“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'” Matthew 23:37-39
O Jerusalem, whose very name means Foundation of Peace or City of Peace where Jesus would lay down His life for our sins to make peace with God. O Daughter of Zion, on whose lowly eastern hills God chose to make His dwelling among men; He is not aloft and aloof as the nations suppose. O heart of God’s chosen people, Israel, who does not choose His heart in return.
Hear the lament of a loving God for the world He created and the longing to reconcile all people to Himself.
Despite the fact that His chosen people killed His messengers of truth, peace, mercy and hope [2 Chronicles 24:21; Matthew 5:12 & 10:23; Hebrews 11:32-38], God longed to protect them. To shelter them under His wings and guide them to the safety for which they constantly clamored [Psalm 91].
But the truth was, though Israel longed for the protection of the Almighty, it was not because they loved Him and wanted to live in peaceful communion with Him. They simply wanted God to bless whatever they did, even though everyone was doing whatever they thought was right for themselves and not living according to God’s righteousness [Judges 2:11, 3:7, 3:12, 4:1, 6:1, 10:6, 13:1, 17:6 & 21:25; Proverbs 21:2; et al]. They wanted Him to make life easy by removing every obstacle and hardship, without expecting them to be holy as He is holy in return.
In other words, they wanted God to uphold their false self-as-godhood.
But time and again in the Old Testament, God cautioned Israel about the consequences of living this way [Deuteronomy 6:10-19; 1 Kings 9:6-9; Jeremiah 22:1-5; & the many prophecies leading up to the exile]. Now Jesus was letting them know that, not only did He not come to remove the oppression of Rome–as they had hoped the Messiah would–but in fact, things were going to get worse because Israel’s heart was still far from God.
So far that they didn’t recognize their long-hoped-for Messiah. So far that, though they welcomed Him as king to Jerusalem, they returned to the normalcy of life as soon as they saw that He had not come to do what they desired [Matthew 21:8-11, 17 & 23]. So far that they crucified the very one for whom they’d waited their whole lives.
And only when Jerusalem–the heart of God’s chosen people, Israel–acknowledges Jesus as the Messianic King He is, will they see Him again [Zechariah 14:4].
To this day, God would dwell in each and every one of us, if we would choose Him over ourselves. We cannot be His in name only. We cannot claim to serve God and still do whatever we feel like in this world. We cannot expect God to uphold our self-as-god complex and deny Him when He doesn’t.
Does your heart long for God the way He longs for you?
KCS
Generation Heroes 