Jerusalem, Jerusalem

What can we learn from Our Lord’s lament over Jerusalem?

Reading: Luke 13:31-35

The following homily was preached to the student brothers during Compline. You can listen here or read below:

We are well into autumn, and the decrease in sunlight, cold weather. The leaves changing color, falling to the ground and decomposing all around us reminds us once again that we, too, are dust and to dust we shall return. We will all die and we will be judged.

And the Church in her wisdom has set the readings to correspond with the seasons. Throughout these past several weeks, we have been given passages after passages warning us of the woes for the hypocrites and woes for the unrepentant, and that we should keep our lamps burning, and seek the kingdom and wait for it like a servant waiting for the return of his master. It is indeed the season for meditation on the last things.

What does today’s passage have to offer us against this background? First, let us consider the main subject of this passage, the place our Lord must have cared for in a special way, because he repeats the name twice when he brings it up:

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! Behold, your house is forsaken.

As for us, as we make our own journey towards our death, and as Jesus makes his way towards us again to finally judge the living and the dead, how are we to respond? How are we disposed to His coming? Are we going to be the Jerusalem that Jesus reproves in this passage? Have we ignored the needy, the orphans and the widows by turning a blind eye to those oppressed and suffering in our society, by not even offering a smile or a greeting? Have we killed the prophets and stoned those that God sends to us by being deaf to the truth, because it comes from a source we disapprove of? Likewise, what have we not done for the least one among us? What have we not done for the Lord?

We might think that we still have time before the day of judgment, but as St. Luke has reminded us over and over these past couple weeks, “be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect,” and “repent for the kingdom of God has come near”.

The fact is, in a way, our Lord, the just judge, is already here. He already comes to us daily in the Eucharist, and we hope to really mean what we say when we hail our Lord at Mass, rejoicing at the prospect of the forgiveness of our failings. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” We long for his mercy that flows from the cross and we eagerly cry out again and again, “hosanna” “save us!”

So, may we not live so that Jesus will weep over us, who have rejected him and rejected truth and justice. Rather, may we so live in Christ relying on his strength that he gives us again and again in the Eucharist, that we are counted among the Saints in the heavenly Jerusalem, where with joy everlasting we will praise the Lord for his marvelous works. Amen.

Image: ‘The Last Judgment’ by Janos Stein; located on the East Dome of the Kerepesi Cemetery Arcades South Building, Budapest. Photographed by Globetrotter19, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.