Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Bashana haba-ah birushalayim! Next year in Jerusalem!

This is exclaimed at Jewish seder tables, toward the end of the first night of the Passover holiday every year and everywhere where the seder is celebrated outside Jerusalem. Next year in Jerusalem! Bashana haba-ah birushalayim!

Jerusalem has been the center, the focus of messianic hope for ages, dear congregation. It is the holy city, God’s dwelling place, the city of the people of Israel, the center of the world, where heaven and earth meet. Here the Messiah will arrive first, on the temple mount where there will be peace, shalom, no more war, no more tears, where swords will be made into plowshares, and the covenant that God first made with Abram and later with the people will come to completion and fulfillment. No wonder the most desired burial place for a devout Jew is the Mount of Olives across from where the temple used to be.

May in Jesus’ times the temple and the establishment be as corrupt as it may be; may after the destruction of the temple and the people of Israel in the first two centuries C.E. the hopes for a return have been bleak and unwarranted; may in our times the hope for peace for Israel and Jerusalem be disappointed again and again and in fact seems to be diminished to almost nothing, - the prayer for Jerusalem as the symbol for God’s coming continues to be prayed throughout all generations, and must continue to be prayed. Jews and Christians are still waiting for that time when we all will sing together that old, old psalm that the pilgrims to Jerusalem used to sing and we sing every Sunday in the Sanctus: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” Jesus exclaims. “The city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!”

No prophet whom we know of was ever killed in Jerusalem. Theologians developed this tradition in Israel of the prophet killed in the holy city, stoned to death which is the sentence only for the fiercest enemies of God. By that, they wanted to show the people Israel how it had perverted God’s thorah and turned the holy city into a sinful city from which God withdraws his presence.

So, even though prophets were probably not liked when they had to deliver God’s word of criticism and message of judgment, we do not hear of actual killings of prophets by the people. In the same way Jesus whom Luke portraits here in our lesson today as a prophet and martyr was killed not by the people but by the Romans.

In this time of Lent, dear congregation, when we try again to make sense of Jesus’ death and ask ourselves anew which place we give it in our Easter faith, I cannot help but remember that in contrast to the prophets who were said to be killed in Jerusalem but actually never were, many Jews were actually killed by Christians, their death sentences based on ignorance and rumors. The rumor was spread that Jews needed blood for their Passover rites and therefore would kill Christian children since they could not kill someone from their own community. This certainly was one of the tragic mistakes that led Christians to pogroms and killings of Jews throughout central and eastern Europe for centuries. And it always happened during Lent and Easter when the church prepared for the mystery of Easter, not caring to know how closely related are the celebration of the exodus from slavery in Egypt and the celebration of the exodus from death.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem”, Jesus calls out, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Disappointed love is the theme here.

Jesus is sent to his people. Everything could change now. Jerusalem could become the center of peace, good will, of heaven and earth meeting, God could dwell here, not only in the temple but everywhere. But Jesus’ desire to gather like a hen the chicks under his wings is opposed to the will of the people: “and you were not willing.”

Sadness speaks in these lines, sadness about the rejection of the love offered, but no judgment. No moral judgment. Only that the house - be it the temple, be it the house of Israel itself - is empty now, emptied of God’s presence, offering itself up for the destruction it then experienced historically through the Romans.

Interestingly, Luke continues to offer to Israel the salvation that came into the world through Jesus Christ through the apostles until the very end of his two volume book of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. And in the end he leaves Israel’s rejection as an open unsolved question. Similarly Paul, who in his writings goes through a number of viewpoints regarding Israel but in the end in his letter to the Romans views the church and Israel as branches coming out of the same root and trunk leaving the completion of redemption to the God of mercy.

How does Jesus see himself in all this? He knows that he is being rejected. He knows that he will die. Yet he is doing his work of salvation among the people until it is finished, complete. “Listen,” he says, “I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow. This is my life’s work, today and tomorrow. And when I die after that, on the next day, it will not be a failure of my life’s work, not an invalidation of the healing and restoration that I have brought, but the completion of my serving the world.”

Somehow, dear congregation, there is a kind of serenity hidden in these lines. And a very strong hope, even assurance of God’s presence under the wings of this Jesus.

It is hidden in the way Jesus counts from one to three.

When we look at the way Jesus counts from today to tomorrow to the next day, we discover that Jesus does not promote his own suffering. Jesus prepares himself for his death but he does not dwell on it. Jesus does his work of casting out demons and healing people on day one and two, today and tomorrow. On the next day, the third day, he will finish his work, meaning that his last service to the people of God will be his death.

Day three, the day of his death according to Jesus’counting, is however in the traditional Christian counting, not Good Friday when we remember his death, but the third day is Easter, the day of the resurrection. Jesus’ death, his work of salvation is interpreted here not as the end but as the beginning. Jesus does not take salvation with him into the grave but through the resurrection on the third day God’s salvation can now take its full course and spread throughout the entire world, through the disciples, the apostles, the church, and down the line, through this church here and in it you and me.

Just as Jesus is not dwelling on his own suffering and not commending it, so do we not have to dwell on it. Our faith is an Easter faith and as Christ’s church we participate in God’s salvation that is running its course. Living in this dangerous world we can be assured of God’s presence under Jesus’ wings, those who are willing to gather there.

Let us not hesitate but gather under those wings in God’s presence. Let our ways be directed by God’s salvation running its course toward the messianic Jerusalem. And with the pilgrims to Jerusalem let us sing the old song: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Amen.