to the four winds: "for God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son..." [Jn. 3.16]
You can cry for the young Christian that dies in childhood. You can tearfully mourn the octogenarian grandparent that leaves this "vale of tears." Only the God-Man can sob over arrogant hypocrites, murderous traitors, and heathen carnally minded mercenaries.
Did all of those "lost souls" that the Lord cried over remain lost? While that question is beyond our ability, or place, to know, I would submit that the answer is no. The evil, "soon-to-be" Christian killer Saul of Tarsus was converted and saved. The thief on the cross would be "turned" by the Word and brought into paradise. The Ethiopian Eunuch, the Philippian Jailer, the 3,000 souls at Peter's Pentecost homily, and all the men, women and children that Paul and his companions would haul into the "boat of the church" with the "net" of the pure Gospel would be saved.
The Lord was weeping over all generations of Adam's seed; all born dead in trespasses and held hostage to death and Satan. He was crying for you.
All of you started off just like Caiphas, Pilate and Herod. All of you for that matter started off just like the people Jesus came to: killers, thieves, prostitutes, liars, traitors, drunks, diseased, dispossessed, broken, demon-possessed, blind, crippled, and dead.
The Lord spoke the Words of Truth: "If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes." The same God who is Creator, the one Who made everything from nothing during those great "days" at the beginning, is also the God who is Redeemer, the God-Man Jesus who re-made everything during that great and awe-filled day on the Tree of the Cross; the Risen Savior Who announced this re-making again on the day of His triumphal Easter Victory; the Shepherd Lord who in time and place comes to all of His to personally re-make them in water-soaked + Words of adoption and forgiveness.
What is it that makes for peace; not the peace of the sofa, beer, and Royals game, but the peace that passeth understanding? What brings peace from the ravages of old age, chronic pain, disease, death and bodily decay? What brings peace from a guilty conscience that burns and smolders in grief over hurts and horrors inflicted upon others whom you have abused? What brings peace over the otherwise certitude of eternity in the lake of fire? What peace is there that can take away the unbearability of your daily fatigue, weariness and warfare with all that is ungodly? The Prince of Peace Himself, Jesus, is the only Way out of the charnel house of self, sin and Satan. Jesus is Peace. Jesus is Righteousness. Jesus is Life itself.
"But now they are hidden from you eyes." Immanuel was Himself hidden from the eyes of those first century Jews and Gentiles. And even when He revealed His hidden God-hood with miracles wondrous to behold, almost no one believed, at least not for very long. Only the Word works faith in dead hearts. The Nazarene kept His Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence hidden from those He came to. He taught, He forgave sins, He preached the Kingdom of Heaven, He called for repentance, and yes, He did perform signs and wonders. But even then, His miracles were veiled from the hard-hearted and self-centered; but not so from you.
Pray for your enemies. Pray for all those who remain enemies of the Christ. There is still time right now for all those who remain here in this world; in this life they've been given. Today is the day of their visitation, today is the day of the Word of God.
Give heartfelt thanks that the Savior came to you and wept over you too. His very tears, the water from, and of, God Himself, mingle with the sparkling water of every Baptismal font. Washed, clean, well-fed, forgiven, made whole...destined for the gates of splendor... You have Peace.
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost