Luke 13:31-34
In the season of Lent we remember Jesus’ road to Jerusalem, the journey to the cross that he took for the salvation of the world. This story, God’s salvation history for the world, started long before the life of Jesus. It was put it place from the time of Adam and Eve and Noah, and we witness the beginnings of its unfolding in God’s covenant with Abraham. God promised Abraham and Sarah descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and that through their offspring all the world would be blessed. This covenant commitment God made flows through the history of the people of Israel, through the Exodus from Egypt and Exile to Babylon, and culminates with coming of Jesus into the world.
Earlier in Genesis, God told Abram (he hasn’t changed his name to Abraham yet) that he will have descendants that will be a great nation, that they will inherit the promised land, that God will make Abraham’s name great, and that God will bless all the world through Abraham’s offspring. And in the passage we heard this morning, God seals the deal with a covenant. This passage describes the ancient equivalent of signing a contract. The ancient tradition of agreeing to a contract in some ancient cultures was done by cutting animals in half, setting up a pathway between their body parts, and walking through it. This is actually where we get the phrase “to cut a deal”. And the implication of this ancient practice was: if I don’t live up to my end of the bargain, may I end up like these animals.
So in the reading we heard this morning, Abram has a vision at night where he sees God doing just that. A smoking pot and a flaming torch pass through the torn animal path. We’re not sure if the pot and torch represent God or if we’re supposed to understand God as being invisible and carrying these items. Either way, by doing this, God seals the deal with Abram and swears with God’s own life that He will be faithful to this covenant. Essentially, in this ritual God is saying that He would rather die than see this covenant not be fulfilled. Remember that, God would rather die than see this covenant not be fulfilled.
Now fast forward a few thousand years to the time of Jesus. God has fulfilled His promises to give Abraham children and made his descendants into a great nation, God provided the promised land, and God has made Abraham’s name famous. And now, in Jesus, the last promise of blessing the world through Abraham’s offspring is about to be accomplished. God, in Jesus, is still just as committed as ever to the promises made to Abraham and Sarah.
But Abraham and Sarah’s descendants haven’t been faithful to the covenant. In fact, all of humanity is trapped in the reality of sin. And in today’s Gospel we see Jesus lament over Jerusalem and over humanity’s unwillingness to live in right relationship with God. Jesus laments over the city: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills prophets and stones those who are sent to it.” Jerusalem had a history of rejecting prophets and failing to live up to God’s covenant. But this statement is not just about Jerusalem. It’s representative of every city, of the whole worldly way of kings and empires.
Jesus is weeping over everything the city represents. Jesus weeps over all of humanity’s rejection of God. Jesus weeps over the way of the kings of this world and the way people fall prey to them. Jesus weeps over the way we seek to build up our earthly kingdoms and reject the kingdom of God. Jesus weeps over the way we live for ourselves rather than surrender to the divine will. Jesus weeps over the way we are impressed with power and wealth and force, and reject the simple, humble, merciful way of God. And Jesus weeps over the people’s rejection of him as Messiah and the Way he calls them to follow.
The people of Israel expected a warrior king to be the Messiah. Not some peasant carpenter from the hills of Galilee. And it’s not just Israel, all the peoples of the earth seem to expect God to be a warrior king. A lion or a tiger or bear. A fierce hawk or eagle. But instead we get Jesus who comes as a mother hen, an innocent dove, and a sacrificial lamb. The world wants a God who will fiercely conquer our enemies, destroy everything that’s wrong, and force things to be right. We long for that kind of God who will use divine power to make everything the way it should be.
But that is not the way of Jesus. Jesus comes as the crucified God. A God who will not force anybody to change, and will accept whatever cruelty and shame we throw at him. Jesus is the opposite of the kind of God most of humanity has always wanted. Human beings have always been impressed with leaders who force others to submit to their way. Kings who are powerful and strong. Kings who believe “might makes right” and use their power to force others to do what they think’s best. But Jesus was not like that. Jesus was the one who submitted. Jesus was the one who let others push him around. Jesus was the one who refused to do battle and who chose to suffer instead. Jesus was and is a totally different kind of king.
And even to this day, some Christian theology insists that Jesus isn’t really this way. That he was only like that for a little while, and there will be a day real soon when he forces everything to be right. Even Christians still want God to come down and conquer their enemies and forcefully set the world right. If that’s our idea of the Second Coming of Christ, notice that it’s the same old idea of a warrior Messiah who forces everything to be right. And that is precisely what Jesus is not.
Instead, Jesus humbly submits to sin and cruelty. He always invites us to change, yet never forces us to. As St. Paul says, “Love does not insist on its own way”. Jesus refuses to forcibly use his power to set things right. Instead, he mourns and grieves for a broken humanity and allows human sin and brokenness to crush him. All the while, he ever so gently invites the world to heal and to follow his own example of redemptive forgiveness and love.
Indeed, Jesus is much more like a mother hen than the fierce warrior king we still long for him to be. Yes Jesus came to transform us and to transform the world—not through force or coercion, but through forgiveness and love. And he came to bring God’s promise to Abraham to fulfillment. Scripture promises us that God’s dream for the world will come true. Despite our breaking the covenant. Despite our complete misunderstanding of the ways of God. Despite the fact that human beings even killed the Messiah, nevertheless God remains committed to the covenant. Not because of anything we’ve done, not because we’ve remained faithful to the covenant or earned forgiveness or mercy—but because God is faithful and merciful and abounding in steadfast love. God made this clear in God’s promises to Abraham. God made this clear in God’s guidance of Israel with the law and the prophets. God made this clear in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And God continues to make this clear in God’s faithfulness to us, to the church, and to the whole human family.
Thanks be to God for His commitment to the covenant, for the salvation story of humanity, for the salvation we have in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Pastor Brian | Sunday, March 16, 2025 | Second Sunday in Lent
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