Today's Devotion

Wednesday of Easter 7, May 20, 2026 - Luke 19:29-48

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Jesus finally enters Jerusalem as King. “The whole multitude of His disciples” are hailing Him as King, with the “loud voice” of praise and rejoicing. There is no ambiguity here, as their shouts include: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” But not everyone acknowledges King Jesus. His opponents and enemies, including “some of the Pharisees in the crowd” are offended and scandalized, ordering Jesus to “rebuke [His] disciples.” But Jesus refuses to comply. His reply is not only defiant, it escalates the conflict: “If these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Jesus is making the point that He is not only the King of the Jews, not only the King of the nations, but also the King of all creation. He not only commands His disciples, but also His enemies, and even all things in the world. Not even the stones beneath their feet are exempted from His rule.

But this split in opinion over King and kingdom is the source of sorrow. “Jesus wept over [Jerusalem].” For it is known as the City of Peace, and the crucifixion of Jesus will usher in peace between God and man, but the city’s history is anything but peaceful. And even now, the opponents of the Prince of Peace will use violence against Him, just as they did the prophets who came before Him. Our Lord prophesies what is to come, and indeed, what came to pass exactly forty years after the city rejected her King.

Jesus describes what happened to Jerusalem: a siege by the Romans: a “barricade,” that “surround[ed] and hem[med] in the people “on every side.” The cruel warfare waged by the Romans did not spare even the children within their mother’s wombs. And the stones that Jesus said would cry out in praising the King were to be left in disarray, with not even one on top of another, “because [they] did not know the time of [their] visitation.” For in Christ, “God has visited His people” (Luke 7:16), as our Lord’s disciples confess. This calls to mind Zechariah’s prophecy, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people.”

And as a preview of God’s final judgment against Jerusalem and the temple, our Lord cleansed it of those who turned it into “a den of robbers.” Instead of maintaining that purity, the merchants and moneychangers will simply return. God, in His mercy, gave “the chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the city” forty years to repent, but they “would not” (Matt 23:37).

May the church continue to confess and praise her King, even in the face of opposition. For the stones of the ruins of not only Jerusalem, but of all the fallen world, will indeed “cry out” in eternity!

Amen.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.