Second Sunday of Lent

At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.” 

He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem! 

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” 

Jesus laments over Jerusalem, the city that violently rejects those who speak God’s word.  

What is needed is repentance.  Jesus tells them: “you will not see me again until you say ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”   

Jesus is quoting Psalm 118, a song of victory, which also contains the famous line – ‘the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone’. There is a hint that Jerusalem’s rejection of the one who is sent to her will serve to reveal her salvation in a way that will be marvellous in our eyes. The Cross and Resurrection are pre-figured.  

“You will not see me until you say blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” At the triumphal entry into Jerusalem the crowds will bless him – waving their palm branches and shouting ‘Hosanna’.  Jerusalem seems to have repented. It is a tantalising moment of hope, but again Jesus weeps over the city. The events of Palm Sunday are not the repentance that will free them from their rivalries and violence. That kind of repentance will require more.  

And, indeed , the repentance of the crowds wears thin when Jesus starts to attack not the Roman occupiers, but the abuses in the Temple.  ‘Away with him’ – they cry – ‘Crucify him’. When repentance becomes difficult, the crowds turn on Jesus.  

For Christians, true repentance is only possible through Jesus Christ. Repentance is not, in the end, something we can do ourselves. Repentance is a participation in what God does, when Christ takes our rivalries and violence upon himself; when he forgives them by suffering them on the cross.  Repentance is participating in the life of the risen Christ – learning to see others through his eyes, freed from all vengeance and rivalry – able to say even to our betrayers: ‘Peace be with you.’