Behold, your house is left unto you desolate, and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord. Luke 13:35
Carefully note who Jesus is speaking to in today’s text. This is important. He was speaking to representatives of the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Israel. These people did not want Him in Jerusalem, and eventually spearheaded the move to have Him rejected and crucified. To those people, the Lord Jesus declared that their house was about to be left desolate until they fully accepted him, until they would declare ‘Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord’. And yet, if we go to Matthew’s account of Jesus arrival and entry into Jerusalem in chapter 21, we find people actually declaring these very words! So why has Israel’s house been left desolate? Why did the Roman armies under Titus destroy Jerusalem in AD 70? And why does Israel still persist in its rejection of Jesus Christ as Lord and King? Because the leaders rejected His claim. And because the crowds accepted him on the wrong terms. Houses are left desolate today, too, for the same reasons.
We can make much of Israel’s rejection of their Messiah, and the terrible price they have paid for that rejection, a price they continue to pay today. But professing Christendom is also paying a great price for its rejection of Christ. Oh, all of the denominations pay lip service to Jesus as Christ and Lord, but their actions betray the hollow nature of their claim. All of them fail to acknowledge the Word of God in their doctrines, whether it be the blasphemous traditions of Rome or the blasphemous distortions of the cults. Mainstream religions preach a social gospel of good works and public service, ignoring the plain message of repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21). There is no room in their religion for the claims of the meek and lowly Jesus. As Christians, we need to make sure that we don’t allow other things to get in the way of the simple acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Lord of our lives and the object of our worship and service.
The people who greeted the Lord Jesus with their Hossanah choruses were excited to see Him appear. Like the disciples, they were expecting the appearance of a glorious kingdom. They were not expecting the shame and rejection associated with a cross on Golgotha. They did not understand his purpose, and so they welcomed the King without acknowledging Him as the Saviour. This is a lesson that we need to keep in mind. We also acknowledge Him as our King, recognizing Him as the One Who is coming to take His people home with Him forever. Our salvation depended on our recognizing Him as our Saviour. But we need to make that same recognition of Him each day. We cannot be recognizing His kingship while ignoring His rejection and suffering. We cannot accept His crown while denying His cross. We cannot love His appearing in glory while despising His appearing in shame.
Are we ashamed of what the Lord Jesus needed to endure to save us? Only a crucified Saviour can truly be our King. -Jim MacIntosh