A sermon by Associate Minister Elsa A. Peters, April 1, 2007
Luke 19:29-42
[A Psalm Sunday conversation – John McCall and Elsa Peters, Pastors]
[John] I can remember two times I saw my dad cry. Once was when he hurt his back, trying to dig a tree stump out of the ground. He pulled and pulled and then fell to the ground, crying with the pain of something that snapped. The other time was when his aged parents gave him a very generous Christian gift of money so my mom could go with him to an international church conference in Europe. My grandparents had spent their whole lives as missionaries and their gift was so generous my dad could barely believe it. He cried – just a little, I think, but I was very young and it scared me. I can still remember it.
[Elsa] All sorts of things can make us cry. Sometimes we cry when we’re happy and sometimes when we’re sad. Sometimes when we’re lonely and sometimes when we’re hurting. And we can feel it coming, we know that shortness of breath. That heaviness of heart. That sudden sadness that leads to tears. Those moments when we look closer, like Jesus looked upon the city of Jerusalem.
[John] But, that’s getting ahead of the story, isn’t it?
[Elsa] That’s true. Jesus’ tears come later. They come after Jesus entered into the city of Jerusalem. After he arrives in the city, he weeps. But, first…
[John] First, Jesus rode into Jerusalem, when he and his disciples gathered for the Jewish Passover – a holy meal that remembered how God had saved the people from slavery long before, in Egypt.
When the crowds heard that Jesus was coming they poured into the streets and began to cheer and shout. They believed Jesus would be a great king and would help free them from the Roman soldiers who made their lives very hard.
[Elsa] And they shouted, just like we did, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory to God.” They were happy, Luke tells us… more than happy. They just couldn’t keep quiet. They were excited about all miracles they’d seen. Some of them took off their outer cloaks and laid them on the road. They were shouting and… wow! Talk about making an entrance. This truly is an entrance fit for a king.
[John] Even if he’s riding on a donkey!
[Elsa] Yeah, that part is a little funny. But, Jesus knew many of the people would see him and remember how the prophet Zechariah had written that the king would be “humble and riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zech. 9:9).
[John] Oh, that’s right. But, that didn’t matter to the temple leaders. As the noise and shouting and cheering of the crowd started to get out of hand, the temple leaders got angry. So they broke up the party. “Make your disciples stop shouting!” they told Jesus.
[Elsa] I bet he didn’t like that.
[John] Certainly not. He told the temple leaders that nothing could stop the party. Nothing could keep them quiet, because this was God’s doing. If the people stopped, he said, the stones would start shouting instead.
[Elsa] Maybe. Or maybe the stones would start crying.
[John] Because all sorts of things make us cry.
[Elsa] All sorts of things.
[John] And Jesus knew this as he looked at the great and beautiful city of Jerusalem.
[Elsa] And he wept, because all sorts of things make us cry.
[John] He wasn’t crying for himself. He was crying for the people – the people God loved so much. Jesus could see that even with all the wars and all the promises across many years the people still didn’t know how to get along with each other.
[Elsa] The people of Jerusalem refused the way of peace. Remember how the chorus of angels sang at the nativity, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among all God’s people.” These words lingered on the lips of the crowd. As Jesus entered Jerusalem, they shouted like the angels “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.”
[John] But, peace cannot only be in heaven. Jesus offered a way to peace. And even so, the people of Jerusalem still didn’t know how to find a way to peace. And so, Jesus cried. It’s enough to make you cry.
[Elsa] Because all sorts of things make us cry. And sometimes, it is hard not to be sad. There was a little girl in the last church I served that had a really hard time hearing about the story of Good Friday. She knew all of the stories about Jesus, probably because she was the pastor’s daughter. But, this little girl would cry when we started to talk about how Jesus died. I remember hugging her and telling her that it’s OK to be sad. And it’s OK to cry.
[John] Sometimes we need to shout. We need to cry out. And when we do, we know we’ll feel better afterwards. Doctors tell us that when we cry, changes happen inside our bodies that sort of clean out our sadness and fears and worries. When we cry, we’re able to heal.
[Elsa] It doesn’t always make the pain go away. But, crying does allow us to heal. And as we heal, we know that God is with us. As we cry, we know that Jesus cried too.
[John] Maybe it is enough to know that Jesus cried. When he entered Jerusalem, he wasn’t afraid. Even though he knew there were people there who hated him, he wasn’t scared. But, as he looked over Jerusalem, even Jesus cried.
[Elsa] Yes, even Jesus cried. Even Jesus cried when the people did not follow the path of peace. And we might still cry as we look over our city.
[John] But, we can still do our best to create that path of peace. We can love each other and shout, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory to God.” Even in our tears, we can build the path toward peace.