And when [Jesus] drew nigh, he saw [Jerusalem] and wept over it, saying, “If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, when thine enemies shall cast up a bank about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall dash thee to the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation” (Luke 19:41-44).

This was absolutely not the expected narrative.

There had been rumblings regarding Jesus of Nazareth ever since He was born. Angels had declared that He would be the Son of David. He would redeem Israel. His life seemed to testify to this charge – He healed the sick, raised the dead, and powerfully refuted His opponents. After all of His work in Galilee, Decapolis, and the surrounding regions, He had come to Jerusalem. As He entered town on a colt, fulfilling all that had been spoken, expectations were at a fever pitch. The showdown with the authorities had to be coming. The vindication of Israel was surely around the corner. Pilate and the Romans would not know what hit them!

But while all the Jews fervently desire – and expect – the downfall of the Roman power and the exaltation of Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple of God, the Messiah Himself weeps and mourns the upcoming devastation of Israel, sack of Jerusalem, and victory of the Romans.

This was not the first time such things had taken place. And the reactions were about the same.

God raised up Jeremiah as a prophet to Judah at the end of the seventh century BCE. Everything seemed great for Judah. God had delivered Jerusalem from the hand of the Assyrians, and as Assyria was declining in power, Judah was re-establishing itself over the lost lands of Israel. Most of the Jews saw a rosy picture ahead of great prosperity and a powerful king in Jerusalem, all thanks to the One True God, the God of Israel.

Yet Jeremiah predicted destruction by the hands of Babylon because of the sin of the people unless they repented (cf. Jeremiah 7). Jeremiah prophesied the unimaginable: YHWH allowing His enemies to triumph over His people and desecrate His Temple. Jeremiah was reviled, and gained no love from his fellow Jews when his message ultimately proved true. The crisis of belief after the destruction of the first Temple was sufficient for the Jews of the day!

Six hundred years later the situation was little different. How could Jesus of Nazareth, claimed to be God’s Messiah and the Redeemer of Israel, predict that the holy city would be destroyed? How could YHWH allow these uncircumcised brutish Romans to triumph over His people and desecrate His Temple?

And yet Jesus proves to be correct. He was not the Messiah the Jews were expecting or, quite frankly, even wanted. He did not come to deliver them from the Romans – He in fact predicts that because of their rejection of Him the Romans will destroy them. He came to deliver them from their sins so that they could overcome in the spiritual battle – the one of much greater importance than the one they wanted to fight (cf. Ephesians 6:10-18).

The Jews were so fervently desiring the end of Roman oppression that they did not perceive the oppression of the Evil One. The Jews were so focused on their hope for a champion that they missed their Messiah. They paid a heavy price when God declared with power the end of the covenant between Him and Israel and the consequences of killing the Son when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and slaughtered the Jews, just as Jesus foretold (cf. Luke 20:9-18). While Jesus was more than a prophet, He still was a prophet, and the only One to speak of the destruction of Jerusalem for a second time in advance. Such is a powerful testimony to who He really was!

It is easy for us today also to focus on our own battles and the world around us and forget about the spiritual battle of great importance. We would like to imagine that God’s Messiah would be the champion of our causes. For too many, Jesus is not the Messiah that they would expect or even want. But that is not for us to decide. God set forth plainly in the Law, Psalms, and Prophets exactly who Jesus would be and what He would accomplish, and He fulfilled them all (cf. Luke 24:44-47). He came to show us how to live, manifesting the true image of God and died so that we could die to sin and live to righteousness, and was raised in power on the third day, and now reigns as Lord (cf. 1 Peter 2:20-25, 1 John 2:1-6). Let us not make the same mistake as those who have gone on before us and seek a Messiah of our own desire. Let us accept Jesus as the Messiah, and do His will, lest He weep and mourn over us also!

lesson by Ethan R. Longhenry