A Prophet's Pain

Jesu Juva

Jeremiah 26, Luke 13:31-35                            

March 16, 2025

Lent 2C                                                  

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        A good prophet is always a pain in the neck.  Genuine prophets—bonafide messengers from God—are always intrusive and abrasive.  They couldn’t care less what your itching ears want to hear; because they aren’t accountable to anyone except the Lord.  So most of the time prophets aren’t popular, polished, or politically correct.  And they’re not terribly tactful either.  All they care about is what God has given them to speak.

        But bearers of bad news often take a beating.  Prophets of doom and gloom aren’t too popular. Consider Jeremiah.  You’d be hard-pressed to find a more faithful prophet.  But like most prophets, Jeremiah had to preach an unpopular message:  Jerusalem, that holy city with its holy temple, would be invaded, overrun and destroyed.  And citizens who survived—Jerusalem’s best and brightest—would be carried off to exile in Babylon for 70 years.

        It would be as if I preached that the United States was in its final years—that the armies of Islam would soon roll right down Santa Monica Boulevard, beheading all who will not bow the knee to Allah and his prophet Mohamed—and that those who did survive would be exiled to the Middle East to serve Islamic overlords—that this holy house, dedicated to our Savior, would be stripped of everything sacred, and would soon serve as a mosque. 

        What if I preached that message week after week?  How well would that go over?  Do you think attendance would drop?  Would you be patting me on the back?  Or changing the locks on the parsonage?  Or perhaps I should expect to hear what Jeremiah heard after he preached all that the Lord had commanded him to say, when all the people grabbed hold of him and said, “You shall die!”  It’s all part of a day’s work for a true and faithful prophet.  

        Today’s readings make it clear that God—and His messengers—are on the same team.  God and His prophets are a package deal.  You can’t profess your love for God while, at the same time, stringing up God’s prophets by their big toes—which is what the people of Jerusalem were known for.  In the same breath they would bless the name of the Lord; and then tell Jeremiah, “We can’t stand your preaching.  It’s depressing.  It’s unpatriotic.  It’s demoralizing the people.”  That’s why the movers and shakers of Jerusalem thought they were doing God a favor by killing off that killjoy named Jeremiah.

        By the time Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem six centuries later, that city’s appetite for persecuting prophets was legendary.  You can almost sense the sarcasm in the Savior’s voice when the Pharisees warned Jesus that Herod wanted to kill him:  “Gee whiz,” he seems to say, “it’s hardly possible that a prophet could perish away from Jerusalem.”  Jesus then called Jerusalem “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it” by God.  I’m sure that went over like a lead balloon with the Pharisees.  Probably didn’t sit too well with the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce either.

        But did you notice that Jesus took no delight in delivering that rebuke?  He took no pleasure in pointing out how far Jerusalem had fallen—or how soon God’s judgment would be poured out there.  No, it broke the Savior’s heart to point out the sins of Jerusalem.  He wept:  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!  Unbelief is what Jesus was up against.  And unbelief always breaks the Savior’s heart.  He takes it personally.  It’s a crying shame.

        Unbelief also brought Saint Paul to tears.  Did you catch that in the reading from Philippians?  It’s a remarkable passage.  He writes: For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, [many] walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.  Their end is their destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame. 

        Sentences like those remind us that there’s nothing new under the sun.  For we too live among the enemies of the cross of Christ.  We too live among people whose gods are their bellies—people who are ruled by their appetites—people who delight in the deaths of the unborn—people who want to force you to accept and celebrate their perverse lifestyles as normal and wonderful—people who would gladly put you in prison simply for holding to God’s truth about the sanctity of marriage, about the sanctity of sex, about the sanctity of human life.

        How does it make you feel to know that the enemies of the cross of Christ are advancing on all sides?   Does it make you angry?  Or afraid?  Does it frustrate you and make your blood pressure rise?  Does it make you stick your head in the sand and pretend that those enemies aren’t really there?  Do you wish your pastor would just shut up about it all?  Or, does the unbelief of this dying world break your heart?  Do you weep over this world with Jesus?  Does the unbelief of those around you cause your heart to ache?

        There’s a warning here for us.  Just as Jerusalem rejected the prophets and even rejected the Christ, we too can forfeit our salvation.  Jerusalem would not repent.  They would not trust.  They would not believe.  They would not abandon their idolatries and adulteries. They rejected the One who came in human flesh to save them.  Live like that—refuse to repent—and you will face eternal death.

        Or, be safely gathered into the eternal life that is freely found in Jesus.  Jesus describes Himself today in a way that few people in my generation can picture.  He speaks of a mother hen and her chicks.  Used to be that everyone had hens and chicks.  But not so much these days.  Jesus speaks of Himself as a mother hen clucking after her little chicks, trying to gather them under her protective wings out of harm’s way, willing to sacrifice herself to save them.  And yet, they refuse. 

        That’s the love of Jesus for Jerusalem, for His church, for you.  He longs to gather you under His wings.  He wants to shelter you under His protection and grace, to guide you in paths of righteousness and safety.  He was willing to go up to Jerusalem and die for you—for all—even for those enemies who hated Him and wanted Him dead.

        Why does Jesus do it?  Why does He perpetually send His pesky prophets and pastors into our lives?  Because He loves you.  Because He wants to save all.  He doesn’t want you to go it alone.  In the kingdom of God there are no rugged individualists, no independent Christians.  Hens and chicks that wander off alone are destined to become fox food.  Far better for us to take Jesus at His Word—to accept the reality of what we are:  just a brood of helpless hatchlings—cheeping chicks hidden safely under the Savior’s protective wing.  In every sermon you hear—in the words of His prophets and apostles—Jesus calls you to safety, to shelter and mercy beneath His outstretched arms.

        Those same arms were also stretched out on the cross, to bear your sin.  Those were the arms that reached out to welcome you in the waters of your baptism.  Those are the arms that comfort and console you when your life is touched by death, reminding you that your citizenship is in heaven—that the Savior will one day transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body.  The arms of Jesus invite you to His Supper to be fed with the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood—for the forgiveness of every sin.  It’s a wonderful place to be—nestled in the warmth and protection and love of Jesus.  There you are safe.  There you are forgiven.  There you have life that lasts forever.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.