A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Our lord, coming within sight of the city of Jerusalem, wept over the city. And Jesus said, if only you had known the pathway to peace this day, but you have completely lost it from view. Days will come upon you when your enemies will encircle you with ramparts, hem 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 upon a stone within you because you have failed to recognize the time of your visitation. And this is the gospel of the lord.
Praise be to the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. It is simply startling, startling. The way these words of our blessed lord were fulfilled in seventy AD. He was speaking these roughly in, say, thirty three AD.
Because in seventy AD, Titus came from Rome with a mighty army. They threw ramparts around the city of Jerusalem. In other words, they enclosed the walls of Jerusalem within walls. And when they finished with Jerusalem, there was not a stone left upon a stone. It was a devastated, annihilated city.
That is seventy AD, and this is a matter of of absolute fact and history. And we have a a eyeball account of it from Josephus. Now our blessing and notice how our lord is emotionally affected by this. As far as I recall, this is the the second time that it is recounted in the New Testament that our lord wept. The other time was at the tomb of Lazarus when he saw the sorrow of his friends Martha and Mary because he knew that he was going to bring Lazarus out of the tomb, so he couldn't have been sorry about that.
Now today, we have the feast of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. The great and young woman, thirteenth, fourteenth century, great follower of Saint Francis of Assisi, who in her very brief life went through being a very fine young maiden, became a mother, became a widow, was a queen, lost everything, was practically thrown out on the street. I'm not exaggerating this. And yet be for her children's sake, she defended their right and rights. When it was recovered, she then gave herself and everything she had to alleviating the sufferings of the poor, starting up some hospitals.
Now did you catch that phrase or sentence from the first reading today? Well, Maccataeus this is very dramatic stuff, you know. Can you imagine this happening over there? Here's a an altar be has been erected to the emperor, and here his minions are coming in and getting trying to make the Jews sacrifice on this altar. And everybody knew it was just a form.
Nobody took it too seriously. After all, what difference did it make if you went up and put some incense or something in a pot and let some smoke go up? What difference did it make? And you see, a good, solid, practical minded men couldn't understand why some of the Jews were willing, eager even, to lay down their lives rather than to go through a simple ceremony that they said after all has much meaning anyway. So here today, we have the picture of of that kind of a situation, and here one man rises up.
First of all, he he murders the guy who's going to offer the sacrifice, then he's he's absolutely enraged, and he pulls down the altar, and then he runs through the whole little town crying out for those who wanted to keep the law and the covenant to follow him. Where? Where? What's his reward? Into a desert.
Into a desert place. That's his reward. Where did Colby go? Down into a dungeon. The lives of saints have a have a frightening aspect.
As I think it's Saint Teresa of Avila, she's she's the one that's that's often quoted as as as saying to god, if that's the way if that's the way you treat your friends, who needs enemies? And yet this seems to be, in many instances, the the the way it goes. It's a sobering thought, very sobering, but it should not come as a surprise. This is my point. We it may frighten us.
It may put the fear of the lord in us. It may we may have every bit of fear of our own strength. We say, oh god, how could I ever go through that? And I know I couldn't. And every saint knows that he or she couldn't, that if they went through it, it was because of the grace of God.
They know that. They're the first ones to say that. But, you see, why should we be startled at any of this? What did our lord promise us? The cross.
Just think of Sunday's readings, where father will betray son and mother-in-law will betray daughter-in-law and the whole, you know, the whole story. What our lord is saying that those nearest and dearest to you will be your enemies. For my name's sake, that's a very important part, for my name's sake. Because as I've said, the history of the world is filled with martyrs for all kinds of causes. You can get people to lay down their lives for almost anything.
It's a very Freud, of course, has a lot to say about this. But this is a fact, and our and it's very interesting to see in the New Testament how our blessed Lord injects those little things which are tremendously world changing. Because there's no particular merit in suffering. Why should anybody choose a cross over a comfortable way of life? Why?
We're not a bunch of sadists or masochists, I hope. The whole point is God and his son and our savior, Jesus Christ. There is the point. And there's no way you can compromise on this. This is what we have to realize today.
You cannot put anything else there, whether it be community or the poor or the rich or the downtrodden or whatever. You cannot replace god with man without being idolatrous. There's only one god, and the first commandment says, thou shalt worship him and him alone with your whole heart, with your whole soul, with your whole mind, with everything you have, you must worship god. There's no there's no negotiating that. We try, we slip, and we fail.
It's the story of the Jews crossing the Sinai Peninsula. But it's the story of the Joseph people entering the promised land. The fact that we slip doesn't mean we won't try again. And so these readings this morning, there there's a unity here, at least as I see for ourselves. We live a life that is hemmed in.
We are the city of Jerusalem. This isn't a farfetched figure at all. We are being assailed on every side. And as I've said many times, except for the grace of God, I know where I'm going to go. But with the grace of God, I know also where I shall go without fail.
And this is this is the great support. This is the joy of being a follower of Christ. He doesn't take us alone. He doesn't ask us to bear our cross alone. He doesn't ask us to go into the desert place alone.
He he says, where you go, I will be there in front. You are my disciple. You are following me. In the name of the father, the son, holy spirit. Amen.