“Weep for Yourselves and for Your Children”: Jesus’s last warning in Luke 23.
“…Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are 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 these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” – ”
In a flurry of events, Luke’s trial and crucifixion of Jesus displays an innocent Servant King, willingly dying a sinner’s death. Why does Luke interrupt the crucifixion story with a short speech to unknown mourners? Luke is the only gospel to include this incident; its inclusion must be significant. How does this scene clarify Jesus’s mission to proclaim and inaugurate the Kingdom of God? How do these words of Jesus develop our confidence as Twenty-First-Century Christians?
To answer these questions we first need a bird’s eye view of Luke’s book. In his account, Luke develops key themes of Jesus’s identity and purpose. Threading through the entire book is the theme of God’s judgement on those who reject His Messiah. Beginning with Jesus’s rejection in his hometown (4:23-30), this theme reaches a crescendo with Jesus foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem in (21:5-36). Tracing this theme of judgement, three key elements emerge.
The coming judgement:
1) directly results from Jewish rejection of Jesus , God’s appointed king (Ps. 2). When Jesus sends his disciples to proclaim the Kingdom message, Jesus’s instructions include judgement for those who reject their message (10:10-12) When it comes to Jesus, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” ( 11:23)
2) is imminent, directed at the generation who dismissed the gospel proclamation “This generation is an evil generation…as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation… The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. ( 11:29-32) Because “this generation” rejected the Son of Man (Dan. 7:13-14) who had appeared in their very midst, they would receive the most severe judgement.
Furthermore, since Jerusalem continually rejected God’s prophets, their murder of the most beloved of God’s representatives ensured they would receive all of God’s stored up judgement “so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation… Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.” (11:50-51)
3) would fall particularly on Jerusalem and the Temple. In short order, Jesus's denouncements begin to target Jerusalem and the Temple. Jesus foretells the imminent death of Jerusalem’s leaders and inhabitants unless they repent of their unbelief (13:1-5), tells a parable of the Temple’s destruction (13:6-9), reiterates why the city has been singled out (13:33-35), and laments its destruction by siege. (19:41-44).
With these three points in mind, Jesus’s words to the Daughters of Jerusalem take on deep significance.
The city leader’s plot to murder Jesus would ironically result in his enthronement as the Son of Man (22:66-69). Yet, in doing as their fathers had done to lesser prophets, they had guaranteed the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
Within a generation, the inhabitants of Jerusalem will “say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’” (23:30), as had their ancestors who had witnessed Jerusalem fall to the Babylonians. (Hosea 10:8) The Lord had “come suddenly to his Temple”(Malachi 3:1-4:6), but the people of Jerusalem “did not known the time of [their] visitation” ( 19:44)
JESUS’S WORDS ENCOURAGE US DURING OUR EASTER CELEBRATIONSevere as God’s judgement on Jerusalem was, Jesus’s final warning spoken to the mourning “daughters of Jerusalem” are for us a source of hope and joy.
First, Jesus’s repeated warnings–even while being led to his own execution–proves the depths of God’s mercy and patience, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”(2 Peter 3:9). We can be sure that God continues to be merciful and that “all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)
Second, Jesus’s knowledge of future events shows he is trustworthy. His accurate foretelling of Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 A.D. –down to specific details–gives additional historical proof of his identity. We can be joyfully confident that his promises of forgiveness, resurrection and eternal life can be relied upon. “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me… I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. (John 14:1-3)
Finally, Jesus’s fulfilled prediction of Jerusalem’s final destruction established his divine rule beyond all doubt. The Lamb of God, sacrificed once for all, made the Temple obsolete (Hebrews 8:13), its curtain torn as he completed his earthly work, giving us full assurance of our acceptance by God, “since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain.” (Hebrews 10:19-22).
The crucifixion of God’s beloved Son, while sealing the fate of Jerusalem, has brought us peace with God. Receiving Jesus the Divine King through faith, we are rescued from the just judgement of God and given an inheritance, Eternal Life. The mourning and wailing of Good Friday has turned into unending joy and life.
For further study, read Josephus’s eyewitness account of the siege of Jerusalem