If you only knew

He came closer to the city, and when he saw it, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you only knew today what is needed for peace! But now you cannot see it! The time will come when your enemies will surround you with barricades, blockade you, and close in on you from every side. They will completely destroy you and the people within your walls; not a single stone will they leave in its place, because you did not recognise the time when God came to save you!’  (verses 41-44)

Read Luke 19: 41-48

I wonder how many times you have said, ‘If only they had known’.

Perhaps the most outstanding example of that in recent times was the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. If only people had known, thousands of lives could have been saved. On that day people went about their business with no idea of what was about to happen.

Now there is not one stone left at Ground Zero. The immediate reaction to the devastation was the so-called war on terrorism. This has not made for peace but for an escalation of hatred.

Jesus must be weeping over the world today just as he wept over Jerusalem. The world still has not learnt what is needed for peace; people still can’t see it. The world does not recognise the God of peace, who has made peace and brought reconciliation for us through the death of his Son.

Philip Yancey wrote in his book What’s So Amazing about Grace?, ‘Sacrificial love is one of the most powerful weapons in the Christian’s arsenal of grace’.

We need to know God’s love and his forgiveness of our sins, and we need to allow ourselves to be his instrument of peace by bringing his saving message of grace and forgiveness to others.

‘Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon . . . where there is doubt, faith’. Amen.  (Prayer of St Francis, 1182-1226)

by Merna Thamm, in ‘Guidance for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2002)

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