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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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The Tears of God |
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Luke
19:41 The
Tenth Sunday after Trinity August
8, 2010 There
are no tears in Heaven, but on earth even God weeps. There is something particularly touching about this.
The idea that God is moved to sadness and tears for us is something
that captures our attention, and our imagination.
Numerous works of literature, art, and music draw upon that theme. But why does God weep? What
is it about this world that moves the God of all Creation to tears? Let
us make it clear at the start that He does not weep for Himself.
Our Gospel Reading finds our Lord in Jerusalem during what He knows
are the final days before His crucifixion.
He is well aware of what lies ahead of Him.
He has come to Jerusalem to die, and die He will.
Nothing can turn Him aside from this mission.
Yet, it is not the scourge, or the nails, or the cross or the grave
that moves Him to tears. He
will bear them with all the courage and dignity of the Son of God. He
knows also that His own people will not receive Him. He knows they will
reject Him and kill Him. They
will curse Him and spit upon Him, and beat Him as He passes them on the
way to Golgotha. But He is a
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
It is not the rejection that moves Him to weep. He
knows that an even greater terror awaits Him; a terror far worse than any
suffering mere men can inflict upon Him.
He knows that on the cross He will bear all the hurt and anguish,
and anger of God, for the sins of His people.
I have no way to even imagine what that must be like.
I know on one hand it is to bear the active wrath of God, and that
is unimaginably horrible in itself. But
even worse is the complete severance of His essential fellowship with the
Father and Spirit; to be removed from that sweet and pervading Divine Love
and cast into the fiery hate of God's consuming wrath. I do not wonder
that He cried out on the cross, "My God, My God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" But even
this does not move Him to tears. He
weeps for none of these things because He weeps not for Himself.
He weeps for us. Christ
weeps for Jerusalem, the Holy City; Jerusalem, the city of peace.
As He looks down upon the city from the Mount of Olives, He sees
the Temple, symbol of faith, symbol of the presence of God, symbol of
Christ. Everything about the
Temple is a symbol of Christ. He
is the Lamb, slain upon the altar. He
is the Great High Priest who offers the sacrifice. He is the altar upon which the sacrifice is offered.
He is the Temple, the place where God dwells with man. But
the Temple and its ministers have failed Him.
They are full of pride and corruption.
They have left the true faith to follow the vain imaginations of
their own hearts. And God
weeps. He
looks at the palace where the king rules the city and the country.
This too is a symbol of Christ, the Great King and Shepherd of
Israel who rules in justice and mercy.
But the human king is nothing like the Great Shepherd of Israel.
The human king is corrupt and faithless.
Justice is just a word and a joke in his court, and the ability to
rule Israel has been taken away from him and given into the hands of the
Roman, Pilate. What little
power the king does possess is not used to promote true religion and
virtue. It is used to secure
his own security and wealth. And
God weeps. Our
Lord sees the wall around the city, a strong, thick wall, designed to
defend Israel from her enemies. The wall is a symbol of Christ.
He surrounds His people with safety.
He stands between them and their enemies.
"A Mighty Fortress Is our God."
But the people of Jerusalem do not want protection from their real
enemies. Their real enemies, which are world, the flesh, and the
devil, are far more dangerous to Israel than the Romans could ever hope to
be, yet they pass freely into the city by the consent and invitation of
the people; and God weeps. Christ
sees the people of Jerusalem "throwing away happiness with both
hands," completely ignorant of the things which belong to their
peace. He is their peace. He is their joy. He
is their prosperity. He is
their hope. But they have
rejected Him and sought their peace in wealth and worldly pleasures,
though in His Name they "bless" their misguided values and the
wicked means by which they chase their dreams.
He sees them as sheep without a Shepherd, and He would gladly
gather them to Himself as a hen gathers her chicks, but they "would
not" (Mt. 23:37). They won't have it, and God weeps. From
His position on the Mount of Olives, Christ looks over the Jerusalem of
that time, but He also sees it forty years in the future. He sees the city in A.D. 70, surrounded by the Roman army,
under siege that will last for years.
He sees the wall destroyed. He
sees unimaginable suffering. He
sees millions of Jews dead in the streets of Jerusalem and in other cities
of the Roman Empire, and God weeps. As
Christ looks down on Jerusalem He also sees us. He sees billions of
people, just like the Jews, but people of every nation and every era
rejecting Christ and chasing the rainbows of sin that will never give them
anything but a momentary diversion, while He offers everlasting treasure.
He sees people ruining their own lives and bringing untold pain and
suffering into the lives of others, and, finally, bringing themselves into
eternal sorrows in the fires of hell forever.
He knows the joy and blessings He offers, and He sees the
destruction and suffering they choose, and God weeps. If
only the things we desire were the things God made us to enjoy.
If only we would learn to love the things He promises.
If only the things that please God would also please us, how much
sorrow we would save ourselves. O,
let us learn to love what God loves, and to seek what God wants to give. O,
God, "Let thy merciful ears... be open to the prayers of thy humble
servants; and that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such
things as shall please thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
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