The Pharisees make it sound like
they want to help Jesus out. “Get away
from here while you still can. Herod
wants to kill you.” Of course, the
Pharisees had been scheming for a year to do the same thing to Jesus. They just could not agree on when and how to
get it done.
Did Herod Antipas really want to
kill Jesus? We do not know for sure, but
it would be consistent with the usual ways that family handled things - from
his dad who slaughtered the baby boys of Bethlehem when Jesus was born, to Herod
Antipas and his adulterous wife Herodias and that nasty beheading of John the Baptist,
to his nephew Herod Agrippa who had the Apostle James executed and Peter
imprisoned about a decade after Jesus ascended.
But the Pharisees could have just been lying to scare Jesus into leaving
town and getting out of their hair.
However, Jesus did not come to save
His own skin. He came to save yours –
and He is determined to do it. He will
not be scared away. He says, “Go and
tell that old fox that I still have work to do… and on the third day I will
finish My course.” On the third day – so
much important stuff in the Bible happens on the third day. Jesus knew what was in store for Him at
Jerusalem the next time Passover comes up.
He had already predicted it, that He would suffer, die, and on the third
day rise to life again. Death threats
from two-bit kings did not worry Jesus.
He is the Lord, so He lays down His
life on His own terms. When the crowd in
Nazareth wanted to throw Him off the cliff, Jesus slipped through their hands
without a scratch. He goes to Jerusalem,
the Lord’s holy city, and He knows His own people will put Him to death
there. They would not have any power
over Him if it had not been given to them.
And you know that is the whole reason the Son of God was born to us on
earth – so that He could die on earth for us to defeat our death. He will be slain at the hands of sinners for
the forgiveness of sin. He will be laid
in the grave to burst its stone cold grip.
When the going gets tough, or when we know that people will be
ungrateful for our help we give to them, we often times have wanted to give up,
pack up and go home. But Jesus is
determined to finish what He came to do.
No matter how dangerous it will get.
Jesus explains that He is our
refuge, our protective hiding place. And
not only the Protector for some good people – He is here to be the Protector
for all people, even Herod, the Pharisees, Pontius Pilate, and all who had a
hand in putting Jesus to death. You can
hear the sorrow and grief in God’s voice as He cries, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…
How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her
brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
The picture of Christ as the Good
Shepherd is better known, but God’s love is every bit as tender in this picture
of a mother hen with her helpless and vulnerable chicks under her wings – while
birds of prey soar overhead, hungry beasts prowl around in search of an easy
meal, and all sorts of other dangers lurk around every corner. The only line of defense between the threats
and the chicks is mother hen’s wings. She
is willing to give herself for the life of her chicks.
Likewise Jesus covers you to protect
you from Satan. In Psalms 17, 36, and
57, the Holy Spirit gives us these words to pray – “Hide me in the shadow of
Your wings, O Lord.” And just like the
hen shields her offspring by offering her own back as a target for the
predator, so also Jesus “gave His back to those who strike” (Isaiah 50:6) so
that you and I would be protected from Death and the Devil devouring our
faith. That is why the prophets like
Jeremiah warned the people. That is why
the Apostles took this message of Jesus far and wide – even under death threats
from their enemies. And it is why Jesus
Himself spreads His arms wide on the Cross – so that we find refuge and
protection under His wings.
But then we hear Christ’s heartbreaking
words – “And you were not willing.” And
you have that heartbreak too as you think about the people you love who want
absolutely nothing to do with Christ and walk away from Him or speak angrily against
Him. Jesus wants only to shelter and
love us, to forgive and save us from Hell.
But many want nothing to do with that.
They leave the protection of Christ to indulge in the pleasures of sin
without regard to the dangers to themselves, or consequences for those around
them. They expose themselves to the
ravenous appetite of Satan and face death all on their own.
You can also see this play out in
the history of Jerusalem. The city that rejected
Jesus will watch helplessly years later as their city was forsaken. In 70 AD, the Romans tear Jerusalem’s Temple
down. The mound where that Temple sat is
now the location of a mosque. The land
around the city is used for deadly target practice by the enemies of the Jewish
people. And again we hear the sorrow of
Jesus, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often would I have gathered your children
together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.”
That sorrow for those who reject Him
in a major way is also warning for us.
Do not presume on the mercies of God.
Do not sin on purpose today and then say to yourself that you will just
repent next Sunday. You do not even have
a hold on tomorrow. Now is all you
have. Now is the time. Now is the day of your salvation. Now is the moment of repentance. Those tears that Jesus shed over Jerusalem He
also sheds over the people of His church too, whenever you or I neglect His
preaching, whenever we reject God’s eternal Word in favor of our own temporary
opinions.
The Spirit of Christ seeks to call,
gather, enlighten, sanctify, and keep us in true faith. If you or I are left out of the party, we
have no one to blame except ourselves. Do
not blame God. “And you were not
willing.”
Left on our own, we are not
willing. Our wills must be broken or we
will never want to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus on the
way of death to Resurrection. Lent calls
us to return to the Lord our God so that we can discover again that He is
gracious and merciful, slow to anger against our sin and abounding in
forgiveness and love. Return to the Lord
and see the Son of God rise upon you with healing in His wings and salvation
from your sin. Return to the Lord so
that God’s will may be done in our lives as we believe His Word by His grace,
and live godly lives according to it.
God wills to gather you into
safety. God wills to deliver and protect
you from all evil. God wills to keep us
firm in this true faith until we die.
God wills to keep your end from being destruction, and so He warns you
against finding glory in shameful sin.
And God wills for you and me to wait for the second coming of our “Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His
glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to
Himself” (Philippians 3:21) – even to subject to Himself His own rejection and
death at the hands of men, which the Lord has turned into the power of your
Resurrection. Amen.
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