Click here for the Luke 19:41-44 PODCAST
41 When he came near and saw the city, he wept over it. 42 ‘If only you’d known,’ he said, ‘on this day – even you! – what peace meant. But now it’s hidden, and you can’t see it. 43 Yes, the days are coming upon you when your enemies will build up earthworks all round you, and encircle you, and squeeze you in from every direction. 44 They will bring you crashing to the ground, you and your children within you. They won’t leave one single stone on another, because you didn’t know the moment when God was visiting you.’ ~ Luke 19:41-44
The crowd was rejoicing and the Lord Jesus was weeping! Here in v.41 is the second time we are told the Lord Jesus wept openly. The first was at the tomb of Lazarus. The Greek word used here to describe His weeping means "uncontrollable sobbing."
The Lord Jesus sobbed uncontrollably for the Jews, knowing their unbelief positioned them to be the recipients of His judgment. Just as darkness is the absence of light, judgement is the absence of God. His heart was broken because this is what they had chosen for themselves. He wept over their rejection of His free gift of salvation.
In v.42 we read, "If only you’d known,’ he said, ‘on this day – even you! – what peace meant. But now it’s hidden, and you can’t see it." The Lord Jesus was not referencing political or social peace. He is talking about peace with God which is the product of being justified through Christ's death on the cross. Their unbelief blinded them from trusting in the gospel which is Christ's death, burial and resurrection. The Jews missed it because they gave safe haven in their hearts to unbelief, hard-heartedness, and self-righteousness.
The result of their choice is that truth was hidden from their eyes. Here, the Lord Jesus describes these unbelieving Jews with self-imposed blindness. In fact, according to Zechariah, they will not believe until the end time when they look on Him whom they pierced. Then, they will mourn for Him as an only Son.
In v.43 we read, "Yes, the days are coming upon you when your enemies will build up earthworks all round you, and encircle you, and squeeze you in from every direction."
As a result the Lord Jesus foretells them that a wall would be built around Jerusalem to seal it off. This happened in 70 A.D. when Titus Vespasian came to town. Jerusalem was sealed off from all supplies. Anyone who tried to escape was killed and thousands on the inside starved to death. Jerusalem, as a result, was destroyed.
In v.44 we read, "They will bring you crashing to the ground, you and your children within you. They won’t leave one single stone on another, because you didn’t know the moment when God was visiting you."
Forty years later, the stones that made up Jerusalem crashed to the ground, screaming of Israel's rejection of God and His truth. The Romans destroyed everything in Jerusalem except the western Wailing Wall which stands to this day. Predictably, the stones cried out of Jerusalem's total destruction.
Most of the people present on that day when the Lord rode into Jerusalem were dead by 70 A.D. The very walls of that city became the prison for those who rejected the gospel. Rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ is eternally catastrophic.
In the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, God has met our guilt with His grace, our mess with His mercy, and our sin with His salvation. It is the willing who are saved. Our willingness to bow our will to this all loving God is the fork in the road that we all, at one point or another, find ourselves. I trust you have chosen the fork that leads to an eternity in heaven where there will be no more sin, pain and death.
