Gospel – Luke 19-20

For all of you who have been following the Gospel of Luke with me, can you believe that we have already reached the last week of Jesus’ life on earth?

Let’s read…

Bible Passage:  Luke 19-20

As Jesus enters into Jerusalem, and having the multitude of people around Him rejoicing and praising God with a loud voice (Luke 19:35-38), despite all that glory being showered upon Him, I often wondered how Jesus really felt.

Imagine this: As you journey into Jerusalem on a little colt, you are being hailed like a king, and everyone around you is rejoicing and shouting praises because of you, yet you know that you are there not to reign (yet), but to die. What an irony!

Remember that in Luke 18, His disciples still did not understand that Jesus was going to be sacrificed and killed for the sins of the people; probably only Jesus Himself knew the things that were going to happen. How heavy-hearted He must be as He entered Jerusalem!

Luke 19:41 probably revealed exactly how Jesus felt then.

Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” Luke 19:41-42

Jesus wept for us

Even though the Bible does not often record the emotions of Jesus, there are a few cases when the Bible recorded that Jesus wept. The thought of our Almighty God weeping because of us makes my heart go weak, as though God has stolen my heart away. It reminds me of the verse in Hebrews 4:15,

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Our God really does sympathise with our weaknesses (Hymn 140). I especially like John 11:33.

Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.

During moments when I had felt weak and in despair, I had really experienced God’s abiding presence in my prayers, assuring me that He understands my sorrow and that He is feeling exactly the same way with me. I am never alone. I am sure you had similar experience of God’s reassuring love before.

If only if only

Let us look deeper into the reason for Jesus weeping in Luke 19:41. He said to the city Jerusalem, addressing the people, “If you had known the things that make for your peace!” He lamented the fact that the blindness of the Jews then had cost them their peace. Because of their hard-heartedness, they had refused to accept Jesus as the Christ. In the end, we see Jerusalem destroyed in 70 A.D. by Roman General Titus. Jesus was sorrowful over this. If only they knew!

This reminds me of a sermon spoken recently about the Samaritan woman by the well in John 4. Let us see what Jesus said to the woman in John 4:10,

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

If the Samaritan woman knew, she would have asked, and she would be given. Today, as believers in the true church, do we actually know of the gift of God – living water? Not just the gift of the Holy Spirit so that we speak in tongues, but more so the power that comes with the Holy Spirit to enable us to triumph over sins, and to be led into all truth!

One comment by a preacher that really struck me is that yes, we have the Holy Spirit today, we speak in tongues; but the sad thing is, we do not have the power of the Holy Spirit in our life (cf 2 Kings 2:19). Don’t we often feel that way, especially when we are often weary with committing the same sins over and over again – for example, as biblereadingcompanion admitted, not being able to restrain one’s lips?

As we continue to read on (John 4), notice also that in John 4:42, the Samaritans believed, not because of what the Samaritan woman said, but because they themselves have heard Him and know that He is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. I marveled at their conviction!

Whenever we sing Hymn 136 “I know whom I have believed”, can we sing it with conviction? Do we really know Him whom we have believed? Do we know of His food, which even the disciples did not know (John 4:32-34)?

Let us not be spiritually blind, but to know for sure who is this on whom we have placed our trust and hope upon.

Oh, that you had heeded My commandments!

Luke 19:42 also reminded me of another verse in the Bible.

Oh, that you had heeded My commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

(Isaiah 48:18)

When I first came across this verse, I felt a tug in my heart. I knew that God was trying to teach me and helping me to realize that it was my own wrongdoings that were causing much of my distress and sufferings.

If only I had heeded God’s commandments from the beginning! I could have been spared all the pains and sorrows that followed. If only we know of the things that make for our peace and have our eyes opened to see! Then perhaps we would be able to better appreciate and cherish God’s love and grace for us in our life. This, as the preacher exhorted using Songs 2:1-2 in the Songs of Solomon lessons, is one of the expectations that God has from His believers.

It is interesting to note that in Isaiah 48:17, God declared that He is the LORD our God. This seems to go in line with the previous point about the need to have the knowledge of God. Do we know God ourselves, or merely through hearsay? Do we know Him as one who teaches us to profit? Do we know Him as one who leads us by the way we should go?

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer,

The Holy One of Israel:
“ I am the LORD your God,
Who teaches you to profit,
Who leads you by the way you should go.

(Isaiah 48:17)

May we truly know Him as the Saviour and Lord of our life.