Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text is the Holy Gospel reading which has already been read.

"Jesus wept." That's John 11:35, which you probably know is the shortest verse in the Bible. However, the Bible verse numbers weren't part of the original texts of Scripture; the verse numbers we have weren't assigned until the 16th century, so to call John 11:35 the shortest verse in the Bible is a matter of human invention and trivia. But the real power in the words "Jesus wept" is that they reveal the true humanity and divine compassion of the Man who is God, Jesus of Nazareth. Our God is not some distant, unapproachable, uncompassionate deity, but has joined Himself to our flesh in the Person of Jesus Christ so that He could obey God's Law in our place, suffer for our sins, sympathize with our weaknesses, and comfort us in our sorrow.

"Jesus wept" at the death of Lazarus, and we can relate because we have all wept at the loss of loved ones, or at the prospect of our own death. But the other time Jesus wept in the Gospels is described in our reading today, and I don't think these tears are as easy for us to relate to. Jesus "drew near and saw the city [of Jerusalem], [and] he wept over it." We can relate to the human emotion Jesus must have felt, but the object of His affection isn't on most of our radar screens. We wouldn't weep for Jerusalem, so we need to understand why Jesus was weeping.

Christ's tears over Jerusalem reflected God's grief at being rejected by His own people. He wept, and then He went on to cry out to the city with an emotional lament, saying that the city had rejected her Lord when she did not recognize the divine peace that was arriving in Jesus; consequently, Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed. God Himself shed human tears because of His sadness over the fate of the city that He had chosen to be His own dwelling place among His people in the temple.

We can't completely relate to these tears the way we can understand Christ's weeping at the tomb of Lazarus, but there are a couple analogies that can make Christ's weeping more relatable to our situation. First, Christ's weeping over Jerusalem is like a parent weeping over a rebellious or wayward son who has gotten himself into a serious mess; he is suffering the natural consequences of his actions, and the parents weep because they are powerless to help but they know he deserves any punishments that he is receiving. Just because he deserves it, doesn't mean that they are glad it is happening; rather, they grieve.

Another analogy that helps us relate to Christ's tears over Jerusalem is that of a husband weeping over an unfaithful wife that He has taken back time and again, but now he is grieving because he knows she will never change and it is time to send her away for good and stop supporting her. In the Old Testament, the relationship between God and Israel is often described as a married couple, with Israel being the unfaithful wife. In the book of Hosea, the Lord says that His people have chosen idolatry and superstition over faithfulness to Him because (quote), "a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore" (Hosea 4:12). So Jesus weeps over Israel as the jilted husband who still loves His adulterous wife, but must now let her face the consequences of her actions.

But what had Israel done that was so bad? Did they really deserve the punishments that were to come upon them? Indeed. Our Old Testament and Epistle readings show two reasons why Jesus was so distraught over His people, and why they had to be punished. They had rejected the peace with God that was coming in the Christ in at least two ways (and as you hear these things described, examine your own life to see if you have fallen into some of the same sins as Israel did; you will find that you have!).

First, in our reading from Jeremiah 8, we see that many Israelites had descended into lawlessness, ignoring God's Word and seeking peace and happiness in worldly things. They weren't concerned with being at peace with God, but wanted to go their own way. The Lord says that a person who trips and falls down will pick himself up, but God's people have decided to wallow in their sinful pit and turn away in "perpetual backsliding. They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return." In other words, they were happy living corrupt lives without repentance. They presumed that they were in good with God because they had God's Law, but they didn't follow His rules at all. They "rejected the word of the Lord" and so became fools. They were greedy and dealt falsely with their neighbor. They had no conscience, because none of them examined their lives and realized their wickedness and said, "What have I done?" The Lord says that they weren't ashamed at all about the horrible things they were doing; "they did not know how to blush." And the religious teachers of Israel looked over this miserable state of affairs and pronounced, "Peace, peace," that is, "Everything's okay! Carry on!" but the Lord said that this preaching "healed the wound of my people lightly," like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. And so the Lord rendered this verdict: "Therefore they shall fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord."

So the first way many Israelites rejected the Lord was by lawlessness, but the second way many Israelites rejected the Lord was by legalism, and that is what we hear about in the Epistle reading. St. Paul says that some of the Israelites did not reject God's Law, that is, the Ten Commandments and other rules given in the Old Testament. Instead, these Israelites misused God's Law by trying to get right with Him through obedience to that Law. So they pursued peace with God not by faith, but by works, as if they could earn their way into heaven with their own efforts. They thought they were zealous for God, but they were actually serving a god of their own making because they wouldn't let Him be their total Savior, their complete Redeemer. They didn't realize how deeply sinful they were, how helpless they were to redeem themselves. And so they rejected the saving righteousness that God promised and sent in Jesus Christ, who showed that salvation can only be by faith in Him, not by works of the Law. These Israelites stumbled on the stumbling stone, the Cornerstone of God's Church, Jesus Christ, because He didn't fit their expectations for how God would save His people.

So some Israelites had grieved their Lord by the lawlessness and others by legalism; both groups rejected the peace that was coming in the visitation of the Christ. And if we are honest with ourselves, we must confess that we grieve our Lord in similar ways today. We make peace with the world by embracing its sinful temptations; after we have sinned against God, we fail to blush, to feel ashamed; we downplay the severity of our sinfulness and don't pause to reflect with horror at our guilt, asking, "What have I done?"; or we try to make peace with God through our excuses or efforts to make up for what we have done. And so our Lord should weep, so to speak, over our sin and self-righteousness, just as He wept over Jerusalem. Repent.

Repent and marvel at our Lord's patient mercy with His people Israel and with you. While He would follow through in destroying Jerusalem, He would wait 40 years before He did it. In the meantime, Jesus would die for the sins of not only His chosen people of Israel, but also the sins of the whole world, including you and me. But there would still be time for the Jews living at that time to repent and be saved, because Jesus went up to Jerusalem to die for all, Jew and Greek alike.

You see, Jesus weeping over Jerusalem happened right after He rode up to Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday, just days before Good Friday. And so this Gospel reading happens just a few days before the final time Jesus cried tears, in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross. The Gospels don't record Jesus crying in the Garden or at Mt. Calvary, but the Epistle to the Hebrews says that Jesus cried during His suffering. This wasn't Jesus weeping out of self-pity, as if He wasn't willing to suffer for us, but these were tears shed by One in extreme pain, in suffering so great beyond what we could even imagine. The Epistle says, "Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence." Jesus shed blood, sweat, and tears for you as He endured God's wrath against your sin, but He never lost confidence in His Father and prayed faithfully for deliverance. By His active obedience to God's Law and by His suffering for sin, He made peace between God and the world, reconciling the two in His own body. And in the Resurrection on the third day, Jesus defeated sin, death, and hell and now is able to provide eternal salvation to all who draw near to God through Him by Baptism and faith.

And even though God would still destroy Jerusalem 40 years later, we do know that not all the Jews had fallen into lawlessness or self-righteousness, and some of those who had fallen repented. There always was a remnant of faithful people who did not reject God's peaceful visitation in the Messiah, but before Jesus came many were in expectation, and when Jesus arrived, as we hear in our Gospel reading, many people did hang on Jesus' words by faith and receive His forgiveness, life, and salvation. And then the Gospel went out from Jerusalem and bore much fruit, bringing salvation in the wounds of Jesus throughout the world, even to Elgin, Texas, where you have been given Christ's righteousness and a share of everlasting life.

And now the warning of Jerusalem's destruction for us is clear: even though God wants no one to perish, even though He longs for the salvation of all, He does let Himself be rejected. And for those who reject His visitation by unbelief, there will be a day of judgment unto eternal death, far worse than the destruction that happened to the city of Jerusalem. If you think our August heat and record-breaking drought is bad, it is nothing in comparison with the eternal fires of hell. So now that you have been visited with God's salvation in Christ, don't be like the Israelites who grieved God's heart through lawlessness, legalism, or unbelief. Don't be like the dog returning to its own vomit, or the clean sow going back to wallow in the mud. Live each day in watchful repentance, being wise, making the best of the time, for the days are evil. Don't be foolish, as our Psalm of the Day says the unrepentant are: "The stupid man cannot know; the fool cannot understand this: that though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever" (Psalm 92).

But for you, my friends, you have been made wise and good by God's grace in Christ. You have peace with God in the wounds of Jesus Christ, in the cleansing waters of Holy Baptism, in the forgiving words of Holy Absolution, and in the purifying body and blood of Jesus in Holy Communion. Through the Word and Sacraments Jesus comes to visit you to forgive all your sins and drive out sin and unbelief. But that is not all. At all times, day and night, you have an Advocate with God the Father, the same Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, who is seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly Jerusalem, where He pleads with God on your behalf and carries your prayers made in His name to the Father, who will answer according to His good and gracious will and preserve your faith unto life everlasting. And then in heaven, there will be no weeping, no more tears at all, just eternal peace and joy. So we look forward to that final day of visitation from our Lord Jesus, the day of resurrection and life everlasting, and we pray: even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.