Is Jesus Weeping?

In Luke's Gospel we see Jesus entering Jerusalem on what has become known as "Palm Sunday". You remember the scene, right? He's riding on a colt and as he's making his way towards the city, people are laying their cloaks on the ground.

People are shouting.

They're singing.

They're dancing.

Celebrating.

It's a crazy scene because for these people, Jesus was the King - the one they had been waiting for, the Messiah who was going to set the world straight by destroying the enemies of Israel and putting Israel back at the top of the world once again.

But then as Jesus entered the city Luke tells us that he began to weep.

Imagine that?

Here's the King, the one that everyone is waiting for. Maybe they expected a speech? Isn't that what kings do on inauguration day? Don't they usually have something important to say? A word of encouragement? Don't they usually lay out a battle plan? Or make a big fuss over all of their promises?

"What's Jesus going to say?" I imagine people were whispering and wondering what was about to take place when he reached the city.

Instead, Luke tells us that he wept ... and he wept because the people hadn't recognized "the things that make for peace".

Hm.

The crowd was excited because they finally had their King who was going to DESTROY the enemies of Israel and here, in Luke's story, we find the King lamenting that his people ...

Just.

Don't.

Get.

It.

And this morning I’m sitting here with my coffee thinking that the King is still lamenting some 2000 years later that his people (still) just don't get it.

Right? 

The other day I saw something on Facebook where a Jesus follower was insisting that Jesus is going to come back to "set the world straight". He's going to, apparently, rapture all the "believers" away to heaven so he can have the space to mop up the messes of earth, rid the world of all the evil non-believers, and then bring everyone back from heaven so we can set up shop on earth for all of eternity.

In this narrative ...

"Non-believers" are evil.

The world is going to be destroyed.

God is ticked.

Jesus is ticked.

Hellfire is coming.

... and the majority of humanity is going to feel the full wrath of this angry God.

Yes - war, exclusion, judgement, bloodshed, anger, rage, wrath. These branches of Christianity are expecting Jesus to ride in from the sky on some sort of magical horse to save his people who believe all the right things while he destroys everyone else.

I think this makes Jesus weep, though, just as he wept some 2000 years ago when he rode a colt into Jerusalem all the while his followers were expecting him to do all of those same things horrible things to the enemies of Israel.

We still haven't "recognized the things that make for peace".

I posted this on Facebook the other day, but it's worth repeating here. I'm pretty convinced that some people are obsessed with what they HOPE will be the Second Coming of Jesus because they weren't all that impressed with the First Coming of Jesus. In other words, the Jesus of the Gospels brought peace and inclusion and grace, but the Second Coming of Jesus that we find in the Left Behind novels and some of the more conservative Evangelical theologies is a Jesus of war and exclusion and judgement ... and since war and exclusion and judgement tickles the ears of our humanity, that Jesus is much more preferable and palatable than the one who models for us how to do the hard work of peace, inclusion, and grace.

Help me Jesus ... Help me Christ ... Help me God ... Help me Divine ... Help me Spirit ... help me to live my life in such a way that smile instead of weep.

That's my prayer today.

Much love, 

Glenn Siepert