“Jesus
Wept”
Mingling our Tears in Union with Christ
In
Saint John’s Gospel we read that, seeing the grief of Mary
on the occasion of the death of her brother Lazarus, Jesus wept
... Those that stood by, said,
“See
how He loved him ...”
In the Gospel of Saint Luke we read:
“If
thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that
are to thy peace; but now they are hidden from thy eyes!”1
In the first example we have the death of the man Lazarus,
and in the second the ‘death’, the dying, and spiritual decay of
the city of Jerusalem — and in both cases, Jesus wept ...
From the time of its conquest by David in the tenth century BC,
Jerusalem had been the heart of national unity. The very name Jerusalem,
meant
“city
of peace”,
wholeness, prosperity and blessing. It had become the dwelling place
of God.
In the time of Jesus Herod the Great had endowed it with magnificent
buildings, numerous residences and of course the new temple. It
was the very heart and centre of religious worship.
And yet the city of peace had become full of corruption, contention,
faction, fragmentation, extortion, hypocrisy and all manner of human
sinfulness. Jerusalem wore the outward gown of beauty but within
was full of
“dead
men's bones”.
Tears belong to this earthly sojourn, they are bound to human suffering
and caused by sinfulness and death. We seek peace, but we will only
ever attain peace, that state of wholeness — in Jesus Christ. The
only peace we will ever truly know is that which Jesus gives, which
the world and the worldly will never receive.
No matter how we may strive, no matter how hard we may try to obliterate
tears, both our own and those of others, we will never succeed.
We must offer our tears to God and all the pain contained within
them, uniting them to Jesus suffering upon the Cross for the salvation
of the world.
The tears of Jesus give us courage, they reveal the beautiful humanity
He chose to take on Himself for our sake.
We walk it is true through a valley of tears, but let us look beyond
to the New Jerusalem, placing our minds and hearts on eternity,
trusting and believing in Gods promises, for at its
longest this life is very, very short ...
Let us look to Our Mother, the New Jerusalem where:
“He
will wipe away every tear from their eyes,
There shall be no more death or mourning, crying or pain, for the
world that was has passed away.
The one seated on the throne said,
Behold I make all things new!”
________________________________
1 St. Luke 19.42
A Poor Clare Colettine Nun
for the Boston Catholic Journal
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