Luke 13:31–35

³¹At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." ³²And he said to them, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. ³³Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.' ³⁴O 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 would not! ³⁵Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'"

They say "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." If that's true, then what fury—and hell—awaits those who scorn a mother hen who longs to gather her chicks under her wing? What fury is in store for those who spurn their Creator, the one who's given them everything? What hell lies ahead for those who would even dare destroy the one sent to save them from such fury?

A gracious God had chosen Jerusalem to be his holy city, to receive a special measure of his attention and blessings. But time and time and time again she had rejected the men the Lord sent to deliver his messages. And now, in today's text, the people of Jerusalem are on the brink of rejecting even their Creator and Savior as he comes to them in person, to reject the Prophet who is God himself. What fury! Yes, hell is waiting.

But that's not the point of our text. Instead, and amazingly, Jesus still longs to gather them, just as he still longs to gather all people who time and again reject him and spurn his love, and that's all of us.

The point is that when Jerusalem has earned only wrath,

The Rejected Prophet Will Still Go to the Rejected City.

Nothing anyone could do would prevent him from coming to her one more time, the one more time that also brings him to us. Not even Jerusalem's own rejection of her Savior could keep Jesus from coming. They tried to dissuade him by both deceit and threat. But Jesus could not be dissuaded.

The Pharisees warned Jesus about coming to Jerusalem. They warned him he could be killed. They sounded so helpful. Is it possible that these Pharisees are different from those who had been opposing him every step of the way?

Probably not. More likely, they were trying to deceive Jesus into abandoning his journey to Jerusalem. Just as Satan had tried to change Jesus' mind before. In the temptation in the wilderness, Satan tried to get him to abandon the whole mission. And Satan, through the words of Peter, had tried to turn Jesus away from going to his death. Now, Satan was using the Pharisees to deceive Jesus into abandoning his journey to Jerusalem. What the Pharisees knew was that if Jesus turned and ran he would lose credibility. Even more, they knew that in order to establish oneself as a leader of the Jews it had to be in Jerusalem. Anything they could do to keep Jesus away from Jerusalem would surely foil his plans.

The Pharisees were not being helpful, they've already rejected him and his purpose. They were willing participants with Satan to do his bidding for him.

On the other hand, there were very real threats of death. Indeed Jesus did face certain death in Jerusalem. Opposition had been building up for a long time. Not necessarily Herod though. There is no mention up to this point that Herod was plotting against Jesus. But the scribes and Pharisees had been plotting against him. After he had healed a man on the Sabbath we are told: (Luk 6:11 ESV) "... they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus." And on another occasion, after sharply rebuking them, (Luk 11:53-1 ESV) "... the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say."

So the fact of the matter was, going to Jerusalem really would be Jesus' death. And Jesus knew this very well. In fact, he told his disciples three times that he would be rejected and put to death in Jerusalem.

But Jesus could not be dissuaded. He had set his face on Jerusalem, and he was going through with the plan. He knew what it would mean to him. And he was determined to go there anyway. The threats did not deter him. Jerusalem had a long history of killing the prophets whom God sent to it. Now comes the true prophet, and going to Jerusalem was his duty. He knew full well that it meant his death, but he was resolute on being obedient to his Father.

Jesus' journey to Jerusalem then becomes the way of life for his followers. A disciple of Christ cannot be deceived when life seems to offer an easier, safer way. We would all like to avoid confrontation, embarrassment, and sacrifices for our faith. But just as Jesus did not turn and run from Jerusalem, taking the easy way out is not an option for the Christian. Every Christian must face reality: to be a follower of Christ requires carrying crosses. We must go on Christ's way today and tomorrow and the next day until he brings us to his goal. As Jesus says, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

So Jesus was not afraid to go to Jerusalem. But why would he want to?

Even rejection by Jerusalem itself will not keep Jesus from going there. If anything should cause Jesus to reject Jerusalem, it should be their obstinate and repeated rejections of him. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned! Jesus was scorned time and time again. But instead of fury, he tried time and time again to love those rebels. How many times can one—even God—be hurt and not give up on loving? When Peter tried to limit such forgiveness to 7 times, Jesus changed it to 70 times 7, which in their culture really meant forever.

We can understand how Jesus must have felt. We've reached out too. We've put our feeling on our sleeves, loved or offered our love and been rejected. We all know what it's like to be spurned and rejected by the one we reach out to and try to love. But after a while, we pull back. The hurt is too much for us to bare. We become disheartened and give up. What good would it be to go to Jerusalem again anyway? They'll just reject him again. Why not just let 'em rot?

But perhaps we don't really understand. For how often have we rejected Christ's love that he extends to us? He made us his chosen people. He gave us eternal life. Yet so often we say, "Ho, hum. What have you done for me that I can use today?" so often we are not appreciative of all he has done for us. Forgiveness of sins, eternal life...it all seems too far away, to unreal. We want something for today; here and now. We want a better life now, not tomorrow. A recent bestselling Christian book is entitled, "Have your best life now." People ate it up and still do, because it promises blessings and success and happiness not at the return of Christ, but right now, today. "We want something practical," they say. "We don't need to hear the gospel, that 2000 year old message that's now outdated and impractical by today's standards." "Heaven? Eternal life? Forgiveness of sins? How boring." We so often reject him and spurn his love.

Nevertheless, He still comes to us today in his Word, at his Table, just as he does daily in our Baptism, but we want something more exciting, more useful, more practical. Do we really understand just how deserving we are of the fury of a love scorned? Hardly! In fact, when it comes down to it, we don't even begin to grasp the magnitude of our sin. We who pat ourselves on the back for being such great Christians. If forgiveness of sins seems too boring, too impractical, to "ho hum," it only because we are oblivious to not only our sin, but to God's wrath against sin. For sin really does merit and result in eternal damnation and a horrible punishment.

For their rejection of the Messiah, Jerusalem will itself be rejected. "Behold, your house is forsaken," says Jesus. The beloved city was indeed destroyed by the Romans a shore 35 years later. Such fury! Jerusalem was no longer the location of God's glory. It was not more where the Name of God dwelt. It had been abandoned. The place of god's honor is now wherever Christ's people are gathered around him in Word and Sacrament. It is here, in the means of grace.

But Jesus' heart for his people will still send him to Jerusalem—for her and for us. In a few weeks we will see Palm Sunday; when Jesus would come to Jerusalem and be acclaimed by these very words of our text: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" Yes, he was received with praises and honor, but a few short days later we was rejected and crucified.

But that is precisely why he came to Jerusalem. Indeed, that we the very purpose for Jerusalem's existence in her favored history: to be the place where God and man would be reconciled. In the end, that was an honor. That was the highest honor!

And in the end, Jerusalem would be saved; that is, all who repent of their sin and are gathered under Christ's wing. The true Jerusalem is the church; the bride of Christ where Christ will abide eternally with his people. We are the true Jerusalem! We are saved precisely by his rejection in Jerusalem. We are saved precisely because they hung him on a cross to die. Despite all our too frequent rejections of Jesus, he saved us by being rejected himself. His death won life eternal for us. By his death we now become Christ's chosen people to travel that sorrowful and suffering road with him. Nothing could deter him from dying for us. And nothing will deter us from suffering in this world with Christ, but by His suffering and death hell has no fury for us. Our prophet has come for us and we are his forever.

Amen.