On the Love of God’s Lament
April 13, 2025
Traceymay Kalvaitis

Psalm 118:28
The Lord is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar.

Luke 19:29-42
When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

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Today’s sermon is titled On the Love of God’s Lament.
In any given year, I write 46 sermons that are based on hundreds of pieces of scriptures and yet it is this sermon for Palm Sunday that I find, year after year, the most difficult to write. It must be due, in part, to the enormity of the forces looming on the horizon as we turn, once again to the deep mystery of Easter.
Today we consider the account of Jesus’s pause before entering Jerusalem for the celebration of Passover. Passover is the time of celebrating the exodus, out of slavery in Egypt, to freedom. Today we receive palm fronds and remember the hope of the Jewish people as they joyfully made way for Jesus to enter the holy city. They were sure that he was coming to liberate them from the occupying Roman forces. After all, Jesus had been healing all manner of illnesses and had recently called forth his friend Lazarus from the tomb, four days after his burial.
This may be the point for many of you where you say to yourself, “I like what Jesus had to say but when it comes to the miracles, I just can’t go there.” Believe me, I get it. I’ve spent half my life in the same place. There’s something I want to share with you. It’s an insight I just had this past week. We can take out all the signs, all the healings, the star of Bethlehem, all the angels, the heavenly hosts, and especially Lazarus and Jesus both being called back from the dead. Jesus would still have been born and he still would have taught humankind many great lessons in his day, but without the signs and healings, Jesus would have been a rogue Pharisee that would have been easy to silence and easy to dismiss. Without the signs, healings, and especially the resurrections, there really is no story that would have persisted over the millenia. So here is my advice: take it all in as part of the story. We don’t have to know how much is fact because it is impossible to know for sure. What I ask of you is to imagine what it would have been like if all of it is true.
Let’s imagine that Jesus did call Lazarus from his tomb. Imagine how that word would have spread. Imagine how many people would be convinced that Jesus really is the long-awaited Messiah that has been sent to reclaim the throne of Zion. Jesus calls for a colt to fulfill that exact prophecy, from the First Testament book of Zechariah (9:9). It is written, “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Jesus’s followers who chose to lay down branches and palm fronds and even their cloaks were honoring him in a way that was reminiscent of something that had happened 150 years before, when the jubilant throngs had waved palm fronds in honor of Judas Maccabeus after he defeated the occupying Syrian forces. Judas Maccabeus, nicknamed “The Hammer” rode into Jerusalem on his war horse atop fronds that people had placed in his path. The fronds were memorialized on the first coinage made under the rule of Judas Maccabeus.

So we see that all the symbology was in place for Jesus to be seen as a liberator for the people, at least, and hopefully as their new king. The populace was banking on it. This was their big chance, with so many Jewish people arriving in Jerusalem from far and wide. The Roman forces were far outnumbered. It was into this hotbed of tension that Jesus began his entry into Jerusalem, but in our reading for today, he only makes it to the Mount of Olives, to his first view of the beautiful city of Jerusalem. Only in the book of Luke do we have this particular account, where Jesus pauses to reflect on what has been and what is to come.
It is the last sentence of our scripture reading that has been haunting me all week long. “As [Jesus] came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.’” In this passage, in less than 40 words, we find a lamentation that is timeless. This same lamentation runs through the 4000 years of literature collected in our Bible. This same lamentation was heard from every prophet in the Jewish tradition and, dare I say, from enlightened prophets and teachers from every religious tradition known to humankind. The same lamentation is ringing in our hearts and minds today, I am sure. The lamentation is this: When will we rise above the ways of war? When will we cease from harming one another? When will we learn to live in peace so all may prosper?
This is the lamentation that overwhelms Jesus of Nazareth as he rounds the bend in the road and sees the city of Jerusalem before him. We read that Jesus “wept over” the city of Jerusalem as he offered his lamentation. On that very spot today, there is a small stone chapel, constructed in the shape of a teardrop. A large set of clear glass windows look out onto the ancient city and the light streams in from a circular window to illuminate the high, domed ceiling. The chapel has a latin name, Dominus Flevit, translated the Lord wept. I first learned about the chapel years ago, but just this week I learned about the following words engraved on the wall of the chapel.
Here rings anew the love of God’s lament;
[So far from Him, mankind has strayed.]
God calleth, calleth, calleth:
“Repent and come back home.”

That stone chapel was constructed with one aim: to remember Jesus’s expression of sorrow and grief. And note here, Friends, that Jesus did not grieve for himself, even though he knew full well that by entering Jerusalem he was going to his death; Jesus grieved for the people and for the city of Jerusalem. Twice already, Jesus warned that the temple would be destroyed. As Jesus looked out over Jerusalem from the place where the chapel now stands, as tears fell from his eyes, he said, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, your and your children within you and they will not leave one stone upon another because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” (Luke 19: 41-44)
Forty years later, the temple was destroyed by the Roman forces. A little known fact is that what set of the rebellion was the theft of money from the temple treasury by a Roman official. That was one step too far. The Jewish people revolted and the Romans chose the Passover celebration, the Feast of Freedom, as the time to attack, killing tens of thousands, and enslaving all the survivors.
Jesus could see it coming because empire does not give up without a fight. Jesus could see it coming because the temple authorities, in a desperate effort to keep their culture and tradition intact, began to capitulate to the demands of the Empire. Jesus saw their capitulation as what it was; it was the beginning of the end. His people were no longer free and without freedom there can never, ever be peace.
Here we are in 2025, still struggling with, as Jesus said, “what makes for peace.” We are served to remember the words engraved on the side of that teardrop-shaped chapel: Here rings anew the love of God’s lament. Over a million Ukrainians and Russians are dead after three years of fighting; 51,000 Palestinians and nearly 2,000 Israelis dead over the past 555 days since Israeli hostages were taken by Hamas; 61,000 dead in Sudan’s civil war in less than a year.
Here rings anew the love of God’s lament. It rings down through the ages and it rings in our hearts and minds still as we long for peace and security, and lament the violence, targeted hate, and unjust treatment that leads us further and further from the peace and security we long for. We still echo the vision of the prophet Isaiah (2:4): “He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”
It is our Prince of Peace that sat astride that colt and paused on his way to greet his death and wept tears of lamentation for a world that was not yet ready to receive him. The question for us now is this: Are we ready to receive him now? Are we ready to push judgements and fears aside so we can see the Godspark in others? Are we ready to do the work required? Are we ready to speak up for justice, for the rule of law, for the dignity of every individual no matter the country of their birth? I pray we are, Friends. I pray we are.
In closing, I invite us to stay with Jesus for a little while at that place, suspended in the now, in this moment between the future and the past. We know how this story unfolds; our beloved will be arrested, tortured, executed and laid to rest. We also know that there is more to the story; in fact, the story is still unfolding because we are still imagining, still asking, still wondering, and still lamenting that, as the words on the teardrop chapel confirm, as the death tolls confirm, as the senseless violence confirms, So far from God, mankind has strayed. This is where we are in this moment, but where we go from here will make all the difference for the future. I will end with the last couplet that is etched on the teardrop chapel that overlooks Jerusalem; it is a message for her and it is a message for us: God calleth, calleth, calleth: “Repent and come back home.”
Pastoral Prayer

God of Grace, we pray for Your healing light to shine on us this morning. May our bodies and our minds and the depths of our souls be illuminated by Your brilliance. With You working in and through us, we are limitless; help us to love with a divine love that leaves no room for fear. Help us to access knowledge beyond our knowing, so that as we follow Christ we carry His wisdom within us. May we be the peace that overgrows violence. May we be the caring that overgrows apathy. May we be the welcome that overgrows isolation. God, we pray your healing light upon our world and upon every brother and sister in the family of humanity. In sensing our worth as recipients of Your love, may we become more able to love one another. This I ask in Christ’s name. Amen.

Benediction

I leave you now with the following words from John 3: 16 and 17:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world.”