“FORGIVEN: THE
TEARS OF JESUS”
Saint Luke 19.
41-48
10th
Sunday after Trinity: 24 August Anno + Domini 2014
Fr Jay Watson
SSP
In The + Name of
Jesus
“…and He shall hear my voice: He hath
delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me.”
Adam and his precious rib wept when expelled
from paradise. “Adam,” man, has been
weeping ever since. Exile and loneliness; pain and deprivations; death of loved
ones and the deprivations of old age; hunger and thirst; persecution and want;
life under the cross waiting for the Redeemers visitation and redemption is
awash with tears and weeping.
You weep because of Satan’s attacks—the
devil’s vicious (all the more so because there are elements of truth in his
accusations of your evil) indictments. You weep because of the constant
groaning of the world (change and decay in all around I see). And you weep
because the Lord’s bright mirror of the Law shows you your fallen nature—the “beast” howling in pain as it first sees
its hideously ugly reflection in the glassy pond. Sin causes weeping.
You weep but others usually do not see it.
Old Adam views crying and sighing, bawling and smiting as signs of weakness and
dependence.
You ask, you petition, and you entreat God
to take away your thorns. You bargain with Him and at times you curse Him. Who
will save you from the weeping; from the condition that produces the symptom of
the weeping?
“And when He was come near, He beheld the
city.” For God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son. The Son has always been God and has always been Savior: “He hath chosen us in Him before the
foundation of the world.” [Eph. 1.4a]
Weeping is ultimately solitary. The weeping
of the mother who has lost her child, the husband who has lost his wife, the
prisoner in solitary and the soldier dying in a foxhole. Joy and its attendant
laughter and conversation (i.e. communion) is of the Trinity—multiplicity in
solidarity: One in Three and Three in One—FAMILY. There is no only-child in the Lord’s courts.
Jesus always beholds the “city,” the “polis,” as He has from before eternity. He knows His own sheepfold
in all of its individual manifestations over time and space. He knows His
people in their hamlets and villages, in their neighborhoods and towns; in
their metropolises and lunar colonies (should it come to that).
While He cares and governs all men, all the
world—His own brothers and sisters, His Christians are the apple of His eye.
And His eyes are more than moist they are outpouring of His Grace—His love in
action. “He beheld the city, and wept
over it.”
God cries for you. Do more than casually
think about that—ponder it and meditate over it. The Lord of Life and Light weeps over your
dying, darkness and death. So, at least be aware of your sinful condition and
repent. Repent and believe the kingdom of God is at hand. The King with His
wounded and blood-stained hands, and tear-stained cheeks, is NOW in your midst!
This is the day of your salvation, rejoice and be glad in it and IN HIM!
The pagan Sadducees and the heathen
Pharisees, back then in Jerusalem in 30 AD and now in these last days,
willfully and consciously rejected the things which “belong unto thy peace.” God is your peace for God the Trinity is
PEACE incarnate in Christ the God/Man! Only the eyes of the Saints are opened
by His tears of cleansing…not Visine
or saline, or even Can-C, but the
tears of Jesus—the Water of Life from the Rock of ages. Only by Grace and not
works are you enlightened to know, and to receive the “things which belong unto thy peace.” These things are Jesus in His
Word and in His Supper. These things, THIS JESUS has been given to you ever
since He first “came near…beheld the
city” at the Holy Font of your Baptism.
At your initial washing into His Body He wept over you and His tears,
the Water from His riven side, cleansed you and brought you back to life. This is given to you so that you don’t just “know it” but that you literally “have it.” You have God in you through
your ears and through your mouth. PEACE
has come to dwell in you. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit because The Lamb
of God is IN YOU…making you and all your brethren the New Jerusalem which comes
down from above—the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church!
All sin. All die. All have tears and weeping…sooner
or later. But you and your fellow Saints are saved for you have your sins
forgiven in the Blood of the Lamb—the Blood and Water of Jesus. The rejecting enemies of God will have the
eternal enemies casting the trench of hades around them to compass them for all
eternity in outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
But you are rescued from perdition by He Who
has visited you and continues to visit and indwell you. He came in time to obey
and pay…to do and to suffer…to submit and to die. He visited you in Washing and He visits you
now in Preaching and Feasting. You and your children are safe under “the shadow of His wings.”
Because not one stone of your trespass
breaking was left standing, but all were laid upon His precious flesh, crushing
the LIFE out of Him on the tree, the gates of hell have been ripped off their
portal and you are free…and today again, home amongst the Company of Heaven and
the Angels.
Esaias’
prophecy is now history: “He will swallow
up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.”
[Is. 25.8] And the Apocalypse of
Saint John is now: “For The Lamb Which is
in the midst of the throne shall feed [you] and shall lead [you] unto
living fountains of water; and God shall wipe away all tears.” [Rev. 7.17]
Your tears are dried by His hand which feeds
you His Body and His Blood. Come now and receive His weeping of Joy over
you—the cleansing flood of Grace.
In The Name of
The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
No comments:
Post a Comment