Posted by Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
“When Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, seeing the city, He wept over it saying: If thou also hadst known, and that in this day, the things that are to thy peace: but now they are hidden from thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straighten thee on every side; and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children which are in thee; and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hadst not known the time of thy visitation” (Luke 19: 41-44).
These words come at the climax of Jesus’ ministry, at the time of the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. The multitude have acclaimed him king, and met him with palm branches as a warrior and a conqueror. They have not grasped the significance of the one who came riding upon a colt, whose message was not war, but rather bringing peace to the nations. It was over this tragedy that Jesus wept.
The coming of the Kingdom of God in Jesus’ person and ministry meant blessedness for those with eyes to see it. But for those who refused it, their blood would be required. Unless they repented, they would all in like manner perish (Luke 13: 3-5). “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killedst the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not?” (Matthew 23: 37-38). As Jesus said to the women who lamented his crucifixion “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.. For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry” (Luke 23: 28,31).
Some responded to Jesus’ message. Most did not. After the manner of the Old Testament prophets he foresaw terrible judgement on the nation that repudiated him, a coming clash with Rome in which the sins of the Jewish nation would meet their retribution. He foresaw a coming crisis in which he himself would die, and his followers would suffer severe persecution, culminating in a final clash with Rome in which the nation would be destroyed and the temple left in ruins. There would be judgement on the nation that repudiated him, and vindication for himself and his followers. As in the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, the murder of the son and heir leads to the husbandmen being removed from the stewardship of the vineyard (Mark 12: 1-12). For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword (Matthew 26:52).
As with the Hebrew prophets before him, the warnings of disaster were not simply prudential political wisdom. It hardly took a prophet to foresee that the tiny Jewish nation would come off worst if it tried to take on the might of the Roman Empire. Rather, it was a spiritual judgement on the nation that had repudiated Jesus’ message of peace. True prophecy in the biblical sense was not so much foresight (though it indeed contained predictions of the future), but insight into what would happen if the prophet’s message were repudiated. The prophet Jeremiah had experienced terrible conflict of the soul, as he foresaw the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians. In like manner Jesus wept as he foresaw the judgement of the nation at the hands of the Romans. But the nation knew not the time of her visitation.
“If thou also hadst known, and that in this day, the things that are to thy peace”. This message especially speaks to us today. As the nation then mostly repudiated Jesus’ proclamation of peace, so it does now. This nation and the Western world in general have repudiated the Christian faith for the false gospel of the advertising industry, and the culture of entertainment and celebrity. It now finds itself confronted by the threat of militant Islam, but this nation and the Western world in general is too secularised internally to combat this. Even worse, much of modern Western Christianity has compromised with this apostasy, and even sought to emulate it. Traditional doctrine and liturgy have been largely set aside for contemporary fads and fashions. We have forgotten that, as G. K. Chesterton put it, it is not the role of the Church to move with the world, rather it is to move the world. As St. Paul put it, “Be not conformed to this world, but be reformed in the newness of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
At the time of the fall of the western part of the Roman Empire at the hands of the barbarians, the Christian Church constituted the one element of continuity after the collapse of the old civilisation. It provided the basis for the new civilisation of Christendom. Now that Christendom has itself fallen it is our task to form part of the remnant that is left.