Thursday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 17, 2022

Luke 19, 41-44

As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace– but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

St. Matthew records that the Lord Jesus lamented over Jerusalem in a similar way, but places the action on the first or second day after he entered Jerusalem in triumph, and the wording differs significantly from this lament, which St. Luke records and places just before Jesus enters the city on Palm Sunday.  Thus, we have the Lord grieving for the city throughout his remaining days on earth, for on the day before the Last Supper, Wednesday, he also spoke of how the city would be destroyed in war.  Knowing this helps is to understand the strength of his feelings behind his rebukes of the Pharisees and the high priests that both Evangelists record.  Both of these laments ought to be read as presented to show the Jewish and the Gentile readers that the Jews had largely rejected the Gospel and for that reason it would be preached afterwards to the Gentiles.  These accounts also tell us that during the last week of his life on earth, with betrayal, mockery, torture, and death very near, the Lord is not thinking of himself.  He does not lament his fate or curse the city for what it is about to do to him.  Instead, his heart breaks over the impenitence of Jerusalem.

“As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it.”  He wept for Jerusalem while all around him a large crowd was rejoicing: “And when he was now coming near the descent of Mount Olivet, the whole multitude of his disciples began with joy to praise God with a loud voice, for all the mighty works they had seen, saying: Blessed be the King who cometh in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory on high!”  Luke reports this just a couple of verses before he tells us of the Lord weeping.  It makes a strange scene, and only a very close eye witness would have been aware of what was happening because of the continuous uproar of the crowd.  We ought to wonder at how the Lord Jesus wept.  Apart from his weeping for Jerusalem on these two occasions, we are told of only one other occasion on which he wept, at the death of Lazarus.  He have convulsed to have been noticed as he was making his way into the city.  We can picture the strange scene: the Lord on a donkey slowly making his way down the road, broken down in tears; his Apostles surrounding him and then the enormous crowd, also making their way in.  A festive atmosphere prevailed, with the shouting, the proclamations of Jesus as the King, the Son of David, people waving palm branches, strewing the road with their cloaks, the sun shining in the sky on this warm Spring day.  The King weeps as he is acclaimed, thinking of how the city he has come to save will be destroyed within a few decades and all the people around him then living, and their children, would be dead from hunger or the sword, or enslaved.

“If this day you only knew what makes for peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.”  He could have said this to Judas, who, in a way, personified the city in its rejection and betrayal.  The Lord had given Jerusalem many chances to repent and it had remained unmoved.  So he would give Judas multiple opportunities to change his mind, but he continued on, determined to carry out his wickedness.  Repentance, which “makes for peace” is “hidden” from the eyes of those who who lost their consciences through repeated vice.  “For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides.”  This too pertains to any sinner.  The days will come when “your life will be demanded of you” (Luke 12, 20).  On that day the sinner will be surrounded by death and the demons who have come for him and there will be no escape.  “They will smash you to the ground and your children within you.”  “Your children”, that is, any excuses or pleas that the sinner utters at the time he sees death closing in on him.  “They will not leave one stone upon another within you.”  So complete will be the destruction of the wicked city of Jerusalem, the wicked world at the end of time, and the wicked man or woman at any time.  “Because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”  The time of our visitation is now, while the words of the Gospel ring in our ears.