Joys and Sorrows

How excited the followers of Jesus must have been as they prepared to march into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday! Verse 37 reminds us that “the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully?for all the deeds of power that they had seen.” So why does Luke say that Jesus cried? Luke writes this gospel after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by Rome in 70 CE. The first readers and hearers of this passage know what happened to their beloved sacred space and would have known that God wept with them.

Thanks be to God that Luke’s gospel does not begin or end with this passage. Luke begins and ends his gospel in the temple in Jerusalem. Luke then continues to record the accounts of God’s saving activity in the world in The Acts of the Apostles, where he records the activities of the early church and ends with Paul preaching and teaching with boldness in the city of Rome. (Acts 28:31) Think of this, some 80 or so years after Jesus was born, less than 50 years after Jesus was crucified, the risen Lord is proclaimed to the very powers that had conquered the “Holy Lands” some 140 years before.

Understanding God, thank you for turning our sorrows into joy. Amen. — VSR