Daily Manna – March 26, 2016
Topic: The day of His visitation
Reading: Luke 19
Scripture: And when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it. (Luke 19:41)
Note: Jesus had just been celebrated big time on his way to entering Jerusalem. The multitude sang praises of hosanna to the King that comes in the name of the Lord. Even the dissenting and beleaguered but powerful Pharisees couldn’t stop the spontaneous praise from the multitude.
This pandemonium of spontaneous praise took place at the descent of the mount of Olives. Christ wasn’t yet in Jerusalem. When the approaching entourage of Christ reached the caravan road from Bethany to Jerusalem where Christ could get a bird’s eyeview of the full beauty and glory of Jerusalem, Jesus wept over the city, making prediction of its destruction.
The Greek word used to describe the weeping of Jesus over Jerusalem was klaio, meaning to wail. This lamentation of Jesus over the holy city was indicative of a person bewailing in pain and grief. It wasn’t an act that occurred silently. Christ wept openly and freely before the multitudes, many of whom may suffer the most horrible deaths of any nation in history.
Jerusalem in its seeming glory and beauty was a pathetic site before the sight of God due to her preference for darkness over light, in rejecting the provision of God for the redemption of mankind. Similarly, many churches today are more focused on form over substance. Jerusalem was deceived by her arrogance, beauty and love for rituals and structural elegance over spiritual depth, truth and love for humanity. The churches that must know better have taken to the same spirit of Jerusalem, focusing more on building empires and sand castles, while doom is staring at the people and the nation.
Food for thought: Will Jesus Christ today weep over the church in this nation as he did over Jerusalem which was destroyed 40 years after his death? Lord, have mercy.
Declaration: Lord, have mercy on us in the day of your visitation. For we have acted blindly, foolishly and have not known the time of your visitation.
© Author: Rev Fred Aboe
