O Jerusalem, Jerusalem

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem

Text: MATTHEW 23:37.                 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”

The Sunday before Easter is celebrated by Christians as the day when Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem. The crowds were reported to have waved palm branches, and to symbolise this Christians often make palm crosses in church.

Many have cried out with great feeling. More so with the loss of a loved one. Many have been in great pain and suffering and have cried out in agony. But only a few have cried out to God for a city, and the greatest of these is the Lord Jesus Christ leading up to that week of passion and the cross.

When Jesus cried out “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.” This is the very heart of God, pouring itself forth through human flesh and human speech. It is the voice of the incarnate One, it is the innermost life and love of Deity, pleading with men, bleeding for them, and dying for them.

Christ opens His heart to the people of Jerusalem, to win them back by the power of His matchless love; this love has conquered the world, that will “draw all men unto Himself.”

1.     “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.”

          JERUSALEM the great capital of Judea, the seat of the kings of Judah, yes, the city of the great king David; the place of divine worship, once the holy and faithful city; wherefore it was strange that the following things should be said of it. Jerusalem here means the city and its inhabitants; and the nation as a whole. Jesus here grieves and mourns over the city and the people of Jerusalem.

This is a sad and yet loving prophecy. For Jerusalem was the centre of the rejection of the Christ. Here is the rejection of the protection of God incarnate, in favour of the outward trappings of religion, yet had lost their first love.

          The intense feelings of Jesus are felt here, as He cries “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.” The word is repeated to show our Lord's affection and concern for the city, and its people. Have you ever cried over the city of Stoke or the town of Biddulph like Jesus did?

The One who could have saved them cries out to them! But who will answer the cry of the Lord? Acts 3:19-21: “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, Whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”

2.    “The one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!”

          Here stands upon the hillside overlooking the city, the Prophet of all prophets. Not content with rejecting God's messages of mercy, the people of Jerusalem would not even allow the prophets to live! Here Jesus was about to finish His work as a prophet in Jerusalem. They had so persistently rejected the messengers of God, and would in the end find itself locked out of the Kingdom of God.

Even before the love and compassion of Jesus, Jerusalem remained unyielding. Therefore the Temple would be empty of God’s divine presence, by the rejection of Jesus, the incarnate One. And it would not see Jesus again, until it was prepared to welcome Him as the Messiah, or was visited by Him as its Judge.

          The city had so often rejected the ministry of God’s prophet, will soon reject God’s Son, and so rejected the salvation He offered her, and now the people were left to the desolation that was coming. Which would soon fall upon the city in A.D.70? And all that was to follow, the Nazis camps, etc.

3.    “How often I wanted to gather your children together. As a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”

Jesus was well versed in the telling of parables, (parables are earthly stories with a heavenly meaning). Jesus takes the picture from a simple domestic scene, and turns it into a picture of His own love, and care for the people and nation of Israel.

          How graceful this figure of protection, rest, warmth, and well-being of a hen and the safety of her chicks, is the desire of the Lord’s protecting arms. How this image arrests us! She is quick to protect her young, coming herself between them and the danger. How suggestive all this is of what Jesus is and does for men! Under His great wing would He have gathered Israel.

CONCLUSION:

          The reason why men are not saved is not that Christ is not able and willing to save them. BUT, that they will not come to Him. Come to Jesus now! This last Sunday before Easter, so that YOU do not crucify Jesus afresh at Calvary!

          “O Biddulph, Biddulph. How often I wanted to gather you together!