Jesus Laments Over Jerusalem & Cries Over America as Well

Luke 19:37–46

“And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it”. Luke 19:41

The word for weeping here doesn’t mean just ordinary weeping. It means that He wept out loud. He is convulsed, He is broken. Great tears are streaming down the cheeks of the Son of God. His frame is heaving, and loud groans and sobs are coming out of His heart, and He is weeping over the city, saying,

42 Saying, If you had known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong to your peace! but now they are hid from your eyes.
43 For the days shall come on you, that your enemies shall cast a trench about you, and compass you round, and keep you in on every side,
44 And shall lay you even with the ground, and your children within you; and they shall not leave in you one stone on another; because you knew not the time of your visitation. (Luke 19:42–44)

Jesus was a man of tears.

Three times in the Bible it is recorded that Jesus wept. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus. (John 11:35)

Those were tears of sympathy. He is touched with the feeling of your infirmities. (Hebrews 4:15).

He wept tears of agony, when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed, and in agony of spirit the perspiration became as drops of blood and He wept. (Luke 22:45)

Hebrews “with strong crying and tears” He cried out to God. (Hebrews 5:7)
This time He is weeping tears of urgency. Jesus looks down at the city of Jerusalem and He knows what is coming for the city of Jerusalem, His great heart is broken, and Jesus weeps.

The background of this event is the week before His crucifixion. He’s coming into Jerusalem in what some call a triumphal entry. Some see Him coming as a king, but our Lord Jesus, humble as He was, came on a borrowed donkey, the symbol of humility.

Jesus comes riding upon a donkey in fulfillment of prophecy. And just as He comes over the crest of that hill and He sees that city, Jerusalem the Golden. Jerusalem in the morning as the sun as it comes over the Mount of Olives, you see the limestone as it is bathed in the golden sun, and you can understand why its called Jerusalem the Golden. When Jesus saw the city this time, He was convulsed with anguish and tears of urgency.

His heart was broken over His people’s lost opportunity. The Jerusalemites did not know the things that make for peace. The name ‘Jerusalem’ has ‘peace’ as part of its meaning Hebrews 7:2. But those in the city of peace did not know what made for peace! In the Hebrew understanding of peace (which carries over into the New Testament) the emphasis is on peace with God, right relationship between the creature and the Creator, as a necessary ingredient in true peace. It was this that the people of Jerusalem had failed to realize. Their failure to get to grips with the message of God was now final. These things, Jesus says, are hid from your eyes.

This moment had been prepared for more than twenty centuries, and now, it concentrated itself in the one day on which the Lord entered as King into Jerusalem. This Jerusalem would have known if it had unanimously rendered homage to its Messiah; but although the Lord here also had found individual believing hearts, yet Jerusalem as a city rejected its King and did not recognize Him as such. Matthew 11:25-26, but not without their own personal guilt.

It could be compared to a political convention where the party leader is selected and proclaimed to the nation. The figure is usually known to the public before the selection, but at the convention the campaigning gets serious: the leader is now an official candidate. On this day of his entry in Jerusalem, Jesus is being presented as a regal figure but not crowned as one.

However, the moment is not so triumphal in the minds of some. The religious leaders regard the crowd’s claims as excessive. They said, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” the Jewish leaders ask that the eschatological demonstration be stopped by Jesus. They have again failed to see the sign of the times (Luke 12:54–56; 13:31–35).

What an Irony in Jesus’ response. He cannot silence his disciples, for if he did, then creation itself would take up the song: “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Luke 19:40.

Even inanimate creation understands events better than the leaders do, because their blindness is so deep.

So the Lord has entered the city and His supporters have acknowledged his role. But there is opposition. A divided Israel receives the king into its capital.

The entry reveals the different kinds of responses to Jesus. Some know who he is and serve him, following his instructions. Others are open, but not with much understanding. Still others are hostile toward him. (Ephesians 3:8–10)

The rejection causes Jesus so much pain that he is weeping as he draws near to the city. The Jewish nation is missing its moment. Peace with God is not possible for those who reject Jesus the Messiah. Though this rejection produces Jesus’ tragic death, the national consequences of the people’s blindness are even more tragic and staggering. Peace is now “hidden from your eyes”

Psalm 122:6; Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love you.

Jeremiah 15:5 For who shall have pity on you, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan you? or who shall go aside to ask how you do?6 You have forsaken me, said the LORD, you are gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against

What Jesus proceeds to describe is a Hellenistic military siege that will slowly choke the city to death. This anticipated disaster recalls the judgment that befell the pagan nations when God acted against them and the judgment Israel experienced in going into exile. Jeremiah 6:6–21;
8:18–22; Ezekiel 4:1–2;

Josephus the Jewish historian’s description of the defeat of A.D. 70 shows just how true Jesus’ prediction was Jewish Wars 5.11.4

Opportunity for peace has come, but the nation has opted for destruction—a destruction that will not be permanent, as later texts like Acts 3:18–22 and Romans 11:27–29 reveal. Josephus blamed the nationalists, the Zealots, for the nation’s demise, but Jesus has a different answer. By rejecting him, Israel has chosen the way of judgment. It has missed the day and the moment.

No matter where Jesus looked, He found cause for weeping.

As Jesus looked ahead, He wept as He saw the terrible judgment that was coming to the nation, the city, and the temple. In A.D. 70, the Romans would come and, after a siege of 143 days, kill 600,000 Jews, take thousands more captive, and then destroy the temple and the city. Why did all of this happen? Because the people did not know that God had visited them! “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11). “We will not have this man to reign over us!” (Luke 19:14)

Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem?

Jesus Wept over Their Shallow Religion

And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen; saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.” (Luke 19:37–38)

That same crowd that was casting their garments in His way; waving the palm branches; saying, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 21:9; Mark 11:9) that same crowd that was saying, “Hail Him! Hail Him!” in one week would be saying, “Nail Him! Nail Him! Let Him be crucified!” (Mark 15:13–14; Luke 23:21; John 19:6) The same people! they were going to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.

What was Passover all about? Passover was all about the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God. Passover is a picture, a prophecy, a portrait of Jesus. Apostle Paul says, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” (1 Corinthians 5:7) The whole week was about Him. And yet He would be judged, spit upon, beat, rejected, neglected, and crucified. We see Jesus right after He came into the temple on this same day in verses 45 and 46: “And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.” (Luke 19:45–46) Jesus saw their religion, their ceremonies, and heard their praise, but Jesus knew that it was all superficial and shallow, not supernatural, and with a broker heart, He Wept.

We in Georgia are a state full of churches, as many as they are in the South. God forgive and God forbid, so much of the religion in our area and state, let alone the country, is absolutely superficial. Jesus says, “Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work
iniquity.” (Matthew 7:22–23) It’s not that they had salvation and lost it, they had religion, ceremony, ritual, habit, and no Jesus.

People in America don’t need religion; they need Jesus Christ.

In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight,” Proverbs 3:6-7 This verse demands more than that we acknowledge that God exists and that he is in providential control, or some such thing. It means we must so acknowledge him that his ways and laws and character shape our choices and direct our lives. In all your ways, then, acknowledge him—not exclusively in some narrow religious sphere, but in all the dimensions of your life. The only other alternative is to disown him.

Jesus Wept over Their Bygone Chance

The Jews opportunity to acknowledge the Messiah was passing. This was a day of golden opportunity for them. Never ever had they had a greater opportunity than that day. “You should have known it all the time, but in this day if you’d only known—“the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.” (Luke 19:42)

Here was the King of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ coming into their city wanting to bless them. This day had been prophesied for over four hundred years.

The ninth chapter of Daniel, one of the most remarkable prophecies in all of the Bible, prophesied that the Messiah was to come in 483 years from a particular date. And that particular date was from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem. The command to restore and build Jerusalem was given by Artaxerxes the king on May 14, 445 BC. Now the Bible teaches, therefore, that in 483 years—and a biblical year of prophecy is 360 days; if you extrapolate that out and multiply that, in 173,880 days—Messiah would come.

Bible scholars have worked this out, and they have studied the calendars, and they have calculated, and they can tell you that Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem was on April 6, 32 AD, exactly, minutely, to the day that the prophet Daniel had prophesied. When Messiah the prince would come—483 years—it was prophesied..” They should have known. They could have known. They ought to have known. But they did not understand because they were blind. opportunity passed by and it causes Jesus to weep.

In Jeremiah’s day, Jeremiah saw judgment coming like the Lord Jesus saw judgment coming. Jeremiah had preached to the people of Judah. And the people of Judah had been warned again and again by the prophet of God to repent, or judgment would come. But they would not listen to Jeremiah the prophet, the weeping prophet, who wept like the Lord. With tears running down his cheeks, the weeping prophet said, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” (Jeremiah 8:20)

Every time before judgment, God offers mercy. Before there is judgment, God gives a time of harvest. If men will not take that harvest, judgment comes. In Noah’s time, God didn’t just send the flood; God gave the people of Noah’s time 120 years. And Noah, the man of God, preached and pled and said “repent” for 120 years. But then, harvest passed, and judgment came.

Jesus weeps over passing opportunity. The Bible says in Genesis 6:3, God is speaking and says, “My spirit shall not always strive with man.” (Genesis 6:3) Isaiah 55:6, “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while h e is near. One never knows, this could be the last service you’ll ever hear. The fact of death is certain.

Jesus Wept over Their Nearing Judgment

For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee. Luke 19:43–44

Never did things appear to be smoother than they were in the time of Jesus, the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome. However, Jesus with His omniscience, and Jesus with His prophetic mind, looked forward just thirty-five years, and Jesus knew what was going to happen.

Titus the Roman general laid siege on Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Romans surrounded Jerusalem and laid siege to the city. People in the city were starving. Soldiers breached the walls of Jerusalem and came in. They made crosses to crucify Jews on until they ran out of trees to make crosses out of. One million of them would be slain. Others of them would go through unmentionable horror and sorrow. And Jesus knew that many of them not only would die in Jerusalem, but would die and face damnation to hell, and Jesus wept.

Are we aware of the urgency and the emergency of these days in which we live? We live in a wicked world, and our world is surely getting turned upside down at the moment.

God is going to judge everything, America included, but our generation is blind to danger, deaf to God, and sure for judgment. Just as Jesus wept over Jerusalem knowing its coming doom, Jesus weeps over America.

How often do we examine our lives to make sure our commitment to Jesus is not just some shallow thing we do on Sunday?

Today is the day to fix that, we might not have many more chances.

What is not fixed before we leave this earth concerning our relationship with Jesus will never be fixed and will lead to our eternal damnation.

Let’s pray, listen to God’s word and submit our lives to Him.

He will take care of us, in this mess we are in today and in eternity!