Jesus Wept

As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace–but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41-44)

Luke wrote this passage after the total destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Romans after the Jews and the Romans broke into war in 66 AD.  The Romans killed about 1.1 million Jews in Jerusalem by one estimate (Josephus)!  They were killed or taken to die as entertainment in the empire’s circuses.  

The year 70 AD changed Gentile Christians’ attitude to Jews.  At first, there was horror, but then the idea grew that they had seen God’s judgement on the Jewish people for rejecting the messiah and killing the Son of God.  As more time passed it became easier to see Jews as cast off by God.  According to Episcopal priest and bishop John Shelby Spong [Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes (1996)], “Luke, himself was, on all probability, one of these gentile members who had first embraced a liberalized Judaism and then had moved into the Christianity that grew from the liberal Judaism.”  

Luke wrote his gospel in the late 80s or 90s or perhaps as late as the first and second decade of the second century [from Marcus Borg’s 2012 book Evolution of the Word: The New Testament in the Order the Books Were Written].  

Luke’s passage (above) makes sense because it suggests the destruction of Jerusalem.  For example, Luke had Jesus cry and say: “They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”  Our Bible says in a footnote: “The lament for Jerusalem is found only in Luke.  By not accepting Jesus (the one who mediates peace), Jerusalem will not find peace but will become the victim of devastation.”  Therefore, this passage suggests Jews were punished by God for not believing Jesus was the Messiah.  Some punishment according to Luke!

This passage, like many others, casts a dark light on the Jewish people and has been used by hatemongers, scapegoaters, and Anti-Semites to persecute and kill Jews throughout the ages.  A detailed description of that evil is provided by James Carroll in his 2001 book “Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews” and in his 2011 book “Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World.”  Both texts are alarming because they reveal what Christians did to the Jews and why.  

There were many reasons why Jesus would have wept but not for events occurring many years after his crucifixion.  Today he weeps for children in cages and those forcibly separated from their parents.  Do we do the same?

Deacon David Pierce