Bible Text: St Luke 19:41–48 | Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christian Preus
What do you think of, what image do you have in your mind, when you think of Jesus, your Lord? The answer for me, usually, is a man beaten and bloody, crown of thorns on his sacred head, suffering and dying on a cross for me. Because that’s where I see my God’s love. But that’s not the only image. I think of Jesus resurrected, glorious, reigning in heaven, where he waits for me, to welcome me into paradise, where so many of my loved ones are now worshipping Him, so many dear members of this congregation who have passed to eternal glory, and where I hope to be by His great grace. Or I think, especially since I’m so often surrounded by little children, of Jesus taking the children into his arms and blessing them. In times past the most popular image of Jesus was not any of these, but Jesus as a fierce judge on the last day. In America, the most popular sermon ever preached pictured Jesus as an angry God, that’s the name of the sermon, delivered in 1741 by Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” The sermon was a sensation, a hit, published in pamphlet form and distributed all over the country. People couldn’t get enough of it, pages on pages, of Jesus threatening to throw you into hell if you don’t repent. There’s a meme out there of a dad reading it to his son whose sitting on his lap, and the son is just wide-eyed and terrified.
This image of Jesus seems foreign to our day, where Jesus is most often seen as a teddy bear, who just wants everyone to get along. There are shirts that say Jesus is my homeboy. Pastors refuse to condemn sin or talk about God’s punishment of sin, or hell, at all. Instead Jesus is a coach, a therapist, a friend who wants you to live your best life now. We don’t just make gods in our own image, we take the true God, Jesus Christ, and change him to fit our idea of what we want God to be. And since we don’t want to be punished, He can’t be our judge.
But look at Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. There’s an image to keep in your mind and heart when you think of Jesus. Because here you see Jesus as judge and Jesus as Love at the very same time. He is judge. And His anger against your sin is real. Jerusalem was completely destroyed. In AD 70, some 40 years after Jesus wept over Jerusalem, the Roman general Titus broke down her walls, tore down her Temple, and killed hundreds of thousands of her people. And God has done the same thing with nation after nation – look at the flood, look at Sodom and Gomorrah, look at Rome, at the pagan Nazi Third Reich, at the atheist USSR. God punishes entire nations for their sin.
But that’s not the whole picture. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is a horrible sermon, (I give it an F-) not because it isn’t true – God is angry at sinners, but because to end there, is to end with Jesus gloating over Jerusalem, happy at her destruction, or Stoically straight-faced, saying, “They got what they deserved.” And that’s not Jesus. No, Jesus is weeping over Jerusalem. He is God and God’s heart is broken. He loves her. He weeps over her. He dies for her. He willingly takes her punishment on Himself. He doesn’t want her to suffer it. These two things belong together always, Jesus is your judge and He is angry at your sin, and you should fear His anger, repent, strive to do better, AND Jesus is the inexhaustible source of mercy and love, He swallowed up all His anger against you by facing it Himself, and His blood cleanses you from all guilt and shame and sin forever. When you approach Him in sorrow over your sin, you are not approaching a God who is angry anymore, but the God who is your Brother, who died for you and lives for you. This is why the Lord’s Supper is so important. How could He give you His body and His blood to eat and to drink if He is angry at you? He shed that blood for you, that body was pierced for you, all anger against your sin was satisfied there, and here your Savior gives you God’s pure approval and honor in the forgiveness of your sins.
Then why is there still anger? Why does Jerusalem get destroyed still? If Jesus ended God’s anger on the cross? Jesus answers that, “because you did not know the day of your visitation.” He came to them. He was their God. He came in their own flesh and blood. He offered them peace with God, forgiveness of all sin, everlasting life, and they said no. I’ve been reading Acts to my family after dinner (a half chapter at a time), and Peter’s first two sermons to his fellow Jews say it clearly, “You rejected him, you crucified the Lord of glory.” And of course many of them repent, many become Christians. But Jerusalem as a whole doesn’t, and by the time Titus destroys that city, there’s not a single Christian left in it. Jesus does take away God’s wrath. But if you don’t have Jesus, the wrath of God abides on you. This is what Jesus says in John 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
Now how does this apply to nations? Whole countries? And what does it mean for us as a nation, the United States of America? One of the most distinct memories I have of my childhood, and this is how I know that kids actually do listen to sermons and can get stuff out of them, is hearing my dad preach that God blesses countries that bless Christians, that bless His church. Jesus is the Bridegroom of His Church. We are His dear bride. He loves us fiercely, he’s completely devoted to us. He’s laid down His life for us. He’s given us His name, His righteousness, His glory. And when nations bless His church, He blesses them. That’s why nations exist – obviously it’s more than that, nations are here to protect us, to secure law and order, to help and defend the poor and the needy, but the main purpose, is so that we Christians can preach and hear the Gospel of our Savior in peace. God promised this long ago to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you.” That promise remains true to this day for all the children of Abraham, who have the faith of Abraham, who trust in the Jesus Abraham trusted in.
In our time, a lot of Christians in America are very confused about this. They’ll misquote the Bible and say that God promised to bless those who bless Israel, and by Israel, they mean the country in Palestine that was formed in 1948. And so they say that America will be blessed if we support this modern state of Israel, send them money, send them weapons, whatever. Talking heads like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, who have audiences of millions, say this. Often. If America blesses Israel, then God will bless America. This is false doctrine. It is very wrong. You can, if your political leanings move you, support Israel for all sorts of reasons. Or not, for all sorts of reasons. But God’s judgment on Jerusalem, its utter destruction in AD 70, tells you that God is no respecter of persons, He doesn’t care if you’re Jewish or Norwegian or German or African, or Asian, there is no distinction. The only thing that matters in God’s eyes is Jesus. He died for you, for everyone, loves everyone, weeps for everyone’s sins, wants all to be saved and come to know Him as their God and their Savior.
So look at Nineveh, that horrible city, full of abominations, the persecutor of God’s ancient church. God sent Jonah to them to preach repentance, with the very real threat that He would destroy their city. And they repented. And God spared the whole city. That’s the model for us.
There are those who think that God will bless us as a nation if we have the right laws. If we ban abortion, get marriage back to what it is and must be, between one man and one woman for life, if we have Christian morality restored in our laws. And I don’t doubt that’s true, there are natural blessings that God attaches to obeying His law. A country that promotes family and marriage is simply going to have those natural blessings. But look at Jerusalem. Jerusalem had pretty good laws. They didn’t have a problem with homosexual marriage or abortion, they considered those the sins of the Gentiles. And the Romans who did have those problems, who promoted evil things, they are the ones that end up destroying Jerusalem, despite all its moral laws. Because Jerusalem rejected its Savior. They didn’t think they needed Him. They thought they were good enough for God without Him. So our great goal as Christians is not to take over the country and focus our attention on restoring Christian laws (again, if we can do that, great, and we certainly want a government that will protect our God-given right to worship the true God and practice the true religion), but that’s not our great goal.
It’s not what Jesus did. What did He do after weeping over Jerusalem? Did He hold a political caucus? Did He reform their government? Did He infiltrate the Sanhedrin? No, He went into the Temple and He taught the Word of God. That’s our great goal. And it’s a goal that God will bless and bless and bless and bless. And He’ll bless our country because of it. You should love the United States of America. God gave you this country. It has allowed you your whole life through to worship the Lord Jesus in peace. Thank God for it. But know why He has blessed this country. It is because of what you are doing and receiving today. That’s what God cares about. Where Jesus is received by humble hearts, there simply is no curse, no wrath, no destruction, only righteousness and peace and blessing from God. Because the image, the picture, of Jesus, that most matters to you, is the image of both judgment and peace, of wrath and love, and that is the image of Jesus imprinted on your heart, Jesus crucified for you, where all God’s judgment was consumed by the love that He acted out in suffering and dying for you. Hang on this word. Cling to it. Teachers, teach it to the children with purpose, know what a blessing you are giving them and this community and this country in your work, parents adore your Savior at home, hand Him down to your children, and thank God he gives you the privilege of doing it. And come, one and all, to church, not as some obligation, and certainly not as an American duty (though by it America will be blessed), but come because here your God who has wept over your sin, comes not as your judge but as your Savior, and gives you what wipes away your tears and your fears and your guilt and your shame, establishes you as child of God, and an inheritor of everlasting life. Amen.