Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
(Collect for Holy Monday – Anglican Book of Common Prayer)
Lamentations 1:1, 4 NRSV
How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal. The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter.
Luke 23:27-31 NRSV
A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
A crowd always attended executions out of curiosity or compassion. The women among them raised a death-wail for Jesus, but he raised, as it were, a death-wail in pity for Jerusalem and its people. Let them mourn rather for themselves, for a day would come when they would regret having borne children who were to endure terrible suffering, and they would long for some catastrophe in nature to put an end to their sufferings (cf. Hosea 10:8; Revelation 6:16). For if this was how the Romans treated an innocent person, Jesus, how much worse would be the fate of guilty Jerusalem.[1]
Matthew 23:37-24:2 NRSV
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. Then he asked them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
O God of unsearchable greatness,
Before Thee I am nothing but vanity, iniquity, perishing; sin has forfeited Thy favour, stripped me of Thy image, banished me from Thy presence, exposed me to the curse of Thy law. I cannot deliver myself and am in despair. Help me to repair to the Cross, be crucified to the world by it, and in it find deepest humiliation, motives to patience and self-denial, grace for active benevolence, faith to grasp eternal life, hope to lift up my head, and love to bind me forever to Him who died and rose for me.
Amen.
(The Valley of Vision, “Deliverance”)
Were You There?
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Corinthians 4.15).
[1] I. Howard Marshall, “Luke,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, ed. D. A. Carson et al., 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 1017.
