Luke chapter 19

vs 41

Has he wept over any other city or town? I don't think we're told. But the importance of Jerusalem and Jesus' feelings towards it cannot be underestimated. This city has been the centre of God's promises since David (and more loosely to Moses).

vs 42

Jesus has reached the point of no return. Jerusalem is blind, and not even Jesus can heal her blindness now. It's a spiritual blindness, an inability to recognise who Jesus is, and what his coming to this city means.

vs 43

All too soon, too. About 40 years after Jesus dies, if my mind serves me correctly.

vs 44

Certainly they don't get the temple rebuilt in three days. They don't get it rebuilt ever, from that point on. The jewish people as a whole did not recognise God's coming to them in Jesus (lots did), and so God had to be firm with them and remove the object which they thought placed them at the centre of God's will and heart - the temple.

vs 45

And I know I was right, because now here is the focus on the temple. Jesus doesn't hate the temple. It's symbolism is still strong. But he hates what it has become - a marketplace.

vs 46

And not even a marketplace with honest scales, from the sound of it. Apparently there was some sort of heist going on where you had to buy a form of temple currency to make sacrifices in the temple or something. I'm not really that up with it. Regardless, Jesus wasn't happy about whatever they were doing.

vs 47

See, Jesus was happy to teach at the temple. This temple, which God would destroy in 40 odd years because it represented a stumbling block to his people coming to understand the new relationship he was offering, is the place where Jesus chose to stand and speak in Jerusalem. It's still the centre of the city. It's still the Mecca of the jews. Jesus uses that place as his base in Jerusalem, so that people know he is linked with God.

Again we are given the information about the priests and leaders wanting to kill Jesus. Rightly so that Luke reminds us - we are only a week or so away from Jesus' death.

vs 48

For the moment, Jesus is safe - popular opinion is with him, and people enjoy listening to him. How much of an impact did his words have? Well, I think that can be judged by how many disciples there were at the end of the story. True, there may have been a lot of people who were impacted, but when the rubber hit the road and Jesus was being charged with blasphemy, they ran and hid. Hey, even some of the apostles did that. But with the groundswell of support that the religious leaders are able to stir up later, makes you think that most of them were just using Jesus eloquent words as a substitute for television.