Sermon: Trinity 10 - 201

25 August 2019

Text: Luke 19:41-48 (Jer 8:4-12, Rom 9:30-10:4)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The philosopher George Santayana famously remarked, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  In our readings, Jeremiah, Paul, and our Lord Jesus Christ, are each warning Israel, and us, not to make history repeat itself.  Some people will listen, but most will not.  Some people will hang on every word, others won’t pay any attention.  Some will benefit from the warning, and others will pay dearly for stopping up their ears.

Dear brothers and sisters, please listen.

Our Lord Jesus Christ wept over Jerusalem as He approached it on the way to His passion and death.  He doesn’t weep for Himself, but for the city – the stubborn people who refuse to hear the warnings of the prophets, and of Himself (as the fulfillment of the prophets).  The people are arrogant, and they rely on everything except the mercy of God.  And they will soon be destroyed: “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!  But now are hidden from your eyes.”

This makes better sense if you understand that the word “Jerusalem” means “City of Peace.”  The latter part of the word: “Salem” is the part that means peace.  And, dear friends, just as Jesus speaks to and about Jerusalem, He is speaking to, and about, you, as Salem Lutheran Church!  

So, dear brothers and sisters, please listen.

Jesus speaks of a coming disaster for Jerusalem, describing a military siege, one that would result in the destruction of men, women, and children.  He prophesies that the temple would be flattened, and all because “you did not know the time of your visitation.”

And this makes better sense if you know your history, that in the year 70 AD – forty years after Jesus spoke these words – the Roman government would crush a Jewish rebellion by means of a long military siege.  It was cruel, and it was complete.

If you don’t know that this is what Jesus is talking about, why not?  This is important.  You need to know this history, for “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  

So, dear brothers and sisters, please listen.

Why did God allow this to happen to Jerusalem?  Because “you did not know the time of your visitation.”  They rejected the Messiah who had come to redeem them.  But what about you?  Do you know the time of your visitation?  Do you give any thought at all to your baptism?  Is this one hour on Sunday and on Wednesday in which the Lord visits us in Word and Sacrament the single most important hour in your week, in your life?  Would you rather miss anything in the world rather than miss receiving the Gospel and the Lord’s Supper?  And if not, why not?  Is Jesus weeping over you because you do not know the time of your visitation?  Do you even care?

So, dear brothers and sisters, please listen.

The prophet Jeremiah, who was known as the “weeping prophet” because the Lord burdened him with preaching warnings to the people – and the people didn’t care – Jeremiah preached the same message to the same people who did not know their visitation, who did not remember their past.  At the end of his life, Jeremiah would witness Judah – the remnant of the people of Israel – being militarily defeated by the Babylonians and taken into captivity into what is today Iraq.  If you don’t know this, or if you don’t understand why this is significant, why not?  “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  And just as the people of Judah and Jerusalem were doomed to suffer the consequences of not knowing the time of their visitation, so too are the people of Salem if they do not know their history.

So, dear brothers and sisters, please listen.

St. Paul speaks to the Romans about his own people who did not know the time of their visitation, who cared more about worldly things than what was truly important.  And as a result, God replaced them.  Just as Jesus said it would happen in several parables, the ignorant and disobedient were ultimately rejected, and others who would listen, who knew their history, who truly understood the time of their visitation – became the chosen people of God: the Church.

Those who lost their salvation did not understand why God chose them in the first place.  It was not because they were lovable, but because God is love.  It was not because they deserved it, but rather because God showed them mercy.  They were rejected “because they did not pursue it by faith.”

St. Paul sums up the problem: “For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

This sounds important.  This sounds more important than sleeping a little later, than risking a little bad weather, than enjoying a little good weather, than the game, than the social gathering – this sounds like it matters eternally.  This sounds like history that repeats itself again and again because the people chosen by God do not remember the past, have grown indifferent to God’s blessings, have forgotten what they learned as children, and to whom the Word of God makes no difference.  This sounds like a people who did not know the time of their visitation.

So, dear brothers and sisters, please listen.

Don’t let Salem repeat the history of Jerusalem.  For you should know the time of your visitation: every Sunday at 10 am, every Wednesday at 7 pm, and whenever we gather around the Word of God, such as at 9 am on Sunday mornings as we open up the most precious things that we have in this life: the Scriptures, and we open our ears, our hearts, our minds, and our souls to the Holy Spirit, who teaches us when our visitation is, and more importantly, teaches us to know who that visitation is, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

So, dear brothers and sisters, please listen.

Please listen to the Word: the Law and the Gospel, the warnings of the prophets and the triumph of our Lord.  Please listen to the readings as if your life depended upon them, for it does.  Please listen to the liturgy, for it is God’s Word placed into an eternal song that assures us that we will not be doomed to repeat history – if we listen and embrace the Word of God.  Pease allow the prophets to call you to repentance, for they do not warn us in vain.  They call us, rather, to the cross, where the blood of the Lamb atones for us, cries out to the Father for our pardon, and gives us peace.

For that is what our church is named after: Salem, which means peace.  The Lord wept over the original Salem.  But what’s more, He went into Salem to take up His cross for you.  And that is the most important history of all.  He offers His body and His blood for our sins, and He offers them again to us here and now, in this Salem, and wherever two or three gather in His name.  

So, dear brothers and sisters, please listen. This is the time of your visitation!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.