Matthew 23:37-39
Where do our tears come from anyway? Were Adam and Eve the first to weep? As far as I know there are no animals with the capacity to cry. From what the scriptures have to say, it appears that it is just us and God who weep. We can cry because we were created in His image. This is part of what distinguishes us from the beasts. I am curious if the advocates of evolution have discovered if before there was Cro-Magnon there was Cry-Magnon man? (I couldn’t resist)
We are all familiar with what causes our tears. Some of them come as we are surprisingly by something pure and beautiful or we are moved by an act of love or kindness. Some of our tears are joyful but I suspect that God, who collects tears, would confirm there is still a radically lopsided proportion of sorrowful tears to joyful ones. But, what brings tears to God’s eyes? This passage leads me to the idea that God’s nature and His role as creator and parent are the sources of His sorrow.
“Oh Jerusalem. Jerusalem…..”, Jesus laments over a people he created to commune with Him who have spurned every overture of love He has ever made. In God’s nature, there is the perfection of holiness and righteousness and then there is his heart that is bound up in love with a people hell-bent by their fallen nature on rejecting Him.
This passage reveals that there are ultimate consequences to rejecting the love of God. “Behold, your house is being left desolate!” This is probably in reference to the temple which will be razed in the not too distant future. (Perhaps it was the Spirit of God vacating that house that allowed the destruction of that city and the Jew’s Temple?) Jesus bid these people who were so dear to him a farewell until another time when they have returned in their hearts to Him and can say, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!”
The absence of God ultimately led to the decimation of Jerusalem. Their ruination was relatively fast. I have wondered, having invited God out of one arena of life after another, if our nation isn’t experiencing a slower more drawn out kind moth-eating judgement where we are plagued with shallow and immoral leaders whose collective judgements are resulting in what amounts to God’s judgement on us – a people He loves, like Jerusalem, yet who must experience the discipline that is demanded by His loving and just heart.
Father, may your discipline be recognized for what it is, wherever it is. May our hearts learn wisdom from it, the kind of wisdom that would recognize that Your heart is to gather and to protect those You love. May we grieve over the things You grieve over. May our tears lead us to prayers and petitions. May we be the generation who recognizes and listens to your prophets. May we be that generation that proves itself eager to see Your overtures of love (which even include Your judgements) accomplish that for which they were sent. Amen.