Mosaic Teaching 148 - Mark 11:9-10; John 12:13-19; Luke 19:39-42

Mosaic is an in-depth teaching discovering Jesus through all four of the Gospel accounts in the Bible. This teaching is led by Rev. Dr. Chad Foster, reaching into the Hebraic roots, Jewish roots, Torah references and messianic fulfillment of Jesus to find truth and life.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Going, everyone. Welcome to the Mosaic Teaching Service this morning. This is teaching number 148 as we continue our journey in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, as they have been given to us in the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And we have come to that very critical juncture in that narrative of the life of Jesus, where he has entered into or is entering into Jerusalem for that final fateful time in his earthly ministry. And that's where we have left it in teaching number 147, where we're picking it up today. And that is, we've kind of left him stranded there on the Mount of Olives on top of his donkey. But we will pick it up there this morning as he continues to make his way up and into the eastern side of the city of Jerusalem. But before we do so, let's bow our heads and begin with prayer. We pray. Blessed Lord, who has caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we would so hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, so that by patience and comfort of your holy word, we would embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given to us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. In Mosaic, we value our Bibles, love our Bibles, always encourage you to bring your Bible with you to the Mosaic Teaching service. But if you need one today, not a problem at all, just grab one in the pew, the chair that's around you, in front of you, behind you. And if you need a Bible for your very own, just accept one from us as a gift to you. But if you will, please take a Bible, hold it up, and repeat after me. This is my Bible. Jesus is who it says He is. I am what it says I am. I can do what it says I can do. Today I will be taught the Word of God. My mind is alert. By God's grace, my heart is receptive. The Bible is the incorruptible, indestructible, ever-living word of God. My encounter with the Bible today will transform and grow my faith. We say together, in Jesus' name, Amen. And much like last week, this week we're gonna be kind of flowing all over the Gospels. Uh, we're gonna start in Mark, but we will be hearing from Luke and John and probably a little bit of Matthew as well. But let's start with Mark chapter 11, uh, beginning in the ninth verse. Uh and so uh where we are picking it up is Jesus, you know, he has arrived at Bethany, which is on the opposite side of the Mount of Olives that's facing Jerusalem. There in Bethany is the uh the house of his good friends Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. About six months earlier, Jesus has been in Bethany. He has uh called Lazarus out of the tomb, uh, and because of that uh caused quite uh hubbub and so forth. And so Jesus is obviously well known in Bethany. Uh he makes his way back to Bethany because it's Passover. He's making his way there for the pilgrimage, and all of those times we've heard in the Gospels, Jesus says, It's not yet my time, the time has not yet arrived, and those similar phrases. The word for time is Mo'ed in Hebrew, meaning festival, holy day, the appointed time. Uh, Passover is that time in that appointed time. And so he's arrived, he's told them to go ahead, some of his disciples to go ahead of him in a little village not far from Bethany in Bethphage. He they've secured for him this donkey that he's going to enter into Jerusalem. Uh he mounts it, and there's this uh fanfare around him. We know where this crowd is originating from, right? Not only those that are his disciples and followers from the Galilee, but also those clearly from uh Bethany who had become followers and believers because of the resurrection of Lazarus. They are accompanying and following Jesus. There's this great fanfare. They would be singing as they are now kind of meshing in with other pilgrims from literally all over the world, from northern Africa, like Cyrene, where there will be a guy named Simon from and other places around the world making pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They would be kind of um zippering into traffic with uh coming into the Mount of Olives at the top. They would have been singing the Psalms of Ascent, right? Psalms around 120 and following. Uh, but also part of what they would have been singing would have been um what is known as the halel. Uh halel is where we get the word hallelujah. Uh hallelujah is just the word halel with the name Yah, and one of the names for God. So halel means to praise. So hallelujah means to praise the Lord. Uh and so Psalm 118 is a psalm of praise. Uh not only is it part of the Passover liturgy and ritual, especially as pilgrims make their way into Jerusalem, but it's part of uh the other festivals as well, the Suchot and the other pilgrimage festivals like Shavuot and any time a pilgrim would make their way towards uh Jerusalem for some festival. Uh, so that would have been um uh on their lips as well. And Psalm 118 becomes very important why we want to spend some time on it and why you want to kind of put it in your memory bank is it kind of is the soundtrack for um this event. So if you were making a movie, you would want some kind of soundtrack with Psalm 118, and we we kind of had it at the opening song that we sing here this morning. We'll have it uh in our closing song this morning in some ways as well. Um and the apostles pick up that this is kind of a soundtrack as well, because they quote from it and they allude to it and they make reference to it and they interact with it uh multiple times in the writings of the New Testament. And so it is kind of the soundtrack of Passion Week. And so for that reason, Psalm 118 is important for us to take note. Uh so kind of setting that scene now, uh we're kind of at the top of the Mount of Olives, ready to come down. As it comes down, you would go through like the Garden of Gethsemane and Gethsemane area, it'd flatten out into a valley that would be known as the Kidron Valley, and then it would go back up to the Temple Mount. Okay, so let's read Mark 11, uh beginning in verse 9. Let's read these verses together. Those walking in front of him and behind him cried out, saying, Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of David our Father, Hosanna in the heights. So the acclamations fall into two categories, and they are variations on Psalm 118, verse 25, which says, O Lord, do save, which is Hosanna, Hoshiana in Hebrew, as well as variations on Psalm 118, verse 26. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. The adjacent verses feature prominently, as I just mentioned, in the festival liturgies of Passover. They form what are called the Halel. And Psalm 118 is part of that. It really forms from Psalm 113 through 118, a series of psalms that the Levitical choir would have been singing at the pilgrimage festival. So not only would have been on the mouths and the lips of the people and the pilgrims entering into Jerusalem, but as they entered into Jerusalem, you imagine like the Temple Mount, these massive priestly choirs, Levitical choirs, this is what they would have been singing. Kind of like when you came into the worship center this morning, you know, you heard some um, you know, music in the room, some room music, right? Psalm 113 to 118 was the room music going around on the week of Passover. The Levites sang the Psalms of the Halel during the sacrifice of the Passover lambs, uh, which would have meant we know when our Messiah uh breathed his last, that was at the time of the sacrifice of the lambs. And so Psalm 118 or the Hallel would have been being sung uh at that time. So, like the next time you're reading Psalm 118 or Psalm 113 through 8, 118, uh keep that in mind that that was actually being sung during the death of Messiah. And the men of Israel would have sang the halel at the conclusion of the Passover satyrs. And so when you uh read in the account of the Last Supper, when it says, you know, when they head for the Mount of Olives and go to the Garden of Gethsemane after the meal, that they sang songs and hymns and spiritual songs, that would have included them singing Psalm 113 to 118. Psalm 118 being the last of the Hill plays an important part in the Passover liturgy, and it plays an important part in the Gospels. The Gospel writers read Psalm 118 as prophetic. The apostles quoted it often, especially in the narratives of the final week leading up to the crucifixion. The solemn and joyous tones of Psalm 118 again form the background music for the dramatic events leading up to Jesus' passion. In its original first temple usage, the psalm celebrated a Judean's king, his triumphant return from battle. So if you if you look at what's the original context of Psalm 118 or the Hillel, Psalm 113 through 118, its original context from the first temple period would have been when one of the Judean kings returned from battle victorious and triumphant. This is how they were welcomed back home. This was kind of their music. But the rabbis considered it to be foreshadowing a messianic triumphant song of acclamation. Jewish tradition presumes that Psalm 118 will herald messianic redemption. And so obviously, remember, many that were accompanying Jesus from the Galilee along the way to Jerusalem and through Jericho. Remember, they had this sense, this hankering, something big was going to be happening in Jerusalem at Passover. They were anticipating some kind of messianic event. And so they very much were in tune with the idea that Psalm 118 not only was something from the past of heralding victorious kings, but it was prophetic and that it would herald the messianic king. And so that would have been in their mind as well when they heard it being sung. The Radak claimed that the Psalm speaks simultaneously of the rise of David to the throne, as well as the future advent of David's greater son, the Messiah. A mid-rash on the Psalm teaches that after the final redemption, people in Jerusalem will chant the conclusion of Psalm 118 antiphonally back and forth to one another. The word Hosanna again comes from the Hebrew words Hoshia, save us, which is where also Jesus' name, Yeshua, comes from, and the word na, which means please or now. It's a word uh kind of lacks a direct translation. It's a word of urgency. So you can say please, but it kind of means like please and thank you, that kind of please, uh, an urgency about it. So Hosanna means save us now, please, thank you. Uh it was a petition asking God to send the Messiah immediately. And that meaning may stand behind the acclamation Hosanna in the highest, a petition that God would hear the Hosanna prayer in the highest heaven of the divine counsel and act upon it. Now, uh, true to our promise to cover every verse of the four gospels, uh, the passion is a great way to knock out a lot of that. Uh, let's flip over and see some parallels here going on in John. John chapter 12. John chapter 12, verse 13. Let's uh read this together. They shouted, saying, Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel. So Hosanna to the king of Israel, Hosanna to the son of David. The term may have taken on the sense of actually like a greeting, like a seasonal greeting, as did the words, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. The people of Jerusalem welcome the festival pilgrims arriving at their gates with these words, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And Judaism still uses the phrase as a formal welcome. And in fact, modern Hebrew still uses the words. And if you ever uh go to Israel, uh and if you uh even if you buy yourself one of those, you know, $10 phrase books, or you download an app that's gonna teach you Hebrew in five words a day and you keep up with it for three days or something like that, right? Or it's gonna teach you the phrases, it'll teach you a phrase you'll see as soon as you land and get off the plane, you'll see it right there in the airport. It will say Baruch Haba, which technically in modern Hebrew simply means welcome, right? But it's actually coming from Psalm 118, Maruch Kaba Bashem, blessed is he who comes in the name, right? So Psalm 118 was such a greeting, not only in biblical times and New Testament times, it's still part of modern Hebrew today, that when you uh come to Israel, uh a local Israelite will welcome you in the name of the Lord with this phrase, Baruchaba Bashemadonai. Uh the theologian Nolan suggests that the term Hosanna functioned very much in a similar way, a holiday greeting. Again, the Aramaic meaning save, save indeed, save us now, save us please. Um, but the text has Hosanna to the son of David or Hosanna to the king of Israel. Uh Hosanna again being this greeting, a process that's an easily understood one. In many cultures and languages, greetings are frequently derived from prayers and blessings and invocations. You can think of other things that have survived this way into English. For instance, um you know why you say goodbye? Goodbye is actually still a remnant of old English of God be with you. Uh so uh when someone was leaving and you said God be with you, in old English, that sounded like the way we say goodbye. Or the religious background that lies behind shalom, right? Shalom is kind of like aloha in Hawaii. It can mean hello, it can mean goodbye, it can mean what's up, it can mean peace, it can just kind of, it's just the all-around universal, I don't really know what to say, I don't want to have a conversation with you, but I'm gonna be polite, so I'm just gonna say shalom. Um, but it has deeper religious background meanings from the religious shalom alechem, right? Peace be with you, and so forth. Uh and often something of the original sense still hangs around the use as it's been reappropriated. And so the greeting to the son of David, the king of Israel, carries the wish and the prayer that his purpose is would prosper. This suggestion envisions the Second Temple era greeting Hosanna as one in which the people of Israel might have greeted one another at the pilgrimage festival, similar to the way you might hear Kaksamiach in Israel today or Gud Yontif uh, you know, good day. Uh, but it makes good sense, both acclamations uh weren't just inventions for Jesus that day, they were popular greetings with religious backgrounds that then took on prophetic significance at the arrival of Jesus into Jerusalem. And just as the people of Jerusalem used the words, Blessed is the one who comes to welcome the visiting pilgrims, they may have also used the words Hosanna as their greeting, much like we do today when we say Merry Christmas, as short for may you have a Merry Christmas and so forth. The crowds offering Jesus those welcoming holiday salutations heightened them though with their messianic language. Most of the crowd, as the text tells us in Matthew 21, spread their coats on the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees, spreading them in the road. The crowds going ahead of him, and those who followed were shouting, again, this is Matthew 21, verses 8 and 9. Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. Or back in Mark chapter 11, they cried out, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father David. Or Luke 19, verse 39, the whole crowd of disciples began to chant, Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. The Hebrew of Psalm 118, verse 26, it says, Blessed is the one who comes, not blessed is the king who comes. And so we have here Jesus throw in a little bit of caution to the wind, adding their own interpretation, Blessed is the King who comes. So they're taking that greeting, reappropriating it, and adding their prophetic significance to it. Let's flip over to the Gospel of Luke. Luke chapter 19, verse 39. Let's read this verse together. It says, Men from the Pharisees who were in the midst of the people said to him, Rabbi, reprimand your disciples. So in the midst of all of this welcoming acclamations, again, Jesus and his his procession and his entourage and his crowd and all of that fanfare, you know, it's you know, I-75, it's 696 at rush hour, merging onto, you know, another highway. It's zippering into other processions and other entourages. And some of them aren't always the biggest fans of Jesus. And some of them, as the text has already told us, have been looking for Jesus. Some have been looking for Jesus. Because they want them and they're they believe in him and they want to follow him. Some are on the fence and they want to know more, and some oppose him and want to silence him and shut him down before the festival of Passover actually begins because they don't want any trouble from Rome and they don't want any more people going after uh and following Jesus. And so all of this, as it's now they've reached the top of the Mount of Olives and are coming down the Mount of Olives, all of this is now merging. And so you have this massive group of people. And so in the midst of all of this, Jesus descending the Mount of Olives, not everyone is hailing him with these messianic titles. Disciples of some of the other sages and rabbis in the midst of the multitude were hearing what was going on, and they scolded Jesus and they said, Teacher, you know, rebuke your disciples. Tell them to be quiet, because they feared that by failing to silence his disciples, Jesus would be accepting of these messianic accolades. Now remember, in last teaching, I told you, forever and a day in Mosaic, we have seen Jesus time and time again exercise what, for lack of a better term, many scholars have called the messianic secret, right? Whenever Jesus would heal, shh, don't tell anybody. Whenever somebody would say, You are the Messiah, shh, don't tell anybody. Whenever an evil spirit would identify him and say, truly you are the blessed one, you know, the son of the Most High, shh, be quiet, don't tell anyone, right? He kept everything on a down low, and he was skirting Herod and Antipas and Philip and kind of moving around. But when he mounted that donkey, that was a change in policy. That was an absolute change in policy. And so they were right now to be fearful that he would be accepting of those accolades, because now he will be accepting of those accolades, and he will be declaring fully he is the Messiah, and he will be going full throttle. Even those Pharisees who may have hoped in Jesus and that everything about him being the Messiah were true, they still may have wanted him to be a little more hush-hush because of the grave political danger and what such an open display of messianic fervor might cost him. In other words, they were fearful for his life. And yet, when Jesus mounted that donkey, not only is there a change in public policy, but Jesus clearly knows he is the one who takes up his life, he is the one who gives over his life, and he is the one who takes it back again. He knows full well what he is doing, and he knows full well what it is going to cost him. And so Jesus was not concerned, and so Jesus replies to them, I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out. In other words, if those who were crying out in acclamation of me and celebration of me as Messiah, even if they become silent, the stones will cry out. And that's Luke 19, verse 40. Now here Jesus is actually alluding or quoting the Old Testament. He is alluding back to a prophecy in Habakkuk, Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 11. And the Talmud itself uses a similar turn of phrase when it says, If a man thinks that the secret sins committed in his home will remain concealed, surely the stones will cry out from the wall, and the rafter will answer it from the framework and testify against him. In other words, Jesus is saying, At this point, there is nothing anyone can do to stop what is in motion. Period. Nothing. Nothing is going to stop what is now set in motion. And then keeping in Luke 19, a dramatic moment here, let's uh read Luke 19, verse 41 together. When he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it. So he is getting close toward the bottom of the Mount of Olives on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, getting, you know, close to the Kidron Valley. He's drawing near to the city of Jerusalem, specifically what would be known as the Eastern Gate. And so he would at this joint juncture be able to see the temple. He would be able to see the smoke from the sacrifices. He would be able to hear the Levitical choir singing. He would be able to see people entering into the mikvoyot, to the ceremonial pools, and immersing themselves and getting themselves ready to go and ascend onto the holy ground of the Temple Mount. All of this would be coming into view. So he's going to have this very dramatic view from the Mount of Olives. And I'm going to share with you a little bit of that view of what it would look, well, what it is now in modern times, but still going to give us a way, a good, good, good way to visualize it, even still in a minute. A good view of the holy city of Jerusalem. And when he sees it, you know, even though he's had this great fanfare, this great welcoming into Bethany, all of this acclamation, this procession, you know, again, what we call the triumphal entry, he weeps. He weeps over it. So somewhere midway down closer to the Kidron Valley, close to what we would also know as Gethsemane, the whole city of Jerusalem comes into plain view. He's just opposite the Temple Mount. He's literally, he's actually where tradition's going to place this. He is literally going to be at eyesight level with the temple, because the location is going to be where the red heifer sacrifice would have been done. And that was chosen on the Mount of Olives because it had the mathematical formulation of being perfectly eyesight level with the high priest so that when he was doing that ritual, he could see straight into the Holy of Holies. So he's going to be perfectly eye-level with the Holy of Holies when he is kind of seeing all of this. In many ways, the breathtaking perfection of beauty, the joy to all the earth, the city of destiny immediately below him, the walls of the Temple Mount rising triumphantly out of the depths of the Kidron Valley, the beautiful temple renovations nearly complete, becoming one of the wonders of the ancient world, the temple rivaling even the great temples of Rome. White limestone, polished marble, glittering blonde, silver, and gold, all flashing and gleaming in the afternoon sun. Column of smoke from the monumental-sized altar of God rising proudly into the sky. The joy, the anticipation of a festival filling the temple courts, spilling out into the crowded streets. All around the man mounted on the donkey. Glad acclamations continue to hail the entrance of Jerusalem's king. And in the midst of all of this revelry, Jesus weeps over a city with a loud and terrible lamentation. He weeps over the holy city. He says in Luke 19, verse 42 If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace, but now they have been hidden from your eyes. The things which make for peace refer to his own gospel message of repentance, that now the kingdom was at hand, right? It was in their midst, it was within their grasp. That's what the kingdom is at hand means. It's at hand's length. And had the nation heeded his word, had they repented, had they received the kingdom, the Messiah could have ushered in his era of peace. But the opportunity now Jesus was announcing at that moment, policy change, that moment now had passed. And now was no more the moment of potential peace, but now a moment of judgment was set in motion. Before his eyes, the prophet from Nazareth saw a terrible vision of the future. Jesus foresaw the coming of the Roman legions, and the contrast was indeed terrible. The contrast between the Jerusalem that was right before him, that was in front of everybody's eyes, that was a big party, a great celebration because Passover was at hand, families were reuniting, it was what they had looked forward to all year. It was the time of redemption. The contrast of that with his prophetic vision of the enemy camped all around it, hugging it closer and closer with its deadly embrace until it sacks it and burns it to the ground where not one stone remains on top of another. For forty years after this vision on the Mount of Olives, the Roman army surrounds Jerusalem at Passover time and utterly destroys it. And so Jesus says in Luke 19, verse 43 for the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you and surround you and hem you in on every side. The prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem. The prediction of the destruction of the temple. And then the people lost all hope of escaping. They were, Rome kind of did siege warfare. They were all trapped inside, and they knew they could not escape. And so things like famine soon intensified, and households and families panicked. Upper rooms were filled with women and children who were beginning to die from starvation, and the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies and the aged. Children and young men wandered the marketplace like shadows, swollen from famine, and then they fell dead wherever misery overtook them. This is what Jesus sees, while everyone else is seeing the pomp and revelry of joy. And so Jesus wept openly over the city. Today there is a little chapel known as Dominus Flavit, which translates in Latin as the Lord wept, that commemorates the spot where Jesus wept over the city. It's one of my favorite sites in all of Israel, and it is definitely one of my favorite sites in Jerusalem. Coming down the Mount of Olives. And if you go into this little chapel, and if you notice the chapel, it's shaped like a teardrop. That's its intentional design. That's why it's called Dominus Flavid. The Lord wept, is what it means. And it's shaped like a teardrop. It's a real small chapel. I may not be able to pick up the size ratio there, but it's very small. It could fit right in the center, right here. It's just to kind of commemorate that. But you can kind of see in the center bottom of that this round stained glass. And if you go into that chapel, you will get a view that modern day, but you'll be able to see the view that Jesus had. That's the altar viewing. And so where you see the dome of the rock, that would have been where the temple was. And so that would have been like where Jesus would have been. That would have been the view Jesus would have been able to kind of see the temple, the temple mount, everything kind of surrounding that. And that is where tradition says he pauses, he weeps before he descends further. Archaeology was conducted there in the mid-20th century. Some very important ossuaries discovered there. I also believe a very significant event occurred there. In addition to Jesus weeping, that is where I believe the crucifixion occurred. Right there. I believe that is the view Jesus had from the cross. And he would have been eye-level with the Holy of Holies. And that is why when the eyewitnesses with Jesus in the Gospels, they are able to say, when they saw the temple torn, there's no other place. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is on the west. They couldn't would not have been able to see the temple torn or the curtain torn because they couldn't have seen in the Holy of Holies. This is the only place where you could have seen that multi-storied, tall curtain torn from. And he would have been staring directly into the Holy of Holies, uh, as the greater priest of Melchizedek, standing where the other priests offered the ashes of the Red Haifer, right? And here he is as the greater Red Haifer, uh the clean becoming unclean, so that the unclean can become clean. Um all of this, by the way, is in a nice little booklet for you that you can acquire from me if you were interested. But this is Dominus Flavid. That's kind of the image that's being depicted when Luke 19, Jesus coming down in his triumphal entry, right before he gets to Gethsemane, right before he hits the flatness of the Kidron Valley, and right before he'd go right back on up into the Temple Mount area. Let's keep reading in the Gospel of Luke. Luke chapter 19, verse 44. Let's read this together. They will tear down you and your children within you to the ground. Not one stone will remain on another stone, because you did not know the time of your visitation. And so Jesus lamented that they will level you to the ground and your children within you. There's a great uh archaeological site in Jerusalem. Uh, it's called the the burnt house, and it's uh the remnants of uh a priestly house that from when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burnt it. It's uh a priest home right by the Temple Mount. Uh and you can still see the charred stones and how the stones fell on top of one another. It's very vividly portraying exactly what's described here, as well as what Josephus describes in his uh recounting of the Roman siege. But the Roman siege of Jerusalem ends with terrible and ruthless slaughter. The few that survived go into slavery, and after the siege, the Romans deliberately dismantled and toppled the city. On the Temple Mount they left not a single structure standing, therefore fulfilling Jesus' words here, that they would not leave one stone upon another. In the upper city they left only the mighty tower of King Herod's palace as a monument to their conquest. The prophet from Nazareth declared that all of this would fall upon Jerusalem because you did not know the time of your visitation. You did not recognize the time of your visitation. The English word visitation can be misleading because it sounds as if Jesus declared that the city was doomed because the people did not recognize their auspicious visitor that day, the Messiah. And there's some truth to that, but it's a little bit bigger than that. It's that, but more. Jesus is actually through verbal tally, through Gezereshava, as we've mentioned many times in Mosaic, referring back to Jeremiah the prophet. And so what you will see in Jesus in his judgment passages, not only here, but like at the end of the Gospel of Matthew. So at the beginning of Matthew, you have the Sermon on the Mount, which have the beatitudes, you know, blessed are, and blessed are, and blessed are, and blessed are. And then at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, in parallel fashion and in bookend fashion, you have the same number of woes, woe to, woe to, woe to, right? Um, when Jesus is speaking in that tone, he is very much entering into his Jeremiah mode, and and he is reminding the people that what they were before the first temple was destroyed, with um the second temple was destroyed, sorry, with Jeremiah, where Jeremiah came and tried to bring them to repentance and tried to awaken them and so forth, lest the temple be destroyed, and lest God's presence depart from them. Jesus is trying to make them aware that they're re-entering into that cycle again. And so Jesus uses a lot of the same imagery and a lot of the same words that Jeremiah uses. Uh and so this is the case here as well. And so it's not just that the people failed to realize that he was the Messiah. It's not not that it's that, but it's more than that. Uh, because remember, he had kept much of his identity concealed for most of his life. Uh and so, how could Jerusalem be punished for failing to recognize the Messiah when for most of his life he failed to reveal it openly? Uh instead, he's alluding to the dire prophecies of the prophet Jeremiah, who predicted the fall of Jerusalem in the previous temple era. Uh, and that is what caused the destruction of the temple and the leaving of God's presence then was spiritual pride, spiritual arrogance, the refusal to repent, the refusal to engage and listen to God's word and to study God's word, to obey God's word, to do God's will. It was a much more comprehensive plan to which fits into if they would have been doing all of those things, they would have recognized Jesus as Messiah. That's what Jesus says time and time again. If you know my father, you would know me. If you don't want to believe in me or trust in me, trust in my works, trust in my father, trust in the Torah, trust in the word of God. Like you don't have to just take my word for it, trust the word of God. And so it's a it's a bigger programmatic issue that Jesus is bringing up that goes back to the Jeremiah program. In fact, the term time of your visitation occurs very frequently in the prophecies of Jeremiah to indicate the time when God will reckon with Jerusalem and deliver punishment again for their arrogance, for their spiritual pride, for their stubbornness, for their uh putting aside the things of God for the things of men, for their corruption of the priesthood, for their corruption of the temple, for their corruption of the sacrifices and the worship system and all of that. It's a much bigger picture than just they didn't believe in Jesus, right? They didn't believe in Jesus because of all these other things. Um, and so Jeremiah often uses this word visitation, episcope, in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew pekuda, meaning reckoning or accounting. And I'm just gonna give you a sampling of them. A sampling, not the exhaustive list. Uh Jeremiah 8 12, they did not know how to blush, therefore they shall fall among those who fall at the time of their punishment, they shall be brought down. Their punishment, their reckoning, their visitation. Uh Jeremiah 10 15 in the time of their reckoning, their visitation, their punishment, they will perish. Jeremiah 11, 23, a remnant will not be left to them, for I will bring disaster on the men of Ananoth, the year of their visitation, their reckoning, their punishment. Different translations handle it differently. Jeremiah 23, verse 12, therefore their way will be like slippery paths to them. They will be driven away in the gloom and fall down upon it, and I will bring calamity upon them in the year of the visitation. Jeremiah forty six, verse twenty-one. For the day of their calamity has come upon them, the day of their visitation. Jeremiah forty eight, forty-four, I shall bring upon her, and even upon Moab the year of their visitation. Jeremiah 50, verse 27, let them go down to the slaughter. Woe be upon them, for their day has come, the time of their visitation. Jeremiah 51, verse 18, in the time of their visitation they will perish. Again, in each of those prophecies, the King James and others have time of visitation. Other English translations have in the time of their punishment. It's a time when God will visit Jerusalem not to bring mercy and grace, but to bring judgment because of the refusal to repent. So Jeremiah had this ministry of repentance. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That was Jeremiah's message. And he was coming, bringing this gospel. Repent. God's ready to forgive. God's here. God's ready with open arms. God wants you. God wants you to come to him. God wants you to return to him. He's here. He's here to save. Opportunity, opportunity, opportunity, opportunity. And then there's going to be a time, a day of visitation, where there's a policy change. And then that day of visitation, the failure to repent, now what was once an opportunity for mercy becomes the occasion of judgment. So when Jesus bemoaned Jerusalem's failure to recognize the time of her visitation, he meant that the people of Judea did not realize that the hour of judgment was now upon them. Not just that they didn't recognize him as Messiah, but he was sad because they did not realize they had entered into this time. It's kind of like if you know someone who's ran their mouth and got themselves into trouble, and you know, you already know like the pink slip's been written and they're gonna be fired and all that. You already know all that, but they don't yet know that, and they're continuing to go about whatever they're going about, and you're kind of sad because you're kind of like, man, you know, we gave we tried to tell you to cool it, we tried to tell you to apologize, you know. HR kind of gave you three warnings, you know, we tried to intervene, and now we're just, you know, dotting the I's and crossing the T's and getting the sheriff here to get the box ready for you to get to the car, right? While you are going about thinking everything's just hunky-dory and fine. And it's sad, it's sad to see. That's Jesus' position. That's what he's sad about. That the people don't even realize where they're at. That had they repented, they could have adverted the looming disaster. And Jesus would have revealed himself as the Messiah, and he would have ushered in the time of peace. And then they would have known the things that make for peace. They would have entered the peace of the time of Messiah. But instead, they've entered into the time of judgment, which within a generation would culminate with the Romans sacking Jerusalem. And that is where we will close today. We will pick it up next week with teaching number 149 in Mosaic.