TEEN TREE 
OF LIFE
THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD & SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST
Part 5
May 10, 2020
Before you begin, ask yourself a very important question: Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins? If you answered yes, you will need to be sure that you are filled with The Holy Spirit. How do you do this? You name your sins to God The Father in His Son’s Name. This is called Rebound. As a Christian, you must rebound any time you sin. This is taught in 1JOHN 1:9: If we confess [name] our sins [directly to God], He [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, if you have never believed that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins, all you have to do is say to yourself that you believe in Him and you are saved! The Bible verse which teaches us this is ACTS 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
As we ended last week’s study, we were looking at how the apostles might have been reacting to everything going on in the crowds surrounding Our Savior, as they traveled along the road from the Mount of Olives, toward the gate of the city of Jerusalem.
We learned that there had been great excitement going on in the crowds because the news had spread that Jesus Christ had raised Lazarus from the dead – excitement way beyond the Passover celebration to which they were headed. The news had traveled from one person to another, until finally when Our Lord was ready to enter Jerusalem, great crowds had collected on both sides of the road. They were there waiting for Him! They had cut palm branches and were shouting, “Hosanna to the king!” Excitement was at a peak.
Scripture tells us that the people in the crowd, who were closest to Jesus, saw sorrow in His face and tears in His eyes, despite the excitement and deep love that He could feel from them. He cried when Jerusalem came into view.
The Bible records that Our Lord reacted emotionally many times to different experiences He encountered while living on earth, like when He saw the poor, the hungry, people sinning, or those who were sick. When He had these encounters, the Bible tells us repeatedly that He felt compassion for them. An example of this is MATT 9:36: Seeing the [crowds] people, He felt compassion for them, because they were [harassed] distressed and [thrown down] dispirited like sheep [not having] without a shepherd. But the Bible only tells us of two times that Jesus actually cried.
One time Jesus cried at Lazarus’ grave: The moment she heard that, she [Mary] jumped up and ran out to him. Jesus had not yet entered the town but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When her sympathizing Jewish friends saw Mary run off, they followed her, thinking she was on her way to the tomb to weep there. Mary came to where Jesus was waiting and fell at his feet, saying, “Master, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her sobbing and the Jews with her sobbing, a deep anger welled up within him. He said, “Where did you put him?” “Master, come and see,” they said. Now Jesus wept. (JOH 11:29-35 The Message Bible) What we’re seeing here is Our Lord and Savior empathizing with Mary and her Jewish friends. He could feel their sorrow and despair so very much, that He cried along with them.
But why did Jesus weep when He saw Jerusalem? His weeping is recorded in LUK 19:36-41 (The Message Bible): They brought the colt to Jesus. Then, throwing their coats on its back, they helped Jesus get on. As he rode, the people gave him a grand welcome, throwing their coats on the street. Right at the crest, where Mount Olives begins its descent, the whole crowd of disciples burst into enthusiastic praise over all the mighty works they had witnessed: Blessed is he who comes, the king in God’s name! All’s well in heaven! Glory in the high places! Some Pharisees from the crowd told him, “Teacher, get your disciples under control!” But he said, “If they kept quiet, the stones would do it for them, shouting praise.” When the city came into view, he wept over it.
Now stop for a moment and think about Jerusalem’s place in Our Savior’s life. Jerusalem is the place where He was brought to as a child, to be presented to God at the Temple: Then when the days stipulated by Moses for purification were complete, they took him up to Jerusalem to offer him to God as commanded in God’s Law: “Every male who opens the womb shall be a holy offering to God,” and also to sacrifice the “pair of doves or two young pigeons” prescribed in God’s Law. (LUKE 2:22–24 The Message Bible)
Our Lord was also brought to Jerusalem to attend Passover Festivals: Every year Jesus’ parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up as they always did for the Feast. When it was over and they left for home, the child Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents didn’t know it. Thinking he was somewhere in the company of pilgrims, they journeyed for a whole day and then began looking for him among relatives and neighbors. When they didn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem looking for him. (LUKE 2:41-45 The Message Bible).
Now let’s look at what Jesus said after He wept at the sight of Jerusalem: When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a [a dirt wall or mound for siege purposes] barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” (LUK 19:41-44)
Now let’s look in detail at why He wept as “He approached Jerusalem.” We read that Our Lord said: “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. The people of Jerusalem are ignorant of the things that make for peace. Jesus looked at the city of Jerusalem and He saw the vanity behind their faces and realized the emptiness of their lives. They had not heard the message of peace. Well, they heard it but did not perceive and understand the purpose of His Coming.
There is one other place in Luke where the words translated “things that make for peace” occur. It’s in the parable found in LUK 14:3132: Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends [an embassy] a delegation and asks for terms of peace. “Terms of peace” is the same phrase translated “things that make for peace” in LUK 19:42. So the picture we should have in our minds, as Our Savior approaches Jerusalem for the last time, is that a king is coming to a rebellious city, a hotbed of resistance against His Rightful Authority. The king is willing to make peace, but only on his own terms.
When Jesus says Jerusalem doesn’t know these terms of peace, He doesn’t mean He never told them what they were. He had already cried out in LUK 13:34: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! The terms of peace had been spelled out again and again, as affectionately and as firmly as a hen goes after her chicks to protect them. Jerusalem knew the terms of peace but rejected them.
They missed the day of “their visitation” (LUK 19:44) from the King of kings and the Lord of lords. They had eyes, but they didn’t see. They had ears, but they didn’t hear. They missed the whole point of the message that God had given to them. They were too occupied with their lusts and desires.
Jerusalem had also been told about “their visitation.” Hadn’t they been told and shown that the king had come? Indeed they had. Look at LUKE 17:20-21: Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is [within you] in your midst.”
{to be continued}