And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.
LET us think awhile what was meant by our Lord’s weeping over Jerusalem.
We ought to learn thereby somewhat more of our Lord’s character, and of
our Lord’s government.
Why did he weep over that city whose people would, in a few days, mock
him, scourge him, crucify him, and so fill up the measure of their own
iniquity? Had Jesus been like too many, who since his time have fancied
themselves saints and prophets, would he not have rather cursed the city
than wept over it with tenderness, regret, sorrow, most human and most
divine, for that horrible destruction which before forty years were past
would sweep it off the face of the earth, and leave not one stone of
those glorious buildings on another?
The only answer is—that, in spite of all its sins, he loved Jerusalem.
For more than a thousand years, he had put his name there. It was to be
the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the city set on a hill,
which could not be hid. From Jerusalem was to go forth to all nations
the knowledge of the one true God, as a light to lighten the Gentiles, as
well as a glory to his people Israel.
This was our Lord’s purpose; this had been his purpose for one thousand
years and more: and behold, man’s sin and folly had frustrated for a time
the gracious will of God. That glorious city, with its temple, its
worship, its religion, true as far as it went, and, in spite of all the
traditions with which the Scribes and Pharisees had overlaid it,
infinitely better than the creed or religion of any other people in the
old world—all this, instead of being a blessing to the world, had become
a curse. The Jews, who had the key of the knowledge of God, neither
entered in themselves, nor let the Gentiles enter in. They who were to
have taught all the world were hating and cursing all the world, and
being hated and cursed by them in return. Jerusalem, the Holy City set
on a hill, instead of being a light to the world, was become a nuisance
to the world. Jerusalem was the salt of the world, meant to help it all
from decay; but the salt had lost its savour, and in another generation
it would be cast out and trodden under foot, and become a byword among
the Gentiles.
Our Lord, The Lord, the hereditary King of the Jews according to the
flesh, as well as the God of the Jews according to the Spirit, foresaw
the destruction of the work of his own hands, of the spot on earth which
was most precious to him. The ruin would be awful, the suffering
horrible. The daughters of Jerusalem were to weep, not for him, but for
themselves. Blessed would be the barren, and those that never nursed a
child. They would call on the mountains to cover them, and on the hills
to hide them, and call in vain. Such tribulation would fall on them as
never had been since the making of the world. Mothers would eat their
own children for famine. Three thousand crosses would stand at one time
in the valley below with a living man writhing on each. Eleven hundred
thousand souls would perish, or be sold as slaves. It must be. The
eternal laws of retribution, according to which God governs the world,
must have their way now. It was too late. It must happen now. But it
need not have happened: and at that thought our Lord’s infinite heart
burst forth in human tenderness, human pity, human love, as he looked on
that magnificent city, those gorgeous temples, castles, palaces, that
mighty multitude which dreamt so little of the awful doom which they were
bringing on themselves.
And now, where is he that wept over Jerusalem? Has he left this world to
itself? Does he care no longer for the rise and fall of nations, the
struggles and hopes, the successes and the failures of mankind?
Not so, my friends. He has ascended up on high, and sat down at the
right hand of God: but he has done so, that he might fill all things. To
him all power is given in heaven and earth. He reigneth over the
nations. He sitteth on that throne whereof the eternal Father hath said
to him, ‘Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool;’
and again, ‘Desire of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine
inheritance, and the utmost ends of the earth for thy possession.’ He is
set upon his throne (as St. John saw him in his Revelation) judging
right, and ministering true judgment unto the people. The nations may
furiously rage together, and the people may imagine a vain thing. The
kings of the earth may stand up, and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their
bonds’—that is their laws,—‘asunder, and cast away their cords’—that is,
their Gospel—‘from us.’ They may say, ‘Tush, God doth not see, neither
doth God regard it. We are they that ought to speak. Who is Lord over
us?’ Nevertheless Christ is King of kings, and Lord of lords; he reigns,
and will reign. And kings must be wise, and the judges of the earth must
be learned; they must serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice before him with
reverence. They must worship the Son, lest he be angry, and so they
perish from the right way. All the nations of the world, with their
kings and their people, their war, their trade, their politics, and their
arts and sciences, are in his hands as clay in the hands of the potter,
fulfilling his will and not their own, going his way and not their own.
It is he who speaks concerning a nation or a kingdom, to pluck up, and to
pull down, and to destroy it. And it is he again who speaks concerning a
nation or kingdom, to build and to plant it. For the Lord is king, be
the world never so much moved. He sitteth between the cherubim, though
the earth be never so unquiet.
But while we recollect this—which in these days almost all forget—that
Christ the Lord is the ruler, and he alone; we must recollect likewise
that he is not only a divine, but a human ruler. We must recollect—oh,
blessed thought!—that there is a Man in the midst of the throne of
heaven; that Christ has taken for ever the manhood into God; and that all
judgment is committed to him because he is the Son of man, who can feel
for men, and with men.
Yes, Christ’s humanity is no less now than when he wept over Jerusalem;
and therefore we may believe, we must believe, that while Jesus is very
God of very God, yet his sacred heart is touched with a divine compassion
for the follies of men, a divine regret for their failures, a divine pity
for the ruin which they bring so often on themselves. We must believe
that even when he destroys, he does so with regret; that when he cuts
down the tree which cumbers the ground, he grieves over it; as he grieved
over his chosen vine, the nation of the Jews.
It is a comfort to remember this as we watch the world change, and the
fashions of it vanish away. Great kingdoms, venerable institutions,
gallant parties, which have done good work in their time upon God’s
earth, grow old, wear out, lose their first love of what was just and
true; and know not the things which belong to their peace, but grow, as
the Jews grew in their latter years, more and more fanatical,
quarrelsome, peevish, uncharitable; trying to make up by violence for the
loss of strength and sincerity: till they come to an end, and die, often
by unjust and unfair means, and by men worse than they. Shall we not
believe that Christ has pity on them; that he who wept over Jerusalem
going to destruction by its own blindness, sorrows over the sins and
follies which bring shame on countries once prosperous, authorities once
venerable, causes once noble?
They, too, were thoughts of Christ. Whatsoever good was in them, he
inspired; whatsoever strength was in them, he gave; whatsoever truth was
in them, he taught; whatsoever good work they did, he did through them.
Perhaps he looks on them, not with wrath and indignation, but with pity
and sorrow, when he sees man’s weakness, folly, and sin, bringing to
naught his gracious purposes, and falling short of his glorious will.
It is a comfort, I say, to believe this, in these times of change.
Places, manners, opinions, institutions, change around us more and more;
and we are often sad, when we see good old fashions, in which we were
brought up, which we have loved, revered, looked on as sacred things,
dying out fast, and new fashions taking their places, which we cannot
love because we do not trust them, or even understand. The old ways were
good enough for us: why should they not be good enough for our children
after us? Therefore, we are sad at times, and the young and the
ambitious are apt to sneer at us, because we delight in what is old
rather than what is new.
Let us remember, then, that whatsoever changes, still there is one who
cannot change, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
Surely he can feel for us, when he sees us regret old fashions and old
times; surely he does not look on our sadness as foolish, weak, or
sinful. It is pardonable, for it is human; and he has condescended to
feel it himself, when he wept over Jerusalem.
Only, he bids us not despair; not doubt his wisdom, his love, the justice
and beneficence of his rule. He ordereth all things in heaven and earth;
and, therefore, all things must, at last, go well.
‘The old order changes, giving place to the new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.’
We must believe that, and trust in Christ. We must trust in him, that he
will not cut down any tree in his garden until it actually cumbers the
ground, altogether unfruitful, and taking up room which might be better
used. We must trust him, that he will cast nothing out of his kingdom
till it actually offends, makes men stumble and fall to their
destruction. We must trust him, that he will do away with nothing that
is old, without putting something better in its place. Thus we shall
keep up our hearts, though things do change round us, sometimes
mournfully enough. For Christ destroyed Jerusalem. But, again, its
destruction was, as St. Paul said, life to all nations. He destroyed
Moses’ law. But he, by so doing, put in its place his own Gospel. He
scattered abroad the nations of the Jews, but he thereby called into his
Church all nations of the earth. He destroyed, with a fearful
destruction, the Holy City and temple, over which he wept. But he did so
in order that the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, even his Church, should
come down from heaven; needing no temple, for he himself is the temple
thereof; that the nations of those which were saved should walk in the
light of it; and that the river of the water of life should flow from the
throne of God; and that the leaves of the trees which grew thereby should
be for the healing of the nations. In that magnificent imagery, St. John
shows us how the most terrible destruction which the Lord ever brought
upon a holy place and holy institutions was really a blessing to all the
world. Let us believe that it has been so often since; that it will be
so often again. Let us look forward to the future with hope and faith,
even while we look back on the past with love and regret. Let us leave
unmanly and unchristian fears to those who fancy that Christ has deserted
his kingdom, and has left them to govern it in his stead; and who
naturally break out into peevishness and terrified lamentations, when
they discover that the world will not go their way, or any man’s way,
because it is going the way of God, whose ways are not as man’s ways nor
his thoughts as man’s thoughts. Let us have faith in God and in Christ,
amid all the chances and changes of this mortal life; and believe that he
is leading the world and mankind to
‘One far-off divine event
Toward which the whole creation moves;’
and possess our souls in patience, and in faith, and in hope for
ourselves and for our children after; while we say, with the Psalmist of
old: ‘Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the
earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but
thou shalt endure. They all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a
vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be cleansed. But thou art
the same, and thy years shall not fail. The children of thy servants
shall continue; and their seed shall stand fast in thy sight.’ Amen.
SERMON XXIV.
THE LIKENESS OF GOD.