The Time of Your Visitation

Luke's Gospel, chapter 19.

If you don't have a Bible, there should be one located in front of you.

The passage can be found on page 879.

And I'm going to be reading a little bit earlier in the passage.

If you remember this story, Jesus had sent his disciples to get a colt, and they had brought it back to him.

And we'll pick it up in verse 35, a very familiar passage of Scripture.

It says, And they brought the colt to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.

And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.

As he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

He answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes.

For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side, and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you.

And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.

Today is Palm Sunday and the beginning of what many Christians call Passion Week.

The term passion comes from the Latin word for suffering.

So the expression passion week refers to the suffering that Jesus endured on the way to Calvary, culminating with the cross.

The passion of the Christ is his death by crucifixion, notes one author.

We also use the word passion in another way to mean, as one online dictionary says, any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling as love or hate.

Another definition states a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything.

Webster's dictionary defines passion in one of many ways is intense driving or overmastering feelings or convictions.

Both of those expressions describe what we are entering into not just today, but in reflection of this coming week.

The passion of the Christ in his suffering, in his taking upon himself the punishment that we deserve the full cup of God's undiluted wrath.

And also we see the passion of Jesus, that he was a passionate man.

He deeply loved, had affection, he was moved by the realities around him.

I've heard Stephan C.A.

uh.

often say people are more passionate than irrational.

And that's so true.

We're more often motivated and driven by our desires, oftentimes even unaware of the fact of how deeply and pervasively they're afflicting us or influing us or affecting us rather than through reflective thought.

For us, we find that we often have conflicting desires or we have strong desires for things that we know are wrong.

Many times our desires or our passions are out of proportion or misdirected.

One author notes this: Jesus had perfect passion.

Philip Riken says he was not weepy or sentimental, but he did cry about the things that broke his loving heart.

He was not moody or bad-tempered, but he was angry about hypocrisy and injustice.

In the intensity of his emotions, we see the true and perfect humanity of Jesus Christ.

We see here the deep emotional expression of Jesus at this moment in his ministry.

Jesus went to Jerusalem, another author observes, to announce the good news to the people of that city.

And Jesus knew that he was going to put a choice before them.

Will you be my disciple or will you be my executioner?

There is no middle ground here.

Jesus went to Jerusalem to put people in a situation where they had to say yes or no.

We began to explore the heart of the king last week as we looked at the triumphal entry and Jesus entering into the city of Jerusalem as he's on his way, as he's journeying.

And we saw last week that Jesus is the king who comes in humility.

We noted that this was a living illustration as Jesus rode on a colt.

Not only was he fulfilling prophecy and Zechariah, but he was also revealing his heart, the humility of this king.

He didn't come on a war horse, he came on the back of a colt.

The whole multitude began to rejoice and praise God.

They cried out, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

There was a verse from Psalm 118, one of the psalms of praise, one of the psalms that was sung during Passover.

This particular Psalm 118 would have been sung after the sacrifice of the Passover lamb had been made.

It was also reflecting back to the time of the Exodus, the time when God provided deliverance, when the angel of death came to strike down the firstborn, and only those who had the blood of the Lamb covering them would be passed over from judgment.

And they would be let out of slavery, let out of bondage into freedom under the lordship of God.

And so this phrase, as they begin to bless the king, to bless Jesus, was pregnant with meaning beyond what they understood about who Jesus is.

Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

He is the perfect, pure, spotless one who came, who lived a sinless life to die on the cross in our place.

They prayed, peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

Jesus is the Prince of Peace.

He came to bring peace between us and God, and one day he will return to bring peace, a perfect peace in a new heaven and a new earth.

The crowd here was a mixed multitude.

As the crowd was coming, there were those who were traveling to Jerusalem in processional for the Passover that was about to take place.

There were those who were already in the city who had heard about Jesus and Lazarus and were coming out.

The crowd was a mixed multitude.

The Pharisees, the skeptics were there as well.

Some who came out were just casually curious.

They had heard about Jesus.

They were perhaps hoping to see another miracle, perhaps to just see some novelty, something new, something exciting, something that would entertain them.

Some there were casually curious.

They didn't have a true desire to even find out if Jesus was the Messiah.

They were just interested in seeing something new, something different, something exciting.

Maybe they were just curious about all the stories they had heard, but their desire went no further than that.

We talked last time that some were zealously misguided.

There were some that had preconceived notions of who the Messiah was going to be.

And they were coming out to see if Jesus was going to come now in power, on a war horse, to gather together the people of Jerusalem and to gather together the Jews to overthrow the oppressive hand of the Roman Empire.

They were zealous, but they were misguided because of their preconceived ideas.

They were blinded to the reality of who the Messiah, of who Jesus was.

We saw here as well that there were the openly hostile.

There were those who came not in order to see if Jesus was perhaps the Messiah, not even coming to see if, out of curiosity, who was this man.

But they held Jesus with disdain.

They viewed him as the enemy.

They viewed him as one who was to be put to death.

They were openly hostile.

They hated Jesus.

They hated his ministry, and everything that he did just caused the intensity of those emotions to rise.

And then among that group of mixed multitude, there were a small minority of faithful followers, those who were not just disciples in name or disciples out of curiosity, but they had genuinely placed their trust and their faith in Jesus, the Messiah, the Lamb of God who was to come.

And so we see here as we come into this second portion of this passage, we're reminded that Jesus is the king who comes in humility.

But I want to focus now on the second reality of who this king is.

Jesus is the king who comes in humility, and we explored that in greater detail last time, but Jesus is the king who comes in tears.

And we see that in verses 41 through 44.

As Jesus draws near the city, it says in verse 41, when he sees the city, he weeps over it.

Why?

We're familiar over years of hearing the Passion Week that we expect this to be here.

We know when we're reading through the gospel accounts that in Luke's gospel he puts this lament here.

But imagine what it would be like if you were a part of that crowd, if you were one of the disciples who was with Jesus.

Imagine, just step back and imagine as as you're walking in processional on your way to Jerusalem, you would come into the into the region, you're going down, you would come up, and you had just seen a glimpse of the corner of the city, and the crowds there had begun to just cheer and praise God and shout out accolades, that they began to put down palm branches and put down their cloaks.

That they were beginning to be whipped up into a frenzy of excitement, of exuberance.

And then as you as you go down and you come up again, and they'll and the panorama of the city is before you and you turn to look at Jesus and he's weeping.

The word here is not a word that's used in John's Gospel.

The word here is a word for wailing of deep lament.

It means to wail aloud.

It was a loud and deep lament.

In John's Gospel, in John chapter 11, there's a different word there.

John 11 · chapter mention

That was a weeping of sorrow over sin, but it but this was a loud, deep wailing of lament.

That Jesus sobs in sadness, as one author says, over the destruction and the consequences of the fall.

It's a word here that describes, imagine turning in the midst of what had just happened, as the ringing of the crowds is still in your ears.

And then you see Jesus weeping, lamenting in grief.

It should be a shocking, arresting reality of what is happening here.

Look at what Jesus says in verses 42.

Let's just take this in and then we're we'll unpack it.

He says, Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that would make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes.

And then he begins to describe what is going to happen.

Prophetically describe what is about to happen in the near future.

He says, Days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side.

And tear down to the ground you and your children within you.

And they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation.

The Lord prophetically saw the certain destruction that would occur as a judgment of God over their unrepentance.

The city would be leveled and the streets would run with blood.

The Jewish historian Josephus, writing about this time later in 70 AD, when this uh when Jerusalem was destroyed at the hands of the Romans, this is what Josephus wrote about that.

Caesar had already commanded the entire city and the temple to be raised to the ground, leaving only the towers which projected higher than the others to stand.

Fossil, Hippocus, and Morami, and that part of the wall which enclosed the city on the west.

This was to be an encampment for the troops which would be left behind, and the towers were to reveal to posterity how great a city of Jerusalem had been, and what sort of fortifications Roman prowess had dominated.

All the rest of the wall which encompassed the city, the demolition, teams leveled so that no one would come there in the future would ever believe that that spot had been inhabited.

One commentator added, This is precisely the method used by Titus when he laid siege to Jerusalem in AD 70.

He surrounded the city on April 9th, cutting off the supplies and trapping thousands of people who had been in Jerusalem for the Passover and feast of unleavened bread just completed.

The Romans systematically built embankments around the city, gradually starving the city's inhabitants.

The Romans held the city in this manner through the summer, defeating various sections of the city one by one.

The final overthrow of the city occurred in early September.

The destruction was terrible.

Note another commentator when the city was stormed and the temple burned.

Josephus records that the victorious Roman general Titus threw his arms heavenward, uttered a groan, and called God to witness that this was not his doing.

That was what was to happen.

What Jesus here tells them that the day will come when the enemies will set up barricades.

They would build up barricades in order to invade.

Jesus grieves over their unrepentance and their willful ignorance.

Notice what he says at the end of this in verse 44.

You did not know the time of your visitation.

Jesus was the Messiah in their midst.

He gave every proof to the reality that he was the anointed one.

He was the prophet, the priest, the king that was to come.

We see the tender heart of Jesus and his grief over their lostness and certain destruction.

They should have known.

But we see the heart of Jesus here.

The tender heart of Jesus in his grief over their lostness.

His ministry had been, he said earlier, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

He wished that they had recognized him as the Messiah and turned to him to receive salvation.

And when he saw the people who had been adopted to the hope of eternal life perish miserably through their ingratitude and wickedness, we need not wonder if he could not refrain from tears.

We need to see the heart of Jesus, God himself in human flesh over the lostness of these people.

How sad it is that these people had seen the miracles of Jesus.

They had seen him with their eyes, heard them with their ears.

Some of the people, no doubt, had been among the 5,000 who had eaten or the 4,000.

The people heard the call of salvation but were never received him as their king.

They never trusted him as their savior.

Look at the tender compassion of our Savior for the lost.

When he considers their sin and the destruction that will surely follow, it broke his heart.

He knew they were fickle followers.

He knew the same ones who had just cried Hosanna would very soon cry, crucify him.

He knew the ones who were laying out palm branches would be complicit with the ones who put a crown of thorns on his head.

He knew the ones who were looking at him right now with admiration would soon look upon him upon the cross with scorn and disdain.

A lazy indifference about the spiritual state of others may doubtlessly save us much trouble.

To care nothing whether our neighbors are going to heaven or hell is no doubt the way of the world.

But this attitude, says Ryle, is very unlike Christ.

I heard a story of a great missionary statesman, uh Dr.

A.

B.

Simpson.

He wanted to go to China to be a missionary.

He was unable to do so because of a number of circumstances, including the reality of his wife not being able to.

And so he began a missions work in New York City to the uh to the immigrants.

That were coming in.

And the story's told that one day one one of his one of the people who was working with him happened to come in unannounced and not realizing that he was there in his office praying.

And when they walked in, there was A.

B.

Simpson on the floor holding a globe, weeping, praying for the lost?

When was the last time that you cried over the people?

When was the last time that I cried over the people of Grand Forks?

Over the neighbors that I see go in and out of their out of their garage every day, to the person at the grocery store.

When was the last time that we cried over the people who live all around us because of their lostness and the reality that they will face a crisis eternity apart from Christ?

This was both a result of their willful rejection of Jesus.

It was also a part of God's perfect plan and will.

The rejection of Jesus and the cross were not unexpected by the Father.

These people bear full responsibility for the rejection of Jesus, and the judgment is absolutely just.

Yet we also know that this is a part of God's plan for Jesus to be rejected, betrayed, mocked, beaten, stripped, crucified, murdered.

John in his gospel adds this.

John in John chapter 12, verses 37 through 41, reflecting on this same period of time that we find here in Luke's Gospel, John adds, When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them.

John 12:37–41

Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.

Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

John adds, Therefore they could not believe.

For again Isaiah said, He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they see with their eyes and understood with their hearts, and turned, and I would heal them.

Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.

John tells us two things about what we find here in Luke's gospel.

According to Isaiah 53, 1, the people rejected the Messiah, whom God would accept.

What happened here was in reality a fulfillment of what God had said through the prophet Isaiah 700 years before.

That they would not believe what they had heard, that they did not believe in him.

This was part of the plan of God and the outworking of salvation, the willful rejection by his people of the Messiah.

Further, John quotes Isaiah 6.10 that God would bring judicial judgment by blinding their eyes and hardening their hearts.

And apart from the enabling of the Holy Spirit, they could not believe.

Peter could preach on the day of Pentecost, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

Acts 2.23.

The passion weak unfolded according to God's perfect plan, and yet the people involved stand morally responsible for their sinful actions that they willfully did.

Divine sovereignty and human responsibility do not work in opposition to each other.

They're like two rails on a train track that work parallel and in concert with one another, moving in the same direction.

This should both comfort and challenge us.

We can have confidence that the world has not spiraled out of control.

We can look and see what happens to Jesus and know that this was not something that was outside of God's knowledge, of God's permission, of God's plan.

We can have confidence that when we see, even through all the pages of the Bible, the evil that is done, that what people mean for evil, God means for good.

We can have confidence in God's word, that when he says to the believer, all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

We can have confidence in the sovereignty of God.

And yet we're reminded here that our decisions matter and that we are held accountable for what we choose.

The people here were responsible for their willful rejection of Jesus.

They should have known.

They didn't know, but they didn't know because of willful ignorance, they chose to reject the information that was there before them.

The truth remains that we have a responsibility to respond to God's word.

We can't ignore our responsibility to come to Jesus.

And yet we can't save ourselves.

We cannot change our own hearts, but we can seek the Lord and ask for mercy and grace for God to grant us repentance.

We can pray and ask God to open blind eyes, to soften hardened hearts.

We can pray for our friends and our relatives and our neighbors to ask God to work in their lives.

And we can do what God has called us to do, to share the gospel, to tell them the only message of hope of Christ's death on the cross, of his resurrection.

This holy week, as we're thinking about the events that unfolded in the streets of Jerusalem and on Gelgotha, as we think about the crucifixion and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus, we see that God was working out his plan for salvation.

And that God has called us to do our part to tell others about Jesus.

We can't change our own hearts, but we can seek the Lord and ask for mercy and grace, to ask God to grant repentance.

We can pray for others, we can share the gospel.

Do we look around and do we see?

Do we have eyes to see like Jesus?

Not in emotionalism, not in disproportionate response, but what we see Jesus here in his perfect humanity.

We see in his perfect passion an expression of the burden of the reality of sin and the lostness of man.

No, we shouldn't be governed by our emotions, we shouldn't be guided by just passionate appeals that are disproportionate to the reality of what is there.

But the reality is that apart from Christ, every person that we will ever meet is on his way to a Christless eternity.

And the only hope that they have is the hearing of the gospel.

And God has called you and me to be his ambassadors, to pray, to plead, to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

For family and friends during this time of celebrating Easter, to challenge them to call out to Jesus, to pray for us, to pray for a burden that our heart might expand, that our vision might increase, that we sense the urgency and feel the burden.

A real sense of the reality.

For our friends, for our relatives, for our neighbors, for our co-workers, who are destined for destruction if they don't turn to Christ.

May we have the passion of Jesus even as we remember the passion of Jesus.

Let's pray.

Father, we don't want guilt to motivate us.

We don't want to be shamed into doing something that we don't want to do.

Lord, we know ultimately that those motivations don't honor you.

And so, Lord, we're asking you to change our hearts.

We can't change our own hearts.

We can't move in new directions by an act of the will or even by information alone.

And so, Lord, we're asking you to take the words of Scripture and impress them upon our hearts and minds.

Lord, we're asking you to change our hearts, to open our eyes, to see reality for what it really is, not the false perception that we salve our conscience with.

But Lord, may we be motivated out of a love for you and a love for others and a passion for the lost and a desire for the gospel.

And so, Lord, I'm praying and asking you to change my heart.

To change our hearts.

That we will share the love of Christ and live that out each day.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.