Trinity 10

Good Shepherd

2004 Pass Rd, Biloxi, MS 39531

Draft Jer 8:4–12; 1 Cor 12:1–11; Luke 19:41–48; Ps 92; antiph: v. 4   –     08/24/25

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Two other times Jesus laments the destruction of Jerusalem: In Luke 13, when Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! (34); Matt. 23, where He says much the same but later during Holy Week, and our own text, which takes place as He is about to enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Three times He laments, three times He warns, three times Jerusalem refuses to heed. The city is without excuse, more so because already Isaiah had warned them of the very same thing hundreds of years before:

Ah, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts run their round. Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be moaning and lamentation, and she shall be to me like an Ariel. And I will encamp against you all around, and will besiege you with towers and I will raise siegeworks against you. And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak, and from the dust your speech will be bowed down; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and from the dust your speech shall whisper (29:1–4).

Josephus records the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. This is how Rev. Buls summarizes Josephus: “The Jews always proved to be the Most rebellious people in the Roman Empire. During the days of the apostles they were warned never again to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem or to fortify their city.” But during the 60s they did. Thus Nero sent a small army to subdue them. The Jews killed all 5000 of them. Nero then sent Flavius Vespasianus and his son Titus to deal with the city. “At the time of the Passover in the year 70 about 1,000,000 Jews gathered in Jerusalem. During the next five months Jerusalem was totally overcome and destroyed. They destroyed themselves. There were three parties in the city who were jealous of each other and did not trust each other. They destroyed each others’ food, supplies, and homes. Thus the Jews were their own worst enemies. Jerusalem was circled by three strong walls. With great effort and at great expense the Romans conquered wall after wall. Then they went after the Temple. It was burned to the ground August 10, 70 A.D. Then 900,000 Jews were killed, starved or sold as slaves. Only about 100,000 survived.” They went to gross extremes to stay alive during the siege, but I will spare you that gruesomeness. Even after the siege, the Romans discovered that some of the Jews had eaten their gold to hide it. “Thousands of Jews were cut open alive for the gold. Thus the most beautiful city of the east was destroyed just as our Lord had repeatedly foretold it. He Himself wept over the city because of its unbelief and rejection of God, His Son and the Covenant. The destruction of Jerusalem is the severest of judgments of God upon man. We should heed Jesus’ warning. It could happen to us too.” (Buls’ Notes)

So great is the destruction of Jerusalem it might cause many to wonder how God could allow such evil to befall His people, worse even, how God could command such evil through the Romans. Didn’t God promise in Psalm 125: As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, from this time forth and forevermore (125:2), meaning that He would preserve Jerusalem forever as His holy city? Or the many other places where He made such promises? What then of His promise that His Church would prevail against the gates of hell? (Mt 16:18) Isn’t the world getting worse and worse, the devil seeming to gain ground in schools, churches, governments, every human institution, and every faithful church shrinking? Even this congregation is a shadow of its former size. How can God allow this defeat?

True, God promised the eternal protection of Jerusalem, and His eternal love and faithfulness to the descendants of Abraham. But His promise was not to murderers and liars, not to those who rejected His Son, the Anointed One of Israel who had come to visit His people to save them. His promises are not for hypocrites. When God rejects hypocrites, in whom the Spirit does not dwell, whose hearts are far from Him; when He burns the chaff, His Word is not made false, nor is this rejecting His people. “Not Jerusalem, the city of peace, God’s hearth and home, but the Jerusalem that became the murderer of prophets, the temple that became the den of thieves, the noble ones of Israel who had become like dross, that’s what the Lord has rejected and destroyed.” (Stoeckhardt, 326) The faithful had already left the city.

St Paul shows that the promises of God are only for the faithful, only the faithful are children of Abraham and citizens of Holy Jerusalem: Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. (Gal 3:5–7)  “Ishmael, [and] Esau’s descendants did not belong to the lineage of the promise, were children of Abraham only according to the flesh. The Jews, to whom Christ came, the Pharisees and the scribes who boasted of their father Abraham, were really not children of Abraham nor children of God but were, as the Lord himself testified, of their father the devil.” (325)

“Only those who walk in the footsteps of Abraham’s faith are Abraham’s real children, the true Israel, God’s people. Not those of the flesh, of the seed or desire of man but those who are born of God are the children of God. Not those who say, ‘Lord, Lord!’ but those who have known the Lord and who are known of him and do his will are Christ’s true disciples. Only those moved by the Spirit of God are living members of the Church.” (325–326) And it is just the same for Jerusalem, only those who are children of Abraham by faith are of Jerusalem. The true Jerusalem will never be destroyed, though the earthly city which murdered the prophets and crucified our Lord was. The true Church will likewise never be defeated, though many hypocrites mingle themselves among the true Christians, and many false churches claim the name of Christian and lead many believers and unbelievers astray.

How do we identify the true Church? We do not look at how many butts are sitting the the folding chairs—Jerusalem had more than a million when she fell—, we do not look at the size of the choir—the priests who died in the temple sang the psalms daily—, we do not look at the finances—the romans tore stone from stone at the temple mount to get all of the vast amount of gold—, no, this is the standard: “The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered” (AC VII, §1). Whether few or many, rich or poor, a true church is one that is faithful to the whole of God’s Word, where all ages are baptized, where there is confession and absolution, and where the true body and true blood of Christ under the bread and wine are administered to the faithful by the pastor.

What is the whole of God’s Word? For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God (John 3:16–18). But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:4–7). And, What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness (Romans 4:1–5).

The Jews rejected the prophets, then they rejected Christ. Therefore God gave them over to a debased mind and destroyed them and their city, and yet Jesus mourned for them. Many who claim to be Christians also reject the prophets and apostles, and reject Christ, preferring their own creations and their own teachings to the truth of God’s Word. Therefore God gives them over to a debased mind and is going to destroy them and their churches, but He is also patient and desires their repentance, just as He waited forty years before destroying Jerusalem. The Jews misused the temple and the sacrifices, and so God took the temple and the sacrifices away from them, and now the Jews wander the earth with nothing but a false religion to hold them together, yet Jesus still mourned for them. Many modern churches and Christians, even among our own denomination, misuse the gifts God gave to the church, denying that baptism saves though St Peter says it does (1 Pt 3:21), and or claiming there is a water baptism and a spirit baptism even though Paul tells us there is but one (Eph 4:5), denying the efficacy of confession and absolution even though Christ commanded both (Jn 20:22–23; Mt 16:19; Js 5:16), and denying that Christ, true God and true Man, gives His body and blood to us in the bread and wine (Mt 26; Mk 14; Lk 22; 1 Cor 11), or, just as wickedly, opening up the Lord’s Table to any who approach whether they are Christian or not, whether they confess what Christ says of the supper or not, whether they discern that Christ is within the bread and wine for the forgiveness of the believer but for the condemnation of the denier of the Supper (1 Cor 10). God is going to give them over to a debased mind and will take their churches and cities from them, still Jesus mourns that His bride, the Church, is fractured by schism and full of hypocrites. Yet the faithful Jesus will not abandon.

God sets the fall of Jerusalem as a warning to us so that we do not become like them. So that on the Last Day we will not be like those of whom Jesus says,

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (Mt 7:21–23)

The Jews in 70 AD thought they were faithful to God. Everyone today who calls himself a Christian thinks he is faithful to God. But God is quite clear, only those who keep His Word are His people, are citizens of heavenly Jerusalem, are the true children of Abraham (Jn 8:51; 14:23). Therefore, heed the whole counsel of God, read your Bibles ever day, attend church if you are able even if it means losing out on some earthly thing.

But be comforted also by this, that it is not by your might or power that you are saved, but it is by the mercy of God in Christ Jesus that you are justified. Consider what Jesus said to Martha before He raised Lazarus from the dead: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” (Jn 11:25–27) Soon thereafter Jesus called out to the dead man, Lazarus, come forth! And the dead man lived again. We who were once dead in our trespasses and sins could no more save ourselves than dead Lazarus could cause himself to breath again. This is also the case with the churches. We cannot cause them to grow, we can only ensure that faithful doctrine is taught, and the Sacraments faithfully delivered; God will give the growth. It is our part to stay faithful; God does all else for us, and He is generous in His giving. Christ would not see the wicked perish. He did not want Israel to reject Him. Nor is Jesus willing to let His Church perish from the earth. While He will permit the wicked to go their own way into destruction, and He will permit wolves to wander among the churches, He will preserve the lives of the faithful, even among unfaithful congregations lead by wolves He will preserve the faithful until the end. Amen.

Now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen