As Jesus rode into Jerusalem, He cried. He cried because He is the Son of God in the flesh and He was coming into the city to save the people from their sins and they didn't care. They didn't believe. They did not know the things which would give them peace—the Son of God dying for sins on the cross—and they didn't know the time of their visitation—when God Himself showed up to save them. Jesus cried because in Him, God saves the world from sins but the world and especially God's own chosen people don't know it or refuse to believe it. When the Holy Spirit gathers us in the church, when we come in that door and we celebrate the Divine Service, God Himself is present. Here, in this place, the Lord comes to us. Not just by using our imaginations. He's not here in the sense that we sort of think about Him or remember Him even though He's actually far, far away somewhere. No, in the Divine Service of the Gospel and Sacraments, through the Office of the Holy Ministry—your pastor—the Lord Jesus Himself stands among you to serve us the you gifts which give forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Here, in this place, Christ comes to bring the things that bring us peace. Here in this place, our Lord visits us and is with us to shelter us from His wrath and to give us eternal life. Do you know the things that bring you peace? The water of Holy Baptism. The Absolution spoken by your pastor. The preaching and teaching that for Jesus' sake your sins are forgiven and you have a Father in heaven. The body and blood of your Lord Jesus given to you as a food so that you will live forever. Dear Christians, these are the things which bring the peace of God to you. Do you know them? Do you believe that Christ is here and visits you for your good and blessing?

Jerusalem doesn't know the things that will bring it peace! The clergy, especially, along with the Pharisees and leaders, want a Savior who comes and does what THEY want, not one who suffers and dies for their sins. Over and over, as Jeremiah reminds us, the Lord has called to His people and they want nothing to do with Him. Jesus then predicts what will happen to Jerusalem. If they don't want God's Word, then Lord won't have them! In 70 AD the Romans laid their siege against Jerusalem. It got so bad that people began eating their own children because there was no food! Finally, the Romans were able to break through and they destroyed the city. They burned everything to the ground and destroyed the temple, pulling it apart piece by piece until it was nothing but a pile of rubble. All exactly as Jesus had said. Brothers and sisters in Christ, don't miss this warning about what happens to those who reject Christ and want nothing to do with His Word. We face the same result in our own Synod these days. More and more and over and over we gather together to say and do what is against God's Word. How long will God be patient with us before He brings us to utter shame and ruin? But like the scribes who were afraid to touch Jesus because they were afraid of the people, so the leaders of our Synod do things not on the basis of God's Word but by what is popular and easy and pleasing to people. But let's zoom in from the Synod. We can look around our own congregation and see there are those who don't know what brings peace and don't know where and how the Lord shows up. But I can't preach to people who aren't here so let's push it further: to your own heart and life. Do YOU know the things which bring God's peace? Do you know the time of God's visitation? His coming among us to save and rescue us? Are God's Word and promises the very thing which give you peace or do you despise them and see the consequences in a life full of frustration and heartache and turmoil?


Jesus weeps over Jerusalem! Jesus cries with sadness for a people whom He has come to save that don't even want Him to save them. I remember when I went to see Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ." Many people cried when they saw what happened to Jesus. But in the Gospels, Jesus tells the women who weep for Him, "Don't cry for me, daughters of Jerusalem, cry for yourselves and what's going to happen to this city that has rejected Me." The visitation of God, the things that bring peace are all there in Christ. When Jesus comes to Jerusalem, that is God Himself. Over and over He sent prophets like Jeremiah to warn Jerusalem to stop worshiping false gods, to repent and cling to the Lord's saving promises. Now, God has come Himself in the flesh to save and rescue His people. He comes in the flesh so that the overwhelming and damning glory of God is hidden and safe to approach. When Jesus gets tot Jerusalem, God has visited His people. And what is more ironic is that the very hatred they have of Jesus leads not only to their salvation, but the salvation of the whole world. For those who rejected Christ sent Him to die by the hands of the Gentile governor. Jesus goes to the cross and suffers and dies for the sins of a world that didn't ask Him to die for it. He dies for a world that doesn't know Him and doesn't want to know Him. He dies for His own people –you and me—who don't want anything to do with Him. He dies for you and me who put so little importance on learning His Word and receiving the true peace which comes from sins forgiven. And He weeps because the Father forsakes Him. And He weeps because those who crucify Him do not know what they do. And He weeps because so many could care less and will be damned because of it. But He goes to the cross, so that those few people the Holy Spirit brings to faith will have Someone to cling to. He goes to the cross to bring peace and an end of our enmity with God because of our sins. He goes to the cross in our place, as our substitute, as our once-for-all sacrifice that takes away our sins. Believe that, dear people of God! Believe that all that Christ is and has done by His death and resurrection is for your peace.


There were many false prophets in the Old Testament. They preached, "Peace! Peace!" when God had not promised peace. Now the Lord Jesus has come and accomplished all that was needed for our peace. But instead the world and its preachers run around yelling "peace, peace" apart from Jesus. There is NO peace apart from Jesus Christ and His dying for sins and rising from the dead. I hate to get technical on you, but bear with me as I point out something important in today's Gospel text. Jesus says that Jerusalem and her children will be flattened "because you did not know the time of your VISITATION." Visitation, you know, when God shows up! But the Greek word that is translated "visitation" is the same Word in the Bible that means the "office of pastor." (It's the word from which we get English words like "episcopal"). Anyway, what the Holy Spirit is teaching us by this word is that when the Son of God shows up to die for sinners, it is the same as when the Lord shows up in the church through Office of the Holy Ministry to wash, speak and feed us forgiven. Like when your pastor says "as a called and ordained servant of the Word" and "in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ," he speaks in the place of Jesus. Brothers and sisters in Christ, the visitation of our Lord to His people is accomplished in there being a pastor through whose ministry of the means of grace Christ comes to us! Therefore, to deny the means of grace, to think nothing of the ministry of your pastor and the Word he preaches and the sacraments he administers—to deny what the Office of the Holy Ministry is and gives is to be like heard-hearted, stiff-necked Jerusalem: to not know what it is that brings our peace and how it is that the Lord visits us.


There is our repentance, dear Christians, that we acknowledge that we despise preaching and God's Word; we do not hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. Rather, we grumble that church wasn't "uplifting" or that the hymns were too hard to sing or that the sermon was boring or that the liturgy takes too long. Instead of running to the Lord's house and receiving His gifts of peace with joy, we sit in the pew half asleep, wondering when church is going to be over. Or worse, we don't come often or sometimes we don't come at all as if there are a million and one things in the world and our lives that are more important and that we get more out of than the Divine Service. Brothers and sisters in Christ, repent of being such a little Jerusalem! Turn away from the world's glittering stuff and false notions of "peace" to the living and true Lord who visits us every Lord's day and other times with the water, word, body and blood which bring us lasting peace with God. Believe and recognize that in this Divine Service, the Lord Himself visits us. The Lord Himself shows up and has nothing but loads of gifts to be given out to you. That's why we call it the Divine Service, after all, because it is God Himself who serves us with His holy and saving gifts!


Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Jerusalem that Jesus weeps over is given to us as a warning! She despised her Lord and His Word and His bringing peace by His death. That city fell under the judgment of God as a warning to all who would reject Christ and despise God's coming to us! Jerusalem was destroyed. Oh, men rebuilt Jerusalem, but what an insult it must be today that where the Lord's holy temple stood now stand the mosque of a pagan and false religion! Let Jerusalem serve as a warning to us, a wake up call that God's Word is not to be treated lightly or with contempt! Instead, hear again the things that are for your peace: The Son of God dying on the cross and rising from the dead. The washing of water and the Word at the holy font. The speaking of forgiveness into your ears by your pastor. The forgiving feast of Jesus' body and blood at this altar. These are the things for your peace. You don't have to look anywhere else in the world to have your sins forgiven, to be made right with God, to have peace with your neighbor. Know this: that whatever despising of God's Word has been done, it has been blotted out by the blood of Jesus. No longer fear that you have neglected God's Word and promises! Don't be afraid of such sins or any sins! They have been answered for by Jesus. He has come to Jerusalem for the salvation of the whole world. And now He comes to this church, in this divine service, to give that salvation to you. Those are the things for your peace, which is why the apostle can give that blessing and why your "episcope," your pastor, now gives it to you: The PEACE which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.