Daughters of Jerusalem (11.1.14)

As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus. 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?” (Luke 23:26-31)

How strange it is, almost cruel, that Mary's son turns to Jerusalem's women in the street and begs them not to weep for him, not to grieve his pain and suffering in these last hours!  Scholars speculate that the storytellers anticipate here the catastrophe of 70 ce, the destruction of the beautiful temple, and the slaughter of thousands in the streets of Jerusalem.  "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."

Jesus is skilled at this: keeping us off-balance, making our hearts agile and open.  He resists any notion that his suffering, and his alone, matters.  And I wonder if this isn't one of the interpretive keys to the gospel itself, certainly Luke's gospel.  Because Jesus' suffering is all suffering.  Because Jesus' suffering is the wailing of mothers whose sons go off to war.  Because Jesus' suffering is the starvation of children in German death facilities in the dead of winter.  Because Jesus' suffering is Amaal's rage after another night of home invasion and occupation in East Jerusalem.  The heart of the gospel is right here: with the seeds of compassion, grace and resurrection, too.  Love knows no boundary.

As long as we weep for Jesus alone, as long as we make any man's suffering (or any people's suffering) more important, more holy, more urgent than another's--we miss this story completely and lose track of where Jesus is going.  It's not a Jesus story, I think.  It's not a Christian story, even.  It's a human one.  Here Jesus, my teacher, insists on our grieving for mothers of maimed soldiers, for veterans sleeping in the cold for lack of better options, for children in death facilities and refugee camps and abusive homes.  Here Jesus insists on our grieving for angry Palestinian mothers in occupied neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

"Blessed are those who mourn," Jesus says.  Not, those whose mourning turns to bitterness and violence.  Not, those whose mourning becomes self-indulgent and cold and mean.  "Blessed are those who mourn, and those who hunger for justice, and those who choose to make peace, and those who suffer that others may be free."  Blessed are those who learn the gospel truth that, in losing life, we find the real meaning of it all; that, in releasing bitterness, we discover true joy and liberation; that, in taking up the cross, we come to know eternity and compassion and the life that lasts.

Along the Via Dolorosa today, at Station Eight, our small delegation read Luke's words aloud and tried to imagine the scene he describes, the last hours of Jesus' life.  I listen these days for Luke's faith, for the contradictions in it, for the hope and compassion in it.  At times, God is very close to Jesus, intimate and real.  At times, God is distant and seemingly unconcerned.  ("My God, my God, why have you abandoned me!")  Through it all, I hear the call to discipleship--the insistence and celebration of costly grace.  Take up the cross, Jesus says.  Come to me, all you weary ones.  Open your hearts, as wide as you can--wider than you believed possible--to the suffering of others.  And trust that the broken heart heals.  And the wounded healer makes the world whole.