Today Is Still the Day of His Visitation :: Luke 19:41-48

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[Introduction]

Today we are on the road with Jesus, traveling from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem. It’s a short walk ... not quite a mile ... to the temple. The city’s population is swelling because Passover is near. And with Jesus in sight, the people begin rejoicing and praising God, waving palm branches and spreading their cloaks on the path in front of him. They’re rolling out a red carpet, so to speak. Their refrain ... Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord ... is echoing. Meanwhile, the magnificent white, marble temple that’s overlaid with gold, is shimmering in the sunlight (vv 36-38). 

Yet right in the middle of this chorus of praise, Jesus pauses, looks up, sees the city and temple and ... he weeps, saying, If you knew on this day, even you, the things that bring peace. But now, [that which brings peace] is hidden from your eyes because the days will come upon you when your enemies will encircle you, and barricade you, and surround you, and confine you, and level you and your children among you. They won’t leave a stone upon a stone because you did NOT KNOW the season of your visitation (vv 41-44).

1. [The danger that blinds us to the Lord’s visitation.]

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a terrifying image. And it should SHOCK you! They were blind to the season of the Lord’s visitation! 

We see A fulfillment of this prophecy in the year 70 AD. The Jewish historian Josephus reported that about 1.1 million people died during the Roman siege Jesus is describing. They died because though they had seen Jesus, they were blind to who he is. They didn’t believe in him. Too many see him as just another son, just another man, just another teacher, just another king ... and even, just another god. They also heard him speak, but they were deaf to his Word, his Way, his Truth, and his Life.

They died because they didn’t pay attention to why Jesus was doing what he was doing ... living without sin, dying for your sin, and rising from the dead for your justification. They didn’t recognize Christ as the Lord, True Man and True God, Immanuel, God with Us.

They died because they didn’t recognize what all of his work really meant for them ... the fulfillment of God’s promise to judge sin and to deliver their salvation, covering not just man and woman in the garden, but all men. 

They died because they were doing exactly what they had been doing for at least 1,500 years. Beginning with the Exodus, they got caught up in their feelings, in their songs and palm waving. They placed their trust in another god ... the deceptive words that ... this is the temple of YHWH, the temple of YHWH, the temple of YHWH (Jer 7:4). They thereby thought that they didn’t actually need to repent of anything. We have the temple with its sacrifices, they thought. What more do we need? They didn’t understand that the church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord (LSB 644:1). 

Now ask yourself what Jeremiah asked the people in our Old Testament reading: Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods you have not known, and then come and stand (before the Lord) in this house ... and say, ‘We are delivered!’ only to continue doing all of these abominations? 

Dear brothers and sisters ... Repent and believe the Gospel! 

TODAY IS STILL THE DAY OF OUR LORD’S VISITATION

2. [The people of Jerusalem didn’t understand this.]

There is a great misunderstanding in our world today about what worship is. The world thinks worship is something we give to God, including the songs we sing to God, the prayers and praise we lift up to God. The world associates worship with feelings. 

Though what we give, sing, and pray are important responses to God ... this service is NOT about what we do, or sing, or pray. It is God’s visitation with us. That is why our worship is called the Divine Service. 

In our text Jesus is returning to his house for the ultimate Divine Service. First, he cleanses it, then he teaches and preaches, and finally he completes it.

Luke writes, When Jesus entered the temple, he began to cast out those who were selling, saying to them, ‘It is written: And my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers ... or better yet, a den of pirates (vv 45-47). Luke doesn’t use the standard word for robber, which implies secretive theft. Instead he uses a term describing those who rob openly and brazenly, much like pirates. 

The chief priests in particular were among those openly and brazenly robbing the people of true worship. In a very public setting, they were using vendors to rob the people by taxing the sacrificial animals sold. They were robbing people by collecting fees from temple approved money changers. These taxes on commercial operations generated massive wealth for the elite priestly families. I think we can therefore say it was an early form of the prosperity gospel, which is no Gospel at all. It robs people of true worship.

In response to the presence of Jesus, the chief priests, along with the scribes and the elders of the people plotted to murder Jesus. But they knew they had to wait for the right time because the people were hanging on everything they heard from the Lord (v 48).

3. [The Divine Service is God’s visitation with us.]

This leads us right into the Divine Service, the place where we hang on the Word of Christ. 

Rather than allowing worship in the temple to be something that makes us feel good, the Divine Service brings the temple ... or in our case, the sanctuary of our church ... back to its intended purpose. This is the place where God visits his people, dwells with his people, and serves his people. Jesus does that through his Word and Sacraments ... the very means that deliver the forgiveness of sins, and therefore life and salvation.

First, he calls us forth into his house of prayer to gather because there is forgiveness for those who have fallen (AC XII). 

With the Invocation, he reminds you of his first visitation with you ... the day of your baptism, the day he gave you a new name ... the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He reminds you that you are one of his own ... chosen, royal, holy, a people of his own, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Pt 2:9). Now we know we can trust that God is our true Father and we are his true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we can confess our sins and know that the absolution announced by your called and ordained servant of the Word is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord was visiting us himself. 

But we don’t stop sinning. 

So he draws us closer to the chancel to hear his Word that is read and the Sermon that proclaims why the Prince of Peace visits the City of Peace to give you peace. To use Paul’s proclamation from our epistle: My heart’s desire and prayer to God ... is that [you] may be saved (Rom 10:1). 

As the sinless Lamb of God, Christ accomplished that by shedding his blood in fulfillment of scripture because there is no forgiveness without the shedding of HIS blood. This is why our high priest has visited the temple (Hb 9:12). Jesus came to suffer and die in your stead. He came to pay the redemption price of your sins with his blood. And now risen from the dead, he has set us all free, and all who trust him, believe in him, have eternal life now.

Which brings us to the pinnacle of the Divine Service ... the hour he gives us the fruit of the cross in the Lord’s Supper. This Service of the Sacrament is not a memorial meal. The bread and wine are not representations or symbols of what Jesus gave us 2,000 years ago. Jesus gives us his body and blood in the season of his visitation with us. This is why the church has been devoted to the apostles’ teaching and to the communion (which is) the breaking of bread, and to the prayers (Acts 2:42). Behold, he truly is with us always to the end of the age. 

And our Lord and Savior continues to visit his people here today.  

[Conclusion]

Won’t you embrace his visitation? Open your home to his Word. Read Scripture to your family. Tell the world about Jesus ... what he has done and continues to do in his visitation here at Trinity. Invite your friends and family to join you here. Gather those who have wandered. As we have been hearing these past two months, Jesus continues to feed us, nourish us, wash us. He continues to teach us that he is for us, and he delights when we share with one another the joy we have knowing his visitation through Word and Sacrament ... in Jesus’ name.

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