It’s Enough to Make a Grown Man Cry!

Luke 13:31-35

Rev. Stephen H. Wilkins

Georgetown Presbyterian Church

March 4, 2007

A navy officer recorded a radio conversation that took place several years ago between a U.S. naval ship and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland. The voice of the Canadian officer crackled onto the radio of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lincoln: "Please divert your course 15 degrees south to avoid a collision."

The Lincoln responded: "We recommend that you divert your course 15 degrees north to avoid a collision."

The Canadian’s response was quick and to the point: "Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision."

By this time the captain of the Lincoln was getting perturbed, and he wasn’t about to let a lowly Canadian officer tell him what to do. So he got back on the radio, with the following message: "This is the aircraft carrier Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States Atlantic Fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers, and numerous support vessels. I demand that you change your course 15 degrees north, or counter-measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.

After a brief pause, the Canadian came back on the radio: We are the New Brunswick of the Royal Canadian Coast Guard, and we are a lighthouse."

Do you ever feel like you’re on a collision course with an immovable object? In our gospel reading this morning, it is clear that Jesus is on a collision course with Jerusalem, and nothing can steer him away from it, not even the threat of Herod. Yet it is clear that Jesus will not be moved from his purpose: "I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!"

"I must keep going…" It is the language of divine necessity. Jesus knows that his journey toward Jerusalem must take place, because God has sent him for that purpose. It is in Jerusalem where redemption for all of God’s people will be won.

"I must keep going…" With great determination he sets his face toward Jerusalem. Yet it is a woeful tone that marks his voice as he looks down the road at what awaits him. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing…"

What is it that puts the sadness in Jesus’ voice? What is it that bothers him so, that he cries out from the depths of his heart? What is it that would make a grown man like Jesus cry?

We know how the story goes, so we have a good idea about why Jesus is so mournful as he draws near to Jerusalem. Jesus knows what awaits him there, even as we know what awaits him there: Jesus will die in Jerusalem. Is that why he cries in despair for that city? That’s part of it. Nobody relishes the idea of walking toward their own death. Surely the thought of his death would put dread in Jesus’ heart.

But there’s more, for the death that Jesus will experience will not be a hero’s death; rather, his death will come at the hands of his own people. It is a sad and tragic irony that the people that possess the word of God, and the city that possesses God’s Temple, are the same ones who persistently refuse to hear God’s word and who will reject the very One who has come to redeem them. Jesus MUST go to Jerusalem, even though he will be killed by the very people he came to save. The thought of the betrayal, the thought of the rejection, the thought of his own people turning their backs on him—it’s enough to make a grown man cry!

Do you ever wonder what it would take to make Jesus cry today? Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision, used to say, "Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God." What kinds of things in the world would break the heart of God today? What are some of the ways that our world makes Jesus cry?

Do you think that Jesus cries when he sees boys and girls, and women and men—soldier and civilian alike—maimed and deformed by the horrors of war in Iraq? Do you think that Jesus cries at the fact that we are so numbed by the sheer volume of these images that we are no longer moved when we see them?

Surely he cries at the brokenness of the world, even as he cries at our calloused response to the world’s brokenness.

But it’s more than just the world "out there", more than the realm of governments and politicians and soldiers that makes Jesus cry. It is to Jerusalem that Jesus cries out, to the people of God who possessed God’s word and among whom God made his dwelling place. And so in the words of Jesus, there is also a clear message to his people today, to the Church. Would Jesus say to his church today, "How often I have longed to gather you together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing"?

Can it be said of the Christian Church that we, like Jerusalem, are guilty of rejecting Christ? Are we, like Jerusalem, "not willing"?

If we’re honest with ourselves, we will admit that there are those who use the cause of Christ as an excuse for closing the door on people who look different, act differently, think differently. In our nation there are people who use the name of Christ to promote what is largely a white Anglo-Saxon conservative agenda that looks more like the Republican Party than it does the Sermon on the Mount.

And on the other hand, there are those who are willing to set aside teachings of Scripture because they’re "inconvenient" or because they don’t match up with science. There are those in the Church who are willing to say that Jesus didn’t really know what he was talking about, that the morality in his teachings doesn’t apply to us today.

The truth is, the Church is guilty of being like Jerusalem. We don’t like to hear what the prophets have to say to us. We don’t want to listen to the corrective proclamation of Jesus. "Let’s let him be our Savior, but we really don’t want him as our Lord."

Listen closely, and today you will still hear Jesus call out to us, "How often have I wanted to gather you in… but you were not willing."

It is a call for corporate repentance; it is a call for us as the body of Christ to recognize that we still turn our backs on Jesus today. That’s why we have a corporate prayer of confession in our worship service. On any given Sunday there are many of you who do not regularly commit the sins that we mention in our prayer of confession. But the truth is, our world is broken, and the last time I checked the body of Christ was still full of sinners. And since we are part of a world that turns its back on Jesus, we confess together on behalf of the world and on behalf of Christ’s Church.

Ours is a world that is at odds with the One who would be our Savior, and his Church is no exception.

Yet the clear message of the gospel is that it is to precisely such a world that Jesus comes. He MUST go to Jerusalem. The hen must go to the fox’s den. Anybody who has seen the work that a fox makes of a chicken coop knows that the hen has no chance. Yet the hen is going eyes wide open.

Can you see what that says about our God and our Savior? God sent Jesus, not to conquer our world through power and might, but to redeem us from sin and death and to win our hearts through love and grace. It is a reminder that though the world is hostile, though the world is filled with violence and hatred, though the world is hopelessly lost in its own sinfulness, the love and grace and compassion of Christ is greater.

Hatred is not the way.

Fear is not the way.

War is not the way.

Unbridled permissiveness is not the way.

Anything-goes morality is not the way.

Friends in Christ, there can be no other way than the way of Christ. It is the way of love and of grace and of mercy and of compassion and of justice. It is the way of holiness and obedience. It is the way of forgiveness and of hospitality and of kindness. It is the way of generosity and of sacrifice and of peace.

It is the way of faith.

And it is the way of eternal life.

A country firefighter tells the story of battling a fierce blaze that was consuming a barn. When the soggy skeleton emerged from the smoke, the weary firefighter found the charred remains of a hen. Beneath the corpse of the hen, he found a bedraggled nest filled with chattering chicks.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing…"

What would make a grown man cry like that?

Maybe, just maybe, the tears he cried were the tears of love.

When the hen calls out to you, will you respond like a fox or a chick?