1 Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.

2 Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;

3 For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.

4 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.

5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.

6 For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.

7 For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.

8 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.

9 For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.

10 For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.

11 O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.

12 And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.

13 And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children.

14 In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee.

31 The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him, Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee.

32 And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.

33 Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.

34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!

35 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Tomorrow, 18th, is St Luke’s day. Advent Sunday in six weeks’ time will begin the year for our Communion gospel readings to major on Luke’s Gospel. For rather abstruse reasons, we also have St Luke as our second reading this morning and can pay attention to it.

In it, Jesus’ ministry is getting him into trouble. One of the favourite themes in the Old Testament was that, when the great day came, the Day of the Lord, perhaps the Messiah arriving, all sorts of people from everywhere will come to feast and to worship in Jerusalem. But by Jesus’ time, many of the Jews had rather forgotten about all sorts of people, and were focussing on themselves, their God, their nation, their land. But Luke, himself a gentile, has said early on in his Gospel that Jesus is ‘a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Israel’ – all people. The Jews needed to remember that when the Jewish faith began, with Abraham, Abraham’s family were to be a blessing to all nations.

When the Jews were fed up about the Romans controlling their Holy Land, they comforted themselves by thinking, ‘when the big banquet comes, we’ll be in, the rotten Romans and the other foreigners will be out. They will be looking in through the windows with envy.’

And then comes Jesus, saying, ‘The Kingdom is here, join up with me. You must make a decision about that, you can’t drift in any time, it’s a narrow gateway – you have to make a decision and an effort, to be with me. Or….. you Jews who think you’re safe, will miss the boat, you’ll be the envious ones looking in!’  Needless to say, Jesus’ message didn’t go down well with the Jewish establishment, but better with the common folk.

Jesus was, at the time, in the territory controlled by Herod. This is not Herod the Great who was around when Jesus was born, but Herod Antipas, one of his sons who had only a smaller territory. This Herod rather wants Jesus off his patch, he’s getting too popular, but Herod doesn’t want to be seen to be attacking Jesus. So, in our reading, some Pharisees approach Jesus in an apparently friendly way, ‘we’ve come to warn you that Herod wants to kill you, you’d better leave’. But Jesus realises that crafty Herod, ‘that fox’, as Jesus calls him, has put these Pharisees up to it, to trying to warn him off.

‘Tell Herod I’m carrying on with what I have to do,’ says Jesus. ‘Prophets get killed in Jerusalem, I’m off there soon, out of your territory, Herod. God has bigger things are afoot.’

And then comes the lament, 

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!

Is it God pictured as speaking here, or does Jesus say these words? In any case, it is a very feminine, motherly sort of image, about a mother hen caring for chicks. There is another rather similar passage in the prophet Hosea. 

When some of us were young, we learnt to walk using reins, which helped you to avoid falling. I think they have been in and out of fashion with mothers over the years, but I did see some only this week. We have this very feminine, motherly, image in Hosea, where God says: 

It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realise it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them. Hosea 11:3-4

A reminder, perhaps, not to make our image of God narrowly masculine.

And then Jesus, - or more likely,-  the Almighty, says in our reading:

Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

That is: those who reject Jesus cannot expect God to protect their city and their Temple, which might become desolate. They will, perhaps, only see God again when they are ready to welcome their Messiah, with the psalm used at festivals,  “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”

This psalm was, in fact used at Palm Sunday, at Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem – but only by the limited number who had eyes to see, - not the whole nation. 

In six weeks’, then, it is Advent Sunday, the new Church Year. In the old days we didn’t make use of a lot of scripture with our big three-year cycle of Communion readings, but had the same readings every year. But one thing we did do, was to start each new Church year at Advent, with that Palm Sunday story, as we looked hopefully towards another Christmas, Passiontide and Easter. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

And at just about every eucharist these days, just as the bread and wine are being blessed, we use the words to welcome Christ, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.”