The Gospel of Luke: Jesus' Heart for Our Peace - Video

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words. Luke 19:41-48 Notice how in this passage Jesus, the anointed king and the most perfect example there has ever been of masculinity, experiences the full range of emotions: He experiences sorrow as Jerusalem, the city of peace, was being prepared for destruction. He experienced anger as the temple, the house of peace, was being desecrated. He experiences passion as He, the Prince of Peace, is preparing for His death. This is immediately after his triumphal entry, when worshippers cried out his name. One verse later, he gets a beautiful view of the temple, and he proceeds to weep deeply over Jerusalem's coming destruction. He knows that in 40 years God will permit Rome to destroy the temple because God's people missed the peace that was among them and killed the King of Peace. He weeps over humanity's desperate search for peace in something other than himself. Jesus then enters the house of peace and displays great anger at the sight of those desecrating the temple. Historical context shows that the money-changers and those who sold pigeons (which, in other gospels, we are told were particular targets of Jesus's righteous anger) were exploiting the vulnerable: the poor and the outsider. But note that immediately after His anger drives Him to cleanse the temple, it also drives Him to commit to preach every day until he is betrayed--a betrayal he knows is coming. Anger, when leveraged correctly, drives us toward a righteous passion. What are we passionate about? While there is breath in our lungs, we should be directing our passion for God's glory and the carrying out of his mission. This is where our emotions should be driven.