Br. James Koester

Luke 19:41-44

Our course reading of Luke has been interrupted this week, first by Sunday, and then by the feasts of Hugh, Hilda, and Elizabeth on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It is no wonder then if you are scratching your heads wondering where on earth are we. We are in fact, right at the beginning of Luke’s account of Holy Week. The verses immediately before today’s gospel describe the first Palm Sunday. The verses following tell of Jesus’ daily teaching in the Temple leading up to his keeping of Passover, with the meal that became for us the Eucharist, Good Friday, the Great Sabbath and finally Easter, the day of the Resurrection. Overlaid with this is the fact that Luke is writing after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. It is through that lens which Luke hears the words of Jesus as he predicts the fate of Jerusalem: “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!” (Luke 19:42a).

That for me is an arresting phrase: “the things that make for peace.” It’s fair to ask ourselves, What are these things that make for peace? I’d hazard to say that Luke tells us repeatedly and specifically throughout his gospel what those things are.

• “[God] has scattered the proud . . . lifted up the lowly; [and] has filled the hungry with good things.” (Luke 1:46ff)
• “you will . . . give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” (Luke 1:67 ff)
• “[God] has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18ff)
• “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” (Luke 6:20ff)
• “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” (Luke 11:1ff)
• “I am among you as one who serves.” (Luke 22:24ff)

These, and many others, are the very things which Luke and Jesus tell us make for peace. The problem is we fail to listen, or if we do, we fail to take them seriously. Oh, he can’t mean that, we say. Or, oh, that’s too difficult. Or, oh, he doesn’t mean that in our case. And we dismiss the very gospel of peace which we are called to proclaim “not only with our lips, but in our lives.”[1]

Advent is approaching, and we should all be trembling as we look with expectation, and not a little dread, for the One who is to come and judge us in time, and at the end of time. As we stand before the just Judge longing to hear the words, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34), we may first be asked, had we, even we, recognized the things which make for peace.

[1] The Book of Common Prayer, 101.