What Wondrous Love Is This: Lamentation
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Luke 13:31-35
King David’s response to the death of his son, Absalom, is a deeply moving parental lament. Absalom was a rebellious, vain young man. He and David became estranged. David kicked him out of the royal palace, and they went two years without speaking or seeing each other. During this time, Absalom began to undermine his father’s kingship. He gathered an army. He garnered loyalty. It became inevitable. Absalom’s army would meet the army of his father, King David. Son against father. Father against son. When the day finally came, David commanded his men, “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.”
Twenty thousand men died in battle. Absalom had long, flowing hair. His horse ran under an oak tree, and Absalom’s long hair got caught in the branches of the tree. He dangled “between heaven and earth,” the text says, completely vulnerable. One of David’s commanders, a man named Joab, took three darts and thrust them into the heart of the wayward young Absalom.
They reported the news of the war to King David. His first words: “Is it well with the young man Absalom?”
It wasn’t.
Here’s David’s lament:
The king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept; and as he went, he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
The book of the Psalms has a genre of psalms called laments. This is Psalm 130, an individual lamenting his sins:
Out of the depths I cry to you,
O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my
supplications!
If you, O Lord, should mark
iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
Lamentation is our cry to God during times of deep distress. Lamentation can be communal when the whole community expresses distress over some terrible event. I sense global lament today over what is happening in Ukraine. At other times, lamentation can be individual, when a person expresses personal distress over something in his or her life.
That’s what we see in our text from Luke 13. Except in Luke 13, it’s not a father lamenting a wayward son. It’s not an individual lamenting her sins. It is Jesus tenderly lamenting his rejection by the people of Israel.
Three words drive this lament: Jerusalem, hen, and house.
Jerusalem is very important in the Gospel of Luke and the other book he wrote, The Acts of the Apostles. Luke refers to Jerusalem ninety times. The entire rest of the New Testament refers to Jerusalem only forty-nine times. Many New Testament scholars note the importance of this passage in Luke 9: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he (Jesus) set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
He set his face to go to Jerusalem. It is a picture of determination, a man on a mission, one who will not be deterred. While John says Jesus went to Jerusalem on several occasions, Luke says he went only once. At the end of his life. Early in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, and that mission, that desire, controls the action of the rest of the gospel. In Luke 13, Jesus had not yet made it to Jerusalem. He won’t arrive in Jerusalem until chapter 19, the day we now call Palm Sunday. He hadn’t made it to Jerusalem, but it was as if he could see the holy city in his mind. He could see the Temple, believed to be the abode of God, the center of their religious life. He could see the people, God’s people, his people. And he uttered this haunting lament:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
So, what is Jerusalem? In this lament, Jerusalem is more than a city. It’s more than the Temple. Jerusalem here represents the people of God. Jerusalem represents God’s people, who behave like immature chicks, scurrying away from the protection of their mother hen. Now, that’s what chicks do, right? They scurry around exploring, searching for scratch. They push the mother hen’s wings aside. They avoid her reach. They reject her. And they are unaware of the danger they are in. The mother hen knows: a fox lurks nearby.
Jesus knew what was going to happen in Jerusalem. The people, like those chicks, will turn on him in Jerusalem. They will push him aside, avoid his reach. They will reject Jesus. Jerusalem is more than a city or a Temple. Jerusalem represents the wayward people of God.
The next word is hen. The Bible has feminine images of God, as well as masculine. Jesus said God is like a woman who had lost a coin. She swept her house until she found it. Old Testament passages compare God to a woman in labor (Isaiah 42:14), a nursing mother (Isaiah 49:15), a comforting mother (Isaiah 66:13), and there are other feminine images of God. Here Jesus compared God to a mother hen. She knew. Mothers do. The fox was nearby. The mother hen knew the danger the chicks faced. She frantically tried to gather her brood under her wings. Just as she got three secured, two escaped. As she tried to gather those, another escaped.
It is one of the most moving images of God in the Bible.
The scenes of war in Ukraine have been very disturbing to most of us. To most of the world. The scenes that disturb me the most are of the young mothers trying to protect their children. The men have been conscripted to protect their homeland. That leaves the women to protect the young children. You may have seen the video. It has gone viral. It is of a young child, maybe five or six years old, who was walking alone. The boy was wearing a multi-colored coat, carrying a plastic bag, and he was crying profusely. It is heartrending. My wife wept when she saw it. As it turns out, the boy had fallen behind, and his mother was actually just ahead in a group. I hope she fell back and scooped him up into her arms. I hope she held him tightly and protected his from the evil of that unjust war.
That’s what mothers do. That’s what mother hens do too. They will even give their lives to save their chicks.
Just as Jesus did.
There’s one more word that drives this story. It’s the word house. “See, your house is left to you,” Jesus says. My study Bible is more explicit: “Behold, your house is forsaken.” Other translations use the word “desolate.” Notice it is present tense. Your house is desolate. Already. The word house, like the word Jerusalem, refers to the people.
Alan Culpepper is a brilliant New Testament theologian. He was our Williams lecturer a few years ago. He has written a commentary on Luke. His words are so well put together I don’t want to change them. This is what Dr. Culpepper says:
These are fateful words. They clarify in advance both Jesus’ fate and that of Jerusalem. Jesus will not be killed by Herod; he will go on to Jerusalem, be killed there…. Jerusalem will reject Jesus and kill him. Its house, therefore, will be abandoned….
Dr. Culpepper ends with these words, “The irony and pathos are heavy. Judgment hangs in the air.” (New Interpreter’s Bible, “Luke, John,” p. 282)
So, he laments. Jesus cries out to God in this moment of deep distress. He set his face to go to go Jerusalem. That was his mission. He would not be deterred. Before he arrived, he could see it in his mind. The holy Temple elevated on the Temple Mount. The people scurrying about, like wayward chicks. He could see the rejection, and he laments.
These forty days of Lent invite us to enter into the lamentation of our Lord, to feel his distress, to be aware of the danger, and to see the frantic and futile efforts of the mother hen trying to gather her chicks. Come with me. Let us journey together and experience the wonderous love of our Lord.
Closing Prayer
We are willing, Lord. We’re willing to make this journey. Help us to be faithful. Amen.
