“…the time of your visitation…”

And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.

Luke 19:44b

Immediately upon entering Jerusalem in His triumphal entry, Jesus wept over the state of the city. He knew that in one short week the place that had just enthusiastically welcomed Him would turn against Him. The shouts of “Hosanna!” would twist to become savage calls to “Crucify Him!” The people gathered there would reject the King of Peace (Luke 19:41-42) and set themselves up for a judgment that would come within a generation. Even then His death and resurrection would bear all the wrath of God to restore peace if they would only know Him. Instead, all the Roman power that the Jews despised would eventually rip the city down to rubble.

Jesus said this would happen because they did not know the time of their “visitation”. This is a difficult phrase to understand. It helps to look at the original Greek and to know that the word translated “visitation” is the same word used elsewhere for “oversight”. This is the word used to describe one of the roles of pastor/shepherd. Jerusalem had rejected their Overseer, their Great Shepherd Leader and in that crass rejection of God Himself in Jesus they set themselves up for nothing less than a devastated future of divine judgment because of their unbelief.

We all live under the “visitation”, the oversight, of the Lordship of Jesus Christ right now. The world is answerable to Him. Christians must surrender lives to Him in gratitude for grace. To reject the Lordship of Jesus is to find nothing left but God’s judgment. Either Jesus bears it, or it falls on us. To accept the oversight, the Lordship, and the grace of Christ is to find forgiveness in Jesus Christ Who bore all God’s judgment on the cross for us. Now is the time of our visitation as well.