A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Coming within sight of the city of Jerusalem, remember it's way up high, Jesus wept over it and said, if only you had known the path to peace this day, but you have completely lost it from view. Days will come upon you when your enemies encircle you with a rampart, ham ham you in, and press you hard from every side. They will wipe you out, you and your children within your walls, and leave not a stone on a stone within you because you have failed to recognize the time of your visitation. And this is the the good news of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Trusting on my very in fallible memory whose chief characteristic is fallibility. I think this is the second time that we are told that our blessed Lord wept. The other time that I remember is at the tomb of Lazarus. The curious part of that you see is this.
Our blessed we just relying on the text not going in any interpretations or anything like that. The text is very clear what's going to happen. That Lazarus dead being mourned by his sisters Martha and Mary is going to be brought back to life or something very wonderful is going to happen. Our blessed Lord says that when before he even leaves with his disciples family to mourn his death. Yet in spite of of what the the happy outcome of this tragedy, we are told that Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, his friend, wept, cried, tears came out of his eyes.
He had all the emotions of sorrow and grief. Now we're told the same thing here. Except in this case, our blessed Lord is seeing what happened. Remember it happened only about sixty years after AD when the Roman emperor Titus moved in with his with his legions and they leveled the city of Jerusalem and literally did not leave a stone upon a stone. Now you have heard it said that is not true because you can go over there and see the Wall Of Jerusalem and there are stones upon stones there.
Well, my friends, if you have seen the wall and I'm sure some of you here have seen it, that was not the city of Jerusalem. What that that the wall which was which came to be called the Weeping Wall and which is now a very central place and a very holy place for the for contemporary Jews, even more so than the upper place where the temple was, you know what it is. It's the it's the very foundation of the hill which supports the city where the temple was where the temple was because it was leveled right to the ground. Now our Lord is seeing this. He is seeing what's going to happen to this city.
And we are and as far as I I recall, it's the the second time and these are the only two times that Jesus, we're told that he wept when he when he sees what's going to happen to this city in a matter of less than seventy five years, much less than that, he weeps and says if only you had known the day of your visitation. You know, this is that's mysterious. In other words, they weren't doing something that they should have done. They were bringing this upon themselves in some way or other. Now I'm it's not clear, but that's the implication to me as I read the text.
Because Christ said, if only you had known the day of your visitation. That's a contrary to fact condition. And we are told Jesus wept. That's how he loved his city. That's how he loved his friends.
That even when he know he was going to turn their tears into tears of joy, even when he knew that, when he foresaw it, when he knew that that was going to be the outcome, nevertheless, when when he saw the grief of Martha and Mary whom he loved, he was so moved that he wept with them. Their grief became his grief. Now these whatever meaning you want to give or take out of these readings, there's certainly something extremely clear here. Christ was human. See, we often forget this.
This is one this was something that Luther did in his absolutely direct and vigorous German language. He brought this on that Christ was human. Now we quickly add, yes, he was God. Of course, he there's only one person in Christ. But there are two natures, complete natures, and one of them is human nature.
Human nature, not divine nature. That was he he certainly is divine. But when we say Christ is the son of Mary, we mean he's the son of Mary. He had a human body. He had tear ducts in his eyes, and those tear ducts overflowed with grief, with sorrow, with sympathy.
Yeah. Yeah. Somehow or other, you know, people have an idea that they are becoming more spiritual when they spiritualize Christ. When we are told today, well now the the body of Christ, these physical things, after all, that's not the real thing. The real thing is Christ's divinity.
After all, it doesn't make much difference whether Christ actually physically rose from the dead. That's not important. See, this is nothing but that is nothing but Gnosticism which goes back to the third and the fourth centuries AD. And it's not Catholic at all, and never was Catholic. The Council of Nicaea said that Jesus Christ is the son of Mary, immaculately conceived.
Meaning he's human with all that goes to with being human. He was sympathetic. He understood sorrow. He understood grief. He understood fright.
He knew what it was to be afraid. Christ knew what it was to be almost in despair. Almost in despair. Almost his last words from the cross were, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Have you ever thought about that?
They are tremendous words that that the son of God had all the feelings and the emotions of being forgotten by his father, abandoned. No one questions the the authenticity of those words. Nobody. And yet, how can you how can you bring that into the same picture with the son of God? How can you bring into the same picture Christ the son of God looking at a city and weeping over.
Why should he weep over it? He'd done everything he could for them, and he said, you've turned away if only you had known the things that before your peace, but you didn't. See, it's a contrary to fact condition, but you didn't. And yet and yet, Jesus wept over the city he loved. Let us never forget the humanity of Jesus Christ.
Let us not be afraid of it. Let us love it. You cannot be anthropomorphic with Jesus Christ. He was truly an anthropos. Christ was a man, a human being, as human as any human being who ever walked the face of God's earth.
Completely human. Why should we run out scared away from it? Why should we hesitate to identify with a man of sorrows? Why should we hesitate when we find ourselves almost reduced to sweating blood, begging God that what we have to face, we won't have to face. Jesus did that.
He at the mass we say, he freely offered himself on the cross. Yes, he did freely offer himself, but he just as freely begged God with with sweat of blood not to do it. Not to do it. Think about that. He didn't want any parts of it.
His whole human nature rebelled, revolted, was repulsed from the thought of the cross. And he prayed, God, let this chalice pass. I want no parts of it, but but not my will, but thine be done. Christ accepted the cross freely. But notice what that freely meant.
It meant a prayer of blood not to have to drink it. Don't we find ourselves in that situation? Not all, not often I hope, but once in a while. And once in a while we find ourselves abandoned by God. That's how we feel.
We feel absolutely abandoned by him. Look at Christ. He did too. He did too. So, friends, Christ is our brother, the son of God, absolutely the son of God, but just as absolutely son of man, the son of the immaculate virgin Mary.
I'm referring to Saint Maximilian Kobe, this the Polish priest, Franciscan, who gave his life by star substituted himself for another Polish soldier to be starved to death. His great his great worship, his great devotion was to Mary immaculate mother of God. From his from his seminary days. And so let us has not hesitate about the humanity of Christ. Christ wept.
In the name of the father, and of the son, holy spirit. Amen.