Jesus turning to them 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 gave suck!’ 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?” -
In the middle of this horrific scene, Jesus is still
preaching, warning the women of Jerusalem of what is to come. It is a dark
prediction of coming terror. Yet he is telling them to be strong, for there is
more to endure.
It is also a judgment, for though he is going to die, he
will defeat death. Yet the true mourning should be for those who do not turn to
God, who instead turn to self-righteousness or despair, who experience horrific
suffering and learn nothing from it. There are those who will choose death,
explicitly in moments of despair or implicitly through their godless actions.
It is for those people and that world that we should cry.
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