Luke 19:41-42, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.’
As Jesus draws near Jerusalem, He weeps because the City of Peace is blind to that which truly makes for peace. What, specifically, is it that makes for peace? The only answer we get in this text is that it has to do with recognizing the ‘time of visitation.’ What that means, however, is clarified earlier in Luke’s Gospel. In 13:35, we read that Jerusalem would not truly see Jesus—would not recognize their visitation—until they perceive Him to be the Messiah of Psalm 118:26, and say of Him: ‘Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.’ In other words, until THIS ONE who comes in meekness and humility, who stoops to serve the lowly, who ascends the Messianic throne *by being* led like the Paschal Lamb to the altar of sacrifice (Ps.118:27), until THIS ONE is recognized as the King who bears and declares the Name of YHWH, there will be—there can be—no peace.
That was true of Jerusalem, and it remains true today . . . true of the world, true of the nations, and true of individual souls. There can be no true, enduring, marrowdeep peace apart from having our eyes opened to the truth that the one who ascends the altar as the sacrifice IS the shining of the face of YHWH upon His people (again, Ps.118:27), until we perceive and receive the crucified and risen Jesus as the final, definitive, supremely authoritative declaration to us of WHO GOD IS. Why is this so?
Because apart from this recognition, we simply do not know God. Apart from recognizing the Jesus of the Gospels as the Name of YHWH, our idea of God— and therefore our perception of all reality—is distorted. We live in a house of mirrors until the hammer of the Word of the Cross shatters the illusions so that we finally see our God; and by Him, see all things.
Worse than that, apart from this perception, we remain at odds with God and so at war with Him, ourself, and each other. May the Spirit remove the veil from our—and all—eyes so that we might perceive with full conviction the Name of YHWH declared with consummate perfection in the Crucified King who is Risen.
