“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”
I am told that it is a natural response of chicks to run to their mother for safety at the first sign of danger. Some years ago, following a devastating fire at Yellowstone National Park, a park ranger found a dead, burned prairie chicken. When he kicked the carcass, three little chicks came running out – scared, frightened, but alive and unharmed. They had been covered by the mother hen’s wings, and they survived because she willingly and selflessly gave her life to save theirs.
This is the picture that Jesus paints with His words in today’s Gospel lesson. And if you listen carefully, you can hear the sorrow in His voice. You can feel His sadness as He speaks. Jesus has come to save His people from their sin, to rescue them from death and the devil, but they don’t want His salvation. They don’t want His protection. And why? Because it would have required the one thing that they stubbornly refused to do: repent.
Through the history of the Children of Israel, God sent one prophet after another with a message of repentance. Many prophets had been sent before Jeremiah, and many more would follow him. Jeremiah was one of the many who told them over and over again that they had broken God’s law – they had broken each and every one of the
Commandments. Like the other prophets, Jeremiah called for the people to repent. In today’s Old Testament reading we heard Jeremiah say: “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the words you have heard. Now therefore mend your ways and your deeds, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will relent of the disaster he has pronounced against you.” But the people didn’t mend their ways. They didn’t repent. Instead, they threatened to kill him.
The word “Jerusalem” means “city of peace” – but throughout its long and troubled history, precious little peace could ever be found for those who proclaimed God’s word to the Children of Israel. Many of the prophets were despised, were hunted down, were abused, were imprisoned – and sometimes they were even murdered. Although Jeremiah was not murdered, he was publicly whipped, he was imprisoned in a hole on the ground – and even his own family plotted against him. His message of repentance fell on deaf ears – ears that simply didn’t want to hear what God was so clearly saying. The people stubbornly refused to mend their ways and their deeds and obey the voice of the Lord their God – and ultimately, they paid the price for their stubborn refusal to repent. During Jeremiah’s lifetime Jerusalem, the great city of peace, would be captured by the armies of Babylon and the people would be led away for 70 years of exile. The great temple of God would be looted, burned and destroyed.
When the Children of Israel refused to hear the bad news preached by the prophets – the news that their refusal to repent would result in God’s almighty wrath – they didn’t hear the words of good news that also came from the mouths of the prophets. They didn’t hear God’s promise that “I will be their God and they shall be my people.” They didn’t hear God’s promise that even after Jerusalem would be destroyed He would preserve a remnant of His people and would return them to their lands after a temporary exile. And they certainly didn’t hear God’s promise of Messiah, a righteous branch who will be called “The Lord Our Righteousness.”
Why did the Children of Israel find it so hard to repent? Why do we find it so hard to repent? If you think about it, repentance is a tough pill to swallow. Repentance means that I have to admit that I am not the person I think I am. It means that I have to admit that I am not the person I want to be. It means that I have to admit that I am not the person Jesus wants me to be.
We human beings like to think that we have control over our own destiny. Society tells us that we create our own truth – it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, for the most important thing in life is to do what feels right for you. No one else has the right to impose their own values – their own morals – on you if you don’t agree with those values or morals.
One of the best examples of this – or perhaps I should say one of the worst examples of this – is the ongoing debate on the subject of abortion. Our Christian morals and values, clearly based on the Fifth Commandment – “The shalt not kill” – undeniably proclaim that the murder of the unborn is a clear violation of God’s perfect law.
Yet those who stand up to oppose abortion are called religious fanatics. We are told that having a baby – or ending a pregnancy – is primarily a woman’s choice, and no one – not even God – has the right to tell that woman what to do. No one has the right to impose his or her beliefs and teachings on anyone else.
We, as a society, have made a great and tragic shift, a shift from the objective to the subjective. To put it another way, I have become my own authority, no matter what anyone else thinks or says. What matters is not what is outside of me – what matters is not God – but what matter is only what is inside of me. What matters is not what others think, but only what I think. What matters is not what others need, but what I need. What matters is not absolute truth – but I decide I want the truth to be. After all, isn’t that what America is all about? It’s right there in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident … Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
With such an attitude, there’s no reason to even think about that old-fashioned concept that goes by the name of “repentance.” There’s no need to feel sorry for your actions, there’s no need to realize that you have broken each and every Law of God, there’s no reason to look deep inside – to be totally, brutally honest with yourself – and admit that you are a helpless sinner. Unless, of course, you believe that Jesus laid down His life to give us forgiveness of sins. Article XII of the Augsburg Confession states that “properly speaking, true repentance is nothing else than to have contrition and sorrow, or terror about sin, and yet at the same time to believe in the Gospel and absolution that sin is forgiven and grace is obtained through Christ.”
In the Gospel of Mark, the very first words of Jesus that Mark records are these: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” “Gospel” is a Greek word that means “good news” – and in the Gospels we learn the good news that just like that hen in Yellowstone National Park who sacrificed her life for her chicks, Jesus sacrificed His life for us. The outstretched arms that were nailed to the cross have covered our sinful lives. The blood that flowed from His wounds has washed away our sins. The agony and death that Jesus suffered on the cross have taken away the eternal agony in hell that each of us justly deserves.
The words of Jesus from our Gospel lesson – “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” – are more than just a lament – they are a call to repentance. And thanks be to God, we confess that we have, indeed, been brought to faith in our loving Savior. Today we began our worship service – just as we do every Sunday – with the confession our sins. And no sooner do we confess them that we receive Christ’s assurance that our sins have been forgiven, and that we are forever sheltered by His loving arms.
Many of you are familiar with Tony Dungy, the former coach of the Indianapolis Colts. In 2005 Coach Dungy’s 18-year-old son died by suicide, and two years later he gave a speech that discussed the pain that he and his family had endured. He said that as time passed, he became aware that many good things had actually come about as a result of his son’s death. He wondered, “What if God had come to me and said, ‘Coach, I can bring about a lot of good things in the lives of people. I can bring some to faith and others closer to me. But I need something from you. I need your son.’” Coach Dungy realized that it would have been a request he never could have honored. He couldn’t have given up his son. And yet, that is exactly what God did for us.
When Jesus spoke the words of today’s Gospel lesson, he was single-mindedly headed to Jerusalem. He knew that when He got there he would suffer and die. But he also knew that this suffering and death was nothing less than the will of His Father in heaven, a will that He should be sacrificed so that we might be saved from our sins. Jesus – true God, the Son of God – desperately wants to shelter all people under his wings, giving us the protection – the life – that none other can give. Many then and many more today refuse to be protected by Jesus. Many then and many more today either refuse to be gathered under his mighty and loving wings. But thanks be to God, we have been brought to faith. The fires of Yellowstone are nothing compared to the fires of hell – and yet, they cannot harm us. And that is why we triumphantly shout these final words of our Gospel lesson: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
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