Lent 2

Lent 2
Jerusalem Jerusalem!

From the very moment of his conception, Jesus’ life was in danger.

As an unwed mother, Mary could legally have been stoned to death and her child with her.
The star that signaled Jesus’ birth appeared to the three kings as a promise but to King Herod the Great as a threat. King Herod plotted to kill the baby Jesus the moment he learned of his birth.

Jesus came to Earth as the fulness of divine love and holiness. Yet, as the nativity story tells us: there was no room. There was no room in the political and religious establishments for Jesus. There was no room in the human soul for Jesus. Jesus had to make the room. In order to make the room for people to receive him he first had to die.

From the second Jesus arose from the waters of baptism and heard the voice of his heavenly father declare: this is my Son, the Beloved, he knew he was on way to Jerusalem to die.

Why?

Other religious leaders before Jesus and since Jesus have preached about God. Most met criticism and opposition in some form. Only Jesus met, and continues to meet, open and virulent hostility and hatred. King Herod Agrippa, a son of King Herod the Great, plotted to kill Jesus during three years of Jesus’ public ministry. Yet, when he had the opportunity he declared Jesus innocent and sent him back to Pontus Pilate to judge.

Jesus’ closest friends swore they would fight to the death to protect him, yet they abandoned him on the night of his arrest.

The religious leaders wanted Jesus dead but lacked the authority to condemn him. The man who did condemn Jesus to die also declared him innocent.

There is a strange set of contradictory reactions surrounding Jesus that only Jesus himself understood. Jesus alone understood the dynamic of fear and faith and betrayal because Jesus alone understood the problem humanity faces.

The people in Jesus’ day thought their problem was a lack of political, religious and individual power. Jesus came to tell them and to reveal to them, and to us, that the problem is separation. The will to power that people seek to express is a consequence of separation. It is also a further problem that separation creates in the human will.

Jesus knew the problem because from his childhood he had studied the scriptures. He learned the way we learn. But, he learned in communion with His heavenly father, not in separation from the Father. He read, studied and memorized the scriptures from the place of faith, humility and surrender of self will to divine will.

Jesus’ friends and enemies betrayed Jesus to death because Jesus lived his life as the perfect mirror to the human soul.

In all of his teachings and miracles Jesus revealed the love and holiness of God. After only three years of Divine Love personally in their midst, the people who knew Jesus rejected him, abandoned him and demanded his execution.

Jesus removed the veil of self deceit from the human soul and revealed both Divine Nature, perfected human nature, and fallen human nature. To a lesser extent, the prophets had done the same and the record of scripture is that they met opposition.

There is too much time, effort and expectation invested in the institutions and culture human beings create for us to allow God in person to make any serious changes. The Divine Presence in Jesus Christ was and continues to be a threat to a species that has invested itself in the pursuit of possessions and power.

That is why even Jesus’ disciples attempt to redefine him. That is why every human culture that encounters Jesus rejects him. Some reject him outright and aggressively. Others, as with the disciples, ignore what he said and did and who he was. They attempt to redefine him by their own expectations and desires.

Redefining Jesus works for a time. Very quickly such redefinition fails. There is no element of truth in such a Jesus. In the end, that Jesus fades away and those who sought to redefine him to suit their own ideas of the Messiah are left with an empty shell devoid of meaning and purpose.
Jesus remained true to his nature and true to his character. He set his intent to fulfill the Plan of Salvation. He died in order to trap death. He suffered in order to capture sin. He embraced the cross as the only means to seal the breach of separation between humanity and divinity. Because his did this from love and through love, he transformed sin back into virtue, separation back into reunification, and death back into eternal life.

Jesus lamented over Jerusalem as he realized that the choices they were making would accomplish the very opposite of what they wanted. They wanted the power and the glory of conquest. Only forty years after the crucifixion and resurrection, Jerusalem would meet defeat and destruction.

Jesus had come to them with healing and wholeness and holiness. They rejected him as he knew they would. Yet, he still lamented over their choice. For Jesus is the love of God in human flesh. He loved the very people who tortured and killed him. He loved the city that in its pride and pursuit of power rejected him.

There was and is no other way. Divine love always must be a true gift that brings forth a real choice.

Jesus’ death on the cross for the sin of the human race opened the possibility for people to receive reunification with God as a gift. It is the only way a broken and lost humanity can reunite with God.

It is our choice. Jesus did not choose the way of conquest because that is the way of power. Jesus chose the way of grace because that is the way of love. Conquest leads to the disintegration of the human soul in the corrosive exercise of the will to power. Love, and only love, is eternal. Love sets the soul free to transform, expand, and to grow in endless grace.

Jesus lamented over Jerusalem because the people invited him to conquer and dominate them. Jesus lamented over Jerusalem because the people rejected the greater gift of divine love. The cross is the sign and the reality that love transforms. Love does not conquer.

In that sign and by that reality, humanity has an opportunity to make a different choice. It is a real choice. It is an eternal choice. Jesus has transformed death into life and fear into love. We only need to receive the gift he offers. As we receive the gift we begin to experience life as Jesus experienced life. We begin to experience the love and holiness of God immersing our souls with meaning and purpose and delight.

Jesus once asked: what does it profit if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul? What does it profit to get every thing you want only to discover you want nothing that you have?
Jesus has already saved our souls, our eternal essence, from the disintegration by the power of separation and death. Jesus has saved our souls for the infinite possibilities of eternal love and holiness. He offers each of us that salvation as a gift.

Although the world around us offers many distractions and promises the world only holds one real choice. That one real choice is to accept the gift of God in Jesus Christ or to reject him.
As we accept Jesus we gain immeasurable potential for abundant life. As we reject him, every other choice we make narrows our options until we experience only fear, self will and pride. The end choice for the path of fear, self will and pride is self absorbed despair. Jesus desires to save us from this other choice.

Jesus calls out from the altar, Jerusalem Jerusalem. He calls out to London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Beijing. Tokyo, to all of the cities, towns and villages of Earth, to Newtown: how I have desired to gather you together. How I have desired to see the broken healed, the lost found, the fearful comforted, the lonely reunited. How I long to fill your emptiness with the fulness of divine love.

The choice to receive the gift is always ours. The choice to live the gift is ours. The choice to offer the gift to others is also ours. The gift is a new way of living.

The Holy Spirit invites us to hear Jesus lamenting over the souls of people who exist in the pain of separation. Pray for them. Reach out to them. Tell them about Jesus’ love. Show them Jesus’ love.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how much longer will Jesus long for you to receive the blessing? O church of God, how much longer will Jesus long for us to hear the blessing , believe the blessing, live the blessing of steadfast holy love in Jesus Christ?