🦁 Epiphany 6-3
Readings: Psalm 50:1-6; 1 Kings 16:1-7; Luke 19:41-44.
Reflection
Good morning. This is Tim Tribble, broadcasting from Sacramento, California. Today's readings come to us from Psalm 50 verses 1 to 6, First Kings Chapter 16, verses 1 to 7 and the Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 19, verses 41 to 44.
And in our reading in Kings today, we have some more of the history. And the word Lord came to Jehu, son of Hanai, against Bashar, saying, Since I exalted you all the dust and made you leader over my people, Israel and you walked in the way of jeroboam and made my people Israel to sin, provoking me to anger with their sins. Whoops. So here again we have another leader of Israel and not obeying the covenants of Abraham. And so winding up again with more of the issues in dealing with Israel, winding up where they wound up and being split up and then taking over again. Of course, the one that we are most people familiar with, of course, is the Roman occupation. And then after Jesus was after the resurrection, about 70 ish years after that, they had the big war with Rome, the Jewish revolt. That was when they got scattered because they had to run from the Romans and just this big mess came out of that. And all of this is because, again, they weren't following the covenant that Abraham and God and Abraham made. And again, it's more I keep talking about this is the the human nature of the way we are as human beings and always looking for something better or something not being satisfied with with what we have, not trusting things like that that get us into even more difficult situations.
And we have a follow up on this. Mentioned the 70 year 70, 70 excuse me, the 70 C.E. issue. So in Luke, this is towards the end of Jesus's ministry. And when he was drawing towards Jerusalem. So this is a little bit before the end one when he makes a triumphant entry and when he drew near and saw the city, he wept, saying, Would you even you had known on this day the things that make for peace. But now they're hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will set a barricade around you, surround you and hem you, and on every side, tear you down to the ground and your children within you, leaving no stone unturned, you know, leaving not one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation.
This is Jesus, his horse, Son of God. He knows what's going to happen. And the foretelling of the fall of Jerusalem, the fall of the nation of Israel, as it was known, there was, as you said, in 70 C.E., those when they got the Jewish revolt in Rome and the Roman army came in, they did. They surrounded Jerusalem. That was when they tore down the temple and scattered the Jews gathered. They were out, you know, chasing them down, fighting them, killing them. That was when the scrolls and all the things were hidden up in the caves and all that stuff. It's just a very, very, very difficult period of time.
And they never recovered from that one before. If you look back at the history, they would you know, they were taken to Egypt and then they were set free and then they were they have this victory. They retain all of the Babylonians and they were set free in whatever the the occupying country was nation like, you know, that they would fight, they would fight and lose because they didn't do what God told them to do and they would be taken over. But they were always redeemed. And this time they weren't. From that time. That was last time the nation of Israel after that did not exist until after World War Two in 1946, when they carved the section out. And now, of course, we have the issues that are going on today in the Middle East because of that. And as just the it's really a difficult situation when we don't take the time to listen to what God wants us to do and, you know, I'm not good at it myself as I'm not I'm not a holy person at all. I'm another one who just a guy who is stumbling along the path, trying to do what I believe in, what I read. And with I my understanding and my studying and listening to people much more educated than myself when they talk about things, this is what I feel Christian being Christ like is I don't hit the mark all the time and none of us have to. This is where God's grace comes out and this is why we need God's grace, because we're never going to every single time a 100% hit the mark. But God forgives us, God understands, and we keep moving forward. So bear that in mind when you're doing things that you have a good day, a bad day, God's there, God forgives us all. We have to do is go to God in prayer and say, Hey, I messed up. Let me let me try again. Let me try to do a little bit better. And that's what we do, is it's constant improvement, constant studying, constant learning to better ourselves through Christ so that we can love our neighbor as ourselves. Amen.
