First Presbyterian Church Marianna, Florida Sunday, April 1, 2007 Sermon by Huw Christopher, Pastor Scripture Readings: Luke 13: 31-35 Luke 19: 29-44 Sermon Title: “The Cross of Jesus: The Place of Peace” Sermon Text: Luke 19:41-42: As Jesus came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you had only recognized the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. There is no way in which I can hear those words which I have just read without my mind going back to the experience that Rachel and I had in October 2000 as we had the privilege of following the path down from the Mount of Olives towards Jerusalem that Jesus may well have taken on this day long ago. One of the places where we stopped on the way was one about which neither of us had heard prior to that day. The stop was at a small church called the Dominus Flevit, which comes from the Latin which means, “the Lord wept.” Built in 1955 the church is fashioned in what the architect envisaged as a teardrop. Inside the small church we were immediately drawn to the arch-shaped picture window situated behind the altar. As we looked out of that window so we saw a tremendous view of the city of Jerusalem as it stands today. As we did so we could only imagine the view that Jesus had from that spot as he stopped and looked over the city of his day and wept over it. As we stepped back from looking out of that window and looked at the altar itself we saw that carved on the front of this stone altar was a mosaic picture of a hen with wings outstretched covering her chickens. This picture was inspired by the earlier words of Jesus when preparing to go to Jerusalem he had said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” (Luke 13:34) This lament over the city of Jerusalem may well have come back to his mind as he wept over the city that day because they did not recognize the things that make for peace. Though on this day the people may cry out joyfully, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord,” Jesus knew that the tone would soon change and the cry would be, “Crucify Him! Away with this man!” In the words of his lament over Jerusalem captured in that mosaic on the front of the altar, Jesus affirmed that God’s way of peace is seen as all people can come to know what it was to live together under the shelter of God’s Almighty protection. There as each one is ready to acknowledge his or her dependence upon God so people also will be ready to acknowledge that together they are all children of God, and depend not just upon God but also upon each other. Jesus weeps over the city because he recognized that despite the way in which he was being welcomed on this day people would not be ready to accept such a way of peace. Very soon indeed they would express their disappointment with him for not being the king who comes in the name of the Lord who had chosen their way of peace by throwing out the hated Romans, and destroying all of their enemies. The way of peace through loving service to one another as children of God that Jesus, as the king who comes in the name of the Lord, came to show and to live out was not the way of peace that the people of Jerusalem could recognize and appreciate on that day. Paul as he writes to the church in Colossae reminds us that even as the people rejected Jesus and hung him on a cross to die he was still affirming God’s way of peace through reconciling all things in heaven and on earth. (Colossians 1:19-21) Jesus dies to show God’s love not for one nation or one race but for the whole world. He dies to show how much God was willing to do that all people may know a peace which comes as they can gather together under the shadow of God’s protecting wings, and know what it is to live together as the children of God. Today we still want to come to stand beneath the cross of Jesus because we still see it as that mighty rock within a weary land, as a home within the wilderness, and as a rest upon the way. We do so because we see here the assurance of our peace with God as we know what it is to gather with confidence as children of God under the shelter of God’s protecting, loving arms seen most fully portrayed as Jesus died for us on that cross. As we stand beneath that cross so we pray that all people may come to stand there with us and also come to see it as a place of peace, and come to see him as the Prince of Peace, and the Hope of the World. As we celebrate God’s ways of peace so we also see that this is the peace that God still sends us out into the world to share. Let us claim that peace again using the affirmation of faith printed in the bulletin. THE AFFIRMATION OF FAITH: from the Confession of 1967 of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) To be reconciled and at peace with God is to be sent into the world as part of his reconciling community. This community, the church universal, is entrusted with God=s message of peace and reconciliation and shares God=s labor of healing the enmities which separate people from God and from each other. The life, death, resurrection, and promised coming of Jesus Christ has set the pattern for the church=s mission. His life as a human being involves the church in the common life of all people. His service to human beings commits the church to work for every form of human well- being. His suffering makes the church sensitive to all of the sufferings of human beings so that it sees the face of Christ in the faces of all people in every kind of need. His crucifixion discloses to the church God=s judgment on human inhumanity to one another, and the awful consequences of its own complicity in injustice. In the power of the risen Christ and the hope of his coming, the church sees the promise of God=s renewal of human life in society, and of God=s victory over all wrong. 1