Second Sunday in Lent

Second Sunday in Lent (C)

March 16, 2025

Text: Luke 13:31-35

            “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often would I… and you would not!” (Luke 13:34; ESV).  Jesus longs for the salvation of His people Israel.  He yearns for it.  He yearns for the salvation of His Church.  He yearns for the salvation of the world!  Jesus yearns for your salvation.  He weeps.  He pleads.  He bears the rejection.  He bears the scorn.  He suffers.  Because He loves you.  To love is to suffer.  Crucifixion.  The cross.  Jesus is Love-incarnate.  To love is to cover all the sins of the beloved with blood.

            For us who are in Christ, the Baptized, the believing Christians, we taste this yearning, this suffering love, this cross, in some small measure (though it doesn’t seem small to us.  It is small, only in comparison with our Lord’s infinite love and self-giving sacrifice on the cross).  But we know what it is to stand and to plead, “O beloved, beloved, how often would I have gathered you to Christ, and you would not!”  Right?  You know this.  Maybe an adult child who doesn’t go to Church anymore, or perhaps has denied Christ altogether.  Maybe a spouse who is hostile to our Lord, or a sibling hellbent on rebellion and self-destruction.  Friends.  Neighbors.  You just want them to know what you know.  To have what you have.  A peace that surpasses all understanding (it doesn’t make any sense, does it, this peace you have in Jesus, when the world offers anything but peace?), the peace of God that guards your heart and your mind because you’ve been tucked under the shelter and protection of the Lord Jesus (Phil. 4:7).  We love the lost.  And we want them here with us in the Communion of Saints.  Especially those dearest to us.  We yearn for it. 

            I know this yearning, acutely, as a pastor.  What do you think I’m doing out there on the stoop before Church?  I’m not standing out in the cold for my health. …  By the way, please don’t hear this as bragging.  I’m not always out there, for one reason or another.  And even when I am, believe me, there is often a battle in my own heart and mind, as Satan lies to me and accuses me, and Jesus pleads with me, “Jonathon, Jonathon, rend your heart and come under the shelter of my wings!”  Nevertheless, I think you should know what it is I’m doing out there…  I’m looking for you.  I’m waiting.  I’m watching.  I’m yearning.  I’m praying.  “Lord, gather Your people in.  Gather them under the arms of Your cross.  O my Lord, I pray that this one sheep comes.  I’m worried about him.  We haven’t seen him in a while.  And I pray that You would bring in, also, this one… She’s hurting, Lord, and You know why.  Console her by Your Gospel.  Please, gracious God, let me see the face of this one, for whom You know it’s been a battle.  I praise You, Lord Jesus, that this one is walking up.  And don’t let laziness, or apathy, or outright rebellion keep this one away.  Call them, Lord.  Call them all by name, Good Shepherd of the Sheep.  Bring them in with joy, I pray.  But, joy or no, just please bring them in.”  And with each one of you, as you come in, I rejoice.  You may think I don’t notice, but I do.  And still, with Jesus, I cry out for those who do not come, “O beloved sheep, beloved sheep… how often would I have gathered you… Why will you not be gathered?  Come.  Come.”

            What do you do with that yearning, and the pain that so often comes with it?  “O my child, my child… O my nephew… O my dearest friend…”  You channel it into prayer, first of all.  Join your lament, your “O my dear loved one,” to that of Jesus, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.”  Because only the Lord’s call can break through the “you would not” with His “I would.”  Only the Lord’s call can break through the contempt that murders the prophets and stones those sent to it.  Your lament receives all its power from that of Jesus.  Pray for the loved one.  By name, please.  And know and believe that God hears and answers.  And pray for yourself, that God would grant you His Holy Spirit, and wisdom, to give you opportunities, to open your lips in confession of Christ, the right words at the right time.

            Second, know what that yearning is, when you suffer it for someone who is not in Christ.  It is not an exercise in futility.  It is holy.  It is the cross of Christ, touching your life.  Which is to say, it is love.  To love is to suffer.  Now, Christ’s love, His suffering and death on the cross, that is the atonement for your sin, and the sin of the whole world.  Your suffering of the cross is not that.  Your suffering does not atone for sin, neither your own, nor anybody else’s.  It is vital that we have this distinction clear, lest you become, in your own mind, or the mind of another, some sort of co-redeemer with Christ.  God forbid it.  Christ is the Savior, and Christ alone.  Christ is the Redeemer, and Christ alone.

            But that suffering you experience where the cross of Christ touches you… the way Jesus puts it is, “Take up your cross and follow Me”… God does use it as a means of delivering the once-for-all salvation won by Jesus on the cross, to other people; namely, the people for whom you are suffering.  God does use that as a means to gather more chicks under the Savior’s wings.

            Are you familiar with St. Augustine’s mother, Monica?  First of all, married to Augustine’s father, a non-Christian man who regularly committed infidelities, which Monica bore with a patience that could only have been a gift of the Holy Spirit.  Then, Augustine himself, a rebellious child, who slept around, had a child out of wedlock, ran off and joined a cult called “Manichaeism.”  Oh, how Monica suffered for her husband, for her son.  Always bearing witness.  Always praying.  Always watching and waiting and shedding holy tears.  To love is to suffer.  No one would have blamed her if she’d just given up.  But you know, after many long and arduous years with her unfaithful husband, she won, first, his respect and admiration.  And then, shortly before he died, she won him for Christ.  Well, God won him, through her.  It’s a living example of St. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians: “the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife” (7:14), and “how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband?” (v. 16). 

            And then, after her husband’s death, she kept pursuing her wayward son, Augustine, quite literally following him from Africa to Italy, praying and weeping.  A faithful (though unnamed) bishop reportedly said to her, “The child of those tears shall never perish.”  Certainly not a rule we can count on, but a great encouragement, nonetheless.  What the Psalm says was true for Monica: God kept count of her tossings, and stored up her tears in His bottle (Ps. 56:8).  And He answered her prayers.  Happily with a YES.  He brought Augustine to faith (a story for another sermon), and raised him up to be the greatest theologian of the Western Church (well, we might say, along with Martin Luther… But there would be no Luther if there’d been no Augustine, so think about this… This whole story has direct bearing on your story!).

            So also, we have the example of Jeremiah in our Old Testament reading (Jer. 26:8-15), rejected, preaching nonetheless, to the Holy City, to the king and the priests, on pain of imprisonment and death.  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.  And St. Paul in our Epistle, telling us with tears of those who still walk as enemies of the cross of Christ (Phil. 3:18).  O Philippians, Philippians.  O Jews.  O Gentiles.  Our yearning, our suffering, our lament is joined to that of Christ.  And God hears.  And He knows.  And he acts. 

            The cross looms large over our Gospel this afternoon, doesn’t it?  First, this strange saying about casting out demons and performing cures today, tomorrow, and the third day finishing My course (Luke 13:32).  That is a warning that, though there is a today, and perhaps even a tomorrow, now is the time to get in on the Lord’s healing work, because the End is coming.  But we also can’t miss the reference to that work reaching its goal on the Third Day.  That is, this is about the Savior’s death and resurrection.  And then the clincher, the concluding remark: “you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (v. 35).  And we know that is Palm Sunday, when Jesus rides into the Holy City to die.

            But that’s just it.  Suffering and the cross is the only way to the Third Day.  The Lord’s suffering and death is the only way to your forgiveness, life, and salvation.  His suffering… and yours in Him… is the only way for the precious chicks to be gathered under His wings.  The wings: His arms outstretched on the holy cross.  Like a hen, who will gather her chicks under her wings to shelter them from fire or predator.  She will take it, she will die, protecting them.  So our Lord.  Gathering to Himself, now the Jews, now the Gentiles, now you, now the loved one for whose salvation you yearn.  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.  The Lord would gather you.  Heed His call.  Come under His cruciform shadow.  Rest, safe and saved, in His bloody embrace.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.