Duct Tape City

Understanding why Jesus cried over Jerusalem

11/21/2024

LK 19:41-44 As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace– but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

I was assigned as pastor of Immaculate Conception on December 1, 2013. And when I arrived I remember thinking, “Man, Fort Smith is like going back to 1985!” The buildings were older, and some were dilapidated; many people drove older cars some with duct tape in place of windows, and even some people’s clothes and hairstyles dated back to the 80’s. But over the last 11 years, I have learned that is not all bad. How so?

Well, the citizens of Fort Smith do not focus on the externals but on the internals, not on the superficial but on the supernatural, not on the material but on the immaterial or the spiritual. In a word, it is a city that has not lost its soul. That is, just like the human body is infused with a soul that we can either nourish or neglect, so too the body politic is endowed with a spiritual principle that we can either nourish or neglect.

Let me give you some examples of what I mean about this city held together with duct tape. Fort Smith had two Catholic high schools: St. Scholastica and St. Anne’s, but sadly both are closed. Still, it is shocking that such a small town could support two institutions of secondary education. We have three Catholic churches, and two Catholic elementary schools all within a one-mile radius.

We have a first-class Catholic hospital that continues to grow by leaps and bounds. And people are constantly relocating here as a peaceful place to raise their families. Why? Because 1985 was far more family-friendly than our present day and age. And here at I.C. we still have midnight Mass at midnight, and the church is packed. Those are some signs of a city with a soul.

The gospel today begins with this tragic line: “As Jesus drew near Jerusalem he saw the city and wept over it.” Why did our Lord weep? Well, in a sense, it was a city that had lost its soul. Remember how Jesus wept when Lazarus had died? His friend’s body had lost its soul at death, and so too the body politic of Jerusalem was soulless, and in that sense, lifeless.

And Jesus does not weep over trifles, but only when he see the greatest tragedies. Therefore, Jesus accuses it saying: “If this day you only knew what makes for peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.” In other words, Jerusalem, like many modern cities, was caught up in the external, the superficial, the material, and ignored the internal, the supernatural, and the spiritual.

The city no longer had spiritual eyes to see its Savior when he arrived to offer salvation. Like Dwayne Johnson, the Rock, said in the movie “Skyscraper,” “If you can’t fix it with duct tape, you’re not using enough duct tape.” A city held together by duct tape at least still has its soul.

As Christian, though, we know that no earthly city will save us, not even one still living in 1985. All cities, like the human body, have a life-span: birth, growth, decay, and death. In 1989 in his farewell address to the nation, President Ronald Reagan described America as “the shining city on a hill.” Well, even this shining city will see its last day and like the 40th president also bid farewell to the world.

There is only one shining city that endures forever, and it is not found on a hill but in heaven, the eternal City, the new Jerusalem described in Rv 21:2. In the penultimate chapter, John wrote: “I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

In other words, that new Jerusalem is the shining city in which we should be eager to claim our citizenship, and seek to build up as an outpost on earth. In the meantime we should be pleased to live in a city held together with duct tape. Why? Because hopefully Jesus is not weeping over us.

Praised be Jesus Christ!