Haters

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Matthew 23:37–39 ESV)

In the story of Jesus’ ministry things are starting to get hairy. The ruling religious leaders are getting agitated by the message he is preaching and the plotting has begun to remove him from the scene. The haters are gonna hate, and here it is all of Jerusalem that Jesus laments. The city as the representative of the religion.

It is a status quo that will be kept at the peril of those that preach something different. And Jesus is preaching something vastly different. He has raised the bar of the law to its appropriate unobtainable place and is proving humanity’s need of a savior with every sermon and encounter. Yet they balk. The news is good but they won’t hear it because they are accustomed to the way things have been.

How easy it is for us to read this story and judge the religious elite a bit. “Don’t you know what you are missing out on?!” “How can you try to kill the Savior of the world?!” But the truth is, we too are Jerusalem. We too prefer to kill prophets over changing the status quo. We are the whitewashed tombs filthy on the inside.

You are exactly who Jesus came to save. Jerusalem is exactly who Jesus came to save. Enemies. The disobedient. The haters. While you still hated, Jesus lived in your place and died in your place, that you may know the joy of being called a child of God. As we realize this and repent of our hatred we declare with gladness “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” without murderous intentions!

Whether you feel good about your behavior or are fully aware of your brokenness, Jesus is for you. His lament is over and he lives to intercede for you. Turn to him again and again, be gathered together under his wings.