In the early pages of David McCullough’s biography John Adams, he describes colonial Philadelphia in great detail, calling it a “true eighteenth-century metropolis.” He writes of the busyness of the port on the Delaware River, the print shops, the book shops, the taverns, and the hectic market days when farm wagons would line the streets. John Adams, who was more familiar with the mangled design of the Boston Street map, was apparently taken with William Penn’s orderly and spacious alignment of streets, from Front Street at the river, then 2nd, 3rd, 4th, all then intersected by Market, Walnut, Chestnut and so on. With his writing, McCullough quickly gives vision to the reader’s imagination, especially for those of us who are familiar with the city of Philadelphia. The word-painted scene is now hundreds of years old, though, part of his description of city life, part of his guided tour transcends time:

“Few delegates to Congress ever became accustomed to the bustle and noise; or to the suffocating heat of a Philadelphia summer; or to the clouds of mosquitoes and horseflies that with the onset of summer rose like a biblical scourge. Prices were high. Lodgings of even a modest sort were difficult to find. Conditions of the poor appeared little better than in other American cities. Misery, too, was on display.”

At one point the author tells of John Adams and a few friends climbing the bell tower of Christ Church. They balanced themselves just below the spire, enjoyed the breeze, looked out over the city to the west, the Delaware River, and the farmland of New Jersey to the east. The writers gift, of course, is to invite the reader to see what John Adams saw there above the city.

A friend and colleague of mine is the rector of Christ Church there in Old City Philadelphia. I joined a few others in his guided tour that included hearing story after story of the names that are engraved all over the sanctuary, looking at the Book of Common Prayer in which the leaders of Christ Church had crossed out the name of the king, seeing the original hand made, silver baptismal bowl which they still use but now insure for more than a million dollars. As we stood on the front steps, the rector pointed out that in 18th century Philadelphia, the bank of the Delaware River would have been right across the street. Now it must be four or five blocks away. Someone in our group remembered the John Adams biography and that brief scene up on the bell tower above our heads. “It must have been quite a view”, someone said. “It is still quite a view”, came a response. Vision, imagination separated by centuries.

On this Palm Sunday morning, the guided tour is being offered by Luke. The nineteenth chapter of Luke is one worth noting, remembering, listing as one of your favorites there on the homepage. Yes, Luke tells of the Triumphal Entry, the Lord’s procession into Jerusalem, our text for the morning. But here in chapter 19 Luke also records that story of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector who climbed a tree for a better view and ended up making dinner for the Savior who announced, “Today salvation has come to this house!” It is in 19 that Luke includes Jesus telling the parable of the pounds. (In Matthew it is the parable of the talents, Luke has the pounds. A nobleman hands out currency in the form of pounds to his servants and then travels to a distant country. The one who received a tongue lashing was the servant who did nothing but wrap the pound in a cloth because he was afraid. And Luke 19 also includes Jesus tossing out from the temple those who were selling things. “My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.”

Luke chapter 19. Up there is Zacchaeus. Here is Jesus teaching a parable. Over there the ride on the colt and the multitude of the disciples praising God and the Pharisees demand for silence. And just here, down the hill a bit, a bit closer to Jerusalem, Jesus with tears in his eyes. And then over there, Jesus at the temple, kicking folks out and teaching there everyday. For Luke’s readers, I guess the first reaction is for all eyes to focus on Jesus, to look at what Jesus did. Jesus as the daring dinner guest. Jesus as the captivating teacher. Jesus as the servant king there on a colt. Jesus as the angry rabbi protecting the sanctity of the temple. The gospel rendering of Christ provides a guided tour, a complex character study of this one called Jesus.

For some scholars, the focus shifts away from what Jesus did, to what Jesus said. Jesus breathes salvation and gives voice to the promise with Zaccheaus. Jesus, ever the preacher, proclaims the gospel in parable form. Jesus, strangely silent during the parade, responds to the Pharisees concern, “If these were silent, the stones would shout out.” Luke’s Jesus offers the puzzling and sobering words there above the city, “If you, even you, had only recognized the things that make for peace!” It’s not about what Jesus would do. It’s about what Jesus said! Jesus the proclaimer steps to the fore in the church’s encounter with the gospel.

What Jesus did. Who Jesus was. What Jesus said. But here in Luke 19, I find myself drawn to what Jesus saw. Yes, Jesus looked up and saw Zacchaeus. He looked around and saw the crowds. He arrived at the temple couldn’t help but see all the goings on. Luke attends to what Jesus saw. And when it comes to Luke and Palm Sunday and the colt and the cloaks and the crowds and the city, it’s about what Jesus must have seen. The gospel writer’s gift, of course, is to invite the reader to see what Jesus saw there above the city, to invite the reader to ponder what caused those Palm Sunday tears. Here it is not as easy as joining John Adams atop the steeple at Christ’s Church. Here Luke leaves you and I are yearning for some details. Here the comparison with historical biography, or biographical history, here the comparison must stop. But the power of the gospel literature draws you right in. You and I are drawn into the gospel world. Luke’s narrative leaves us hanging there on the hill above Jerusalem, squinting, leaning, wanting to see what Jesus saw. We find ourselves somewhere along the way, looking out over the city and looking back at the Savior’s tears. It must have been quite a view. Vision, imagination, separated by more than centuries.

“As he came near and saw the city, Jesus wept over it.” As he sat on the hill, overlooking the city, he was staring into the face of his own suffering and death. That city where he would be betrayed and deserted by those he loved, there where he would be handed over, arrested, tried, and beaten. There on the hill overlooking the city, perhaps the view foreshadowed the week ahead. From where he stopped, maybe he could see another hill outside the city, that called the place of the Skull, Golgotha, Calvary. The place of the cross. And Jesus wept. Like he wept at the death of Lazarus and the grief of Mary and Martha. Somewhere, along the road to Jerusalem, on the front side of his own passion, Jesus wept.

Trying to figure out what Jesus saw doesn’t get any easier as you try to understand the rather cryptic comments about the days to come, and the enemies and being crushed to the ground, and not recognizing the “time of your visitation.” New Testament scholars point out that the language attributed to Jesus here is most likely a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem before the end of the first century. That historical event is sandwiched in between the events of Jesus’s own life and Luke’s construction of the gospel. And so these puzzling words portray Luke’s Jesus both looking ahead and looking back at the city’s plight. The rules of a time line are tossed out the window! There along the road above Jerusalem he panorama that spreads before the Lord is ageless. It must have been quite a view. The absence of peace, the presence of death, the reality of humanity’s destruction magnified by generation after generation after generation. And Jesus wept.

“If you, even you, if you, even you, and you and you...had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!” There is something of an ambiguity, almost a collective nature, to how Jesus calls out to the “you.” Almost an echo of the “you” given voice for to all generations. As if Jesus, there on the hill, stopping somewhere between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday, as if Jesus can see all of humanity’s unfulfilled righteousness and poor attempts at justice and inevitable resorts to violence, as if Jesus pauses to ponder in one scene the timelessness and abundance of humanity’s sin. And Jesus wept.

Allow me the disclaimer. It’s impossible to know what Jesus saw. The city spread before him, seen from the hill. What a view. But it’s not like Zacchaeus up in the tree. It’s not like those moneylenders in the temple. A glimpse of his own death? A vision of humanity’s thirst for destruction? A landscape that captures the weight of the timeless sin he was about to bear? According to Luke, all we know in trying to follow the Lord’s eyes, all we know is about those tears. And whatever it was that he saw, he still went. The Palm Sunday march went on, even with the Palm Sunday tears. The procession moved on. The Good News comes for the parade marches on.

Before he prayed and sweat drops of blood, before the betrayal at the hands of Judas, before his arrest and trial before Pilate, before his physical suffering that has drawn such new attention, before his own cry of abandonment “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, before his death there on the cross, before all of that, came those tears.

Vision, imagination, separated by more centuries. The gospel-writer’s gift, of course, is to invite the reader to see what Jesus saw there above the city. By God’s grace, the power of the gospel draws you in. As you turn to look again at those tears in the eyes of Jesus, as you come to grips with the knowledge that yet again, the procession is moving on, that he is headed to the cross, as you see Jesus there along the way, somewhere above the city, as you ponder the Palm Sunday tears, you realize deep within, that, of course, he is looking right at you.

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