Bless those who weep

 

As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it. (Luke 19:41)

Jesus wept. (John 11:35)

Tears, like smiles, are truly a window into our inner self, brought about the high and low points of life, by those looks of love or those stares of hate.

In the Gospel (Luke 19:41-44), Jesus wept bitter tears over a city that He dearly loved.  Jesus wasn’t unaccustomed to weeping, weeping as an individual or weeping with people He loved and who seemed inconsolable.  In the four Gospels, there are 26 references to weeping: fathers weeping for ailing daughters, widow mothers burying their only sons, a sinful woman weeping at the foot of Jesus and a contrite Peter weeping bitterly for denying Jesus with curses.  Jesus blesses those who weep, for they will be consoled (Luke 6:21).  Jesus comforts the weeping Martha and Mary by raising their brother Lazarus to life (John 11:1–44).  And Jesus turns Mary Magdalene’s tears into joy as He meets her at the empty tomb, as the Risen Jesus (John 20:11-18).  Tears are part of the Gospel accounts and tears are also part of our own lives and our human condition. If we haven’t wept, it may be because we’ve deliberately denied our human reality and our human condition.

I used to cry every week while watching “Extreme Makeover—Home Edition” on TV.  I cried at the tragic events that befell the families.  It was a deep, profound sorrow that reached down to the depths of my heart.  I felt as though their troubles were my own.  I don’t know these people personally, but my grief for them was as sincere as if they were my own family.  And at the end of each show, I cried with tears of real joy as they (often) praised God for the intervention of the designers and builders as they were put back on a path of fruitful existence.

For me, this Gospel invites me to think about the reasons we weep.  Do we cry for ourselves, the wrongs that we’ve suffered and the failures we’ve endured?  Or do we cry for those who have been crushed by life and injustice, by unavoidable tragedies by being in the wrong place at the wrong time?  Do other people’s tears lead us to compassion?  Do they move us to cry with them, to identify with their pain and their suffering, and do we take the time to console them as Jesus did to those women who were weeping for Him as He made his way to Calvary and His death on the Cross?

When Jesus came upon the city of Jerusalem, He wept.  He wept because He’d done all He could to bring them to His loving Father, with the Spirit of Love everlasting, and felt completely rejected, willfully rebuffed by the religious leaders, the elders of the people, the learned and the wise.  Oh, how He wished that they would embrace him as the Son of God!  Nevertheless, He didn’t abandon His beloved city.  He embraced the Hour before Him, the Cross of Crucifixion, and the Resurrection from the Dead, so great is His Love for us!

No matter how many times Jesus has wept for us, His Love is Everlasting!