Psalm 60

2 Sam 7:18-end

Luke 19:41-20:8

Jesus wept.

How can God cry?

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus weeps over his beloved Jerusalem. A foretaste of what was to come.

So pained by their inability to recognise his glory.

So grieved by the hostility holding them captive.

So afflicted by their pride and sin beneath their skin.

that Jesus wept.

The faint praise resounded in the ears of his disciples who shouted

‘Blessed is the King

            who comes in the name of the Lord!’

ushering the king into his courts

their king who comes in humility riding a donkey,

throwing their cloaks before him

praising God for the deeds of power they had seen.

            ‘Peace in heaven,

                        and glory in the highest heaven’

The Pharisees couldn’t bear the sound of their praise and ordered their silence.

And Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’

The rocks would return with praise.

The earth would shout with acclaim.

All of creation would burst into song.

and yet, Jesus wept.

For Jesus had told stories of wealth,

of those who harboured all they had been given with tight fist, and receiving nothing in return

 a warning of what was to come.

And Jesus had healed blindness with a single touch,

as those who saw, told the man to be quiet, to not draw attention to himself

a warning of what was to come.

and Jesus placed his hands on the heads of the babies and toddling ones

as his own chosen men told him that children have no place alongside him

a warning of what was to come.

Jesus wept.

Jesus wept and met poverty with generosity

Jesus wept and met blindness with sight

Jesus wept and met children with blessing.

Jesus heaved with the grief of his people who had wondered so far from home.

 “My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.”

He turns his face towards his beloved city Jerusalem

with warning of future destruction

for the surrounding of enemies

for the crushing of bones

for the falling of stones.

of stones upon stones.

For even if they remained silent, the rocks would cry out.

Jesus weeps

Jesus is moved

Jesus grieves

So human is he that his feelings are not absent.

So holy is he that his feelings are not distant.

See this is not the first time he has wept

and neither shall it be the last

In John’s Gospel, at chapter 11:28-37, Jesus weeps at the grave of Lazarus his friend.

and further on into Luke’s gospel and mentioned again in Hebrews 5:7

Jesus cried out in desertion in the garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus wept. God weeps.

Is it possible then that the weeping of Jesus has sanctified our weeping?

For the sorrow of God is no small thing.

For the tears of Jesus preceded a resurrection of the dead. 

We weep

Some weep without ceasing

some feel like they might never weep again

If Jesus wept, we can weep too.

We weep for those things, though nameless, are still lost.

We weep for the death that pervades every living thing.

we weep for those unborn.

we weep for those imprisoned by grief.

we weep for those whose desire has been hijacked.

we weep for the way things might have been.

we weep for the cost of our waywardness.

we weep for the darkness of our own soul.

And as the psalmist cries out:

‘O God; thou has cast us out, and scattered us abroad: thou has also been displeased;

O turn thee unto us again.

Thou hast moved the land, and divided it: heal the sores thereof, for it shaketh.

There is so much in our own small world,

in our own small hearts

that aches for redemption.

So much that is dislocated, diseased, desecrated.

We feel this ache, this grief, this haemorrhage,

this empty space, these graves,

these stones upon stones

where some lost thing should have rested in its perfection.

We weep for children,

often our own

who, in their own way,

will know the pain of this broken world.

We weep for the children born into desolation, into violence, into abuse

for those who will experience innate brokenness and insufferable exclusion.

We long for those cloaks tossed on the road

in front of our king

to swaddle these babies and keep them from harm, to restore to them their innocence.

We feel ourselves wounded and weeping by what is worthless, wasted even.

but we sometimes weep too at beauty too,

for it whispers of what things might have been

it whispers of delight and joy and freedom…

a freedom and joy and delight that was always ours

and yet always out of reach.

Jesus wept

Jesus interceded

Jesus lamented

So, may our weeping be a kind of intercession.

A kind of prayer.

May we join in this burdened work of renewal.

May we scatter our cloaks before the king.

May we declare our allegiance with the prince of peace.

May our tears of anguish and sorrow anoint these broken things

and as God collects them up

and stores them in a bottle.

May we be known,

May we be loved,

May we be seen.

By the God who weeps with us.  Amen.