Tears over the City
“How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
This is the altar mosaic found at the Dominus Flevit Church on the Mount of Olives. According to the passage we read this week from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus wept openly as he approached the city of Jerusalem, moved at once by the beauty of the Second Temple and the knowledge of its impending destruction, and the dispersion of his people from the land. The Dominus Flevit commemorates this moment: the name of the church means, “The Lord Wept.”
This mosaic, along with the church presently on the site, dates from the late 1950s, although restored remnants of a Byzantine mosaic floor establish an existence of a church on the site from 5th/6th C. Pilgrims from the Crusader period seem to have been the first to associate this station with Jesus’s tears over Jerusalem, and the site variously served as a mosque or Islamic shrine in some of the intervening centuries.
You shall not leave my soul in the grave, neither shall you allow your Holy One to see corruption.
— Psalm 16:10
Second Sunday of Lent
Texts for this Week
Prayer
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities that may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Thy Holy Wings, Dear Savior
The Norwegian singer Sissel Kyrkjebø sings the 19th Swedish revival hymn of Carolina Sandell, “Bred dina vida vingar.” Although well-beloved among Scandinavian Lutherans, the song has come into the English hymnody only recently, in the 1983 translation of Gracia Grindal. The gentle but soaring melodic lines evoke the comforting wings spoken of in the lyrics.
The English lyrics are pasted here below: if you are interested in hearing the hymn in English, this recording from Wartburg College in Iowa is very nice.
Thy holy wings, O Savior,
spread gently over me,
and let me rest securely
through good and ill in thee.
Oh, be my strength and portion,
my rock and hiding place,
and let my ev’ry moment
be lived within thy grace.Oh, let me nestle near thee,
within thy downy breast
where I will find sweet comfort
and peace within thy nest.
Oh, close thy wings around me
and keep me safely there,
for I am but a newborn
and need thy tender care.Oh, wash me in the waters
of Noah’s cleansing flood.
Give me a willing spirit,
a heart both clean and good.
Oh, take into thy keeping
thy children great and small,
and while we sweetly slumber,
enfold us one and all.
