Vulernable Longing

What Did Jesus Do?

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…How often would I have
gathered your children together…and you would
not!
Matthew 23.37

Jesus cared. Not just for friends like Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary. Not just for Peter, James, and John and the other apostles. Jesus cared deeply for all of God’s people, even those who, like the city of Jerusalem, had violently rejected the prophets and other messengers God had sent to her. Even as the Lord lamented the fate that awaited Jerusalem and her people, he knew that he would be the next prophet she would kill. Of course, though Jerusalem believed she was merely ridding herself of a troubling and rabble rousing prophetic rabbi from Nazareth, it was the Son of God she hung on the cross. His compassion and love for Jerusalem and her children made Jesus so vulnerable as to willingly lay down his life for the very ones who sought his death.

Though, like a hen, Jesus had many times desired to safely gather in and protect Jerusalem and her children, it would take his “wings” being spread wide on the cross to make a way for the lost, not just of Jerusalem and all Israel, but throughout the whole world and through all generations, to come to him. No one present in Jerusalem could even begin to comprehend how much Jesus cared, how much God cared; that the Father would require the Son to lay down his life, and the Son would obediently and willingly do so, and for the very ones who rejected him.

The world still cannot, or will not, accept or grasp the truth of God’s great love in the person of Jesus Christ. But God’s love for the world has not diminished in two thousand years. Neither has Christ’s longing to gather to himself the children of God. The longing of the Father and the Son for the salvation of their people is as strong as ever. Jesus cared, and cares still, enough to sacrifice all for the love of those who love him not.

How far would we go, we who profess to follow Jesus, to care for someone who not only does not love us, but rejects us? How much would we be willing to sacrifice for those who would persecute us, and utter all kinds of evil against us falsely because of our faith? Would we lament over the fate of those who turn their back on God? Would we bless those who curse us? Would we comfort those who hurt us? Would we long so for another’s salvation that we would make ourselves vulnerable to their enmity and rejection? Would we care enough to go all the way, even to the cross, for “Jerusalem’s children?” That’s what Jesus did.


Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4