"His Scepter Pity in Distress" Luke 19:41-44
Vicar Peter Zaferos 4th Sunday in Lent April 3, 2011
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
“United we stand, divided we fall.” Have you heard that phrase before? I’m guessing most of you have. Aesop, the writer of all those fables, is generally attributed with coining that phrase. It’s found at the end of one of his fables entitled, “The Four Oxen and the Lion.” From the title alone you may be able to guess how the story goes. Once upon a time there were……four oxen and a lion! The lion used to prowl around in a field where the four oxen would often graze. Whenever the lion tried to attack the oxen they would put their tails together so that there was a set of horns pointed in four different directions. That way, no matter which side the lion attacked from he would be met by a set of horns. Well one day the oxen had a fight and went off to pasture on their own. Guess what happened? The lion went and picked them off one by one. The fable ends, “United we stand, divided we fall.” How true that statement is! Jesus himself taught this. When accused of using power from Satan to drive out demons, Jesus said, “a house divided against itself will fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?” His point was clear! This principle is true!
However, that being said, just because a principle is true, doesn’t mean it is always applied properly. After the flood, God told mankind to multiply and inhabit the whole earth. But in Genesis 11, we hear that mankind didn’t like that idea. They decided to build a city just so they wouldn’t have to spread out over the surface of the earth. And just in case this city wasn’t a great enough testimony of mankind’s power and ability to accomplish anything, they also built a tower in that city. They built a tower that would reach to the heavens, perhaps to the level of God himself. Why did they build this city and this tower? They built it because they didn’t want to spread out and inhabit the whole earth. They preferred to stay right where they were. And just to make their point absolutely clear, they decided to aim big, and make a name for themselves while they were at it! These people defiantly disobeyed God. It almost seems as if they wanted to show God who was boss. They must have been thinking to themselves, “United we stand, divided we fall!” Apparently, God was thinking the same thing, so he changed their language and “divided they fell.”
This moral from Aesop’s fable certainly hasn’t disappeared from the society we live in either, has it? If you enjoy movies like I do, I’m guessing you’ve all seen a movie or two where the main characters get caught up in some kind of gloom and doom scenario. Maybe you are thinking of a movie depicting a historical event like “Apollo 13,” where three astronauts banded together and survived what most would have considered to be a total loss. Or maybe you are thinking of the 1998 thriller, “Armageddon,” where scientists discover an asteroid the size of Texas headed for earth. And the only hope for mankind was to come together and figure out some way to go blow it up! In these movies, and just about every movie like them, there are some very consistent themes. “Mankind is good!” “Mankind is powerful!” “Together, mankind can accomplish anything!” “United we stand, divided we fall!”
These themes, and many like them, are very popular in today’s society and have been throughout history. They’ve been rallying cries to unite groups of people with similar interests since the dawn of time. But it is from these types of themes that come some very dangerous misconceptions about our salvation. I’m going to show you a brief promotional video for a book that was published only a few weeks ago. It was written by a Pastor named Rob Bell. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you have already heard about this book. It’s been all over the news, but may have gotten lost in some of the other events of the past few weeks. The book is entitled, Love Wins, and it has stirred up quite a bit of controversy. Before we start I want to make it absolutely clear that this church does not endorse anything Rob Bell claims. That being said I do want you to be aware of some of the false teachings that are being placed under the umbrella of Christianity. (Play Video) http://vimeo.com/20260372
Rob Bell is the Pastor of the fastest growing church in America with membership currently at over 13,000. But did you hear some of the questions he asks? “Gandhi’s in hell? He is?” “Will only a few select people make it to heaven, and will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell?” After hearing some of the questions he asks, why do you think there has been so much controversy? Is it because he has a problem grasping how people he deems to be good could possibly go to hell? Or is it the idea that God chose one way to save His people and one way alone that gets under his skin? And then, perhaps you noticed the way he delivered the traditional gospel message. “Jesus rescues you from God.” So, according to Rob Bell, if God does send people to hell, who is at fault?
Do you see the danger here? King David’s confession from Psalm 51:5 has been completely rejected! “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” The truth that every inclination of mankind’s heart is only evil all the time has been deemed irrelevant. The truth that mankind is sinful has been thrown away and replaced with the idea that mankind is good, powerful, able to accomplish anything!
But that’s just not true! We can understand why he’d like it to be that way and why others might like it to be that way. The threat of hell is scary and it would be nice if that wasn’t a real threat. But it is a real threat! Mankind is not good, no matter how much Rob Bell or anyone else wants us to be! Mankind is not powerful, but instead is as fragile and weak as an unfortunate insect walking across a New York City sidewalk! And although God may allow us to accomplish incredible things on this earth, even if we could stand united on Judgment Day, no amount of unity could sway God from His perfect justice. No amount of unified cries of, “we are worthy” could keep our God from punishing. On our own, when God looks at us he only sees the arrogance and pride that leads us to believe we are good. On our own, we are in distress!
The people who defiantly built the tower of Babel really just wasted their time by defying God. God wanted those people to spread out and inhabit the whole earth, and after God confused their language, that’s what ended up happening. In our sermon text for this morning, Jesus sees another defiant city—Jerusalem. Set on Palm Sunday, less than a week before His death, we see Jesus as he is riding toward Jerusalem. But when the city comes into view Jesus weeps. We don’t read the words of an angry judge, do we? Instead we hear, “He saw the city and wept over it.” Jesus knew that Jerusalem would be completely overturned by the Romans some 40 years later, and He knew that the destruction would be well deserved. Just like their forefathers who had rejected the God who carried them up out of Egypt, this generation had done the same. But that reality doesn’t change His emotional reaction. He weeps! His heart pours out for this city. He knows the distress that will be theirs in only a few decades and he feels sorry for them.
And all this takes place less than a week before his death. Jesus knows what’s coming. The pity he shows for Jerusalem makes the purpose of His arrival there that much more evident! He’s not riding down toward Jerusalem to restore it to earthly glory. He’s not going to lead Jerusalem into battle against the mighty Roman army to win a great victory for the Lord. He’s riding down toward Jerusalem for an entirely different reason. So He can willingly walk to the cross. And do you know why he was so willing to walk to that cross? Jesus saw our distress and He took pity on us. He knew we deserve the punishment of hell. He knew that from birth, everyone who has ever lived deserves nothing but His wrath, and yet…He has compassion on us. Just like He wept for Jerusalem, he weeps at the thought of losing you and me to an eternity in hell. Jesus willingly walked to the cross because His compassionate heart left him no choice; He had to die on that cross to provide a way out for the creation he cares about so much!
That’s Lent! That’s what makes this time of the year so incredibly special. This is the time of the year when we are reminded that our Savior willingly walked to the cross because He took pity on us in our distress! It was our sins that brought him to Calvary’s cross, and it was our sins that drove in the nails. It was our sins that caused God to turn his back on Jesus, but it was His compassion that led Him to endure it all for us! It was His incomprehensible love for us that led Him to endure all that pain and suffering. It was His passion to save you that led Him to say, “It is finished,” and to willingly give up His spirit!
Thanks to Jesus, we are no longer in distress. Sin no longer has mastery over me, my conscience is clear, and perhaps most importantly, I have NO fear of hell. Rob Bell tries to deal with hell by explaining it away! But you, you have a better solution; Jesus, who quenched the fires of hell for you! Thanks to Jesus, instead of hell, heaven awaits! But, you know what? He didn’t just quench the fires of hell for you; he did it for all people! If that’s not motivation to get out and share that message with those who don’t yet know it, I don’t know what is.
There sure is a lot of truth in the phrase, “united we stand, divided we fall.” Thanks to Jesus, we’ve been united with God – together we stand, and if we continue to stand by Him, we will never fall!
Amen? Amen!