And there followed him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and 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?" (Luke 23:27-31)
Expecting us to weep for Jesus, a Lenten hymn asks:
Have we no tears to shed for him,While soldiers scoff and foes deride?Ah, look how patiently he hangs:Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.
No, we should have no tears for Jesus, because he said, "Do not weep for me." In our words, he said, "No tears for me, please!" He had tears for Lazarus and Jerusalem, but he wanted no tears for himself. This may be hard for us to understand because when we suffer, we appreciate sympathy. When we are hurt, we are helped by a kind word. When we are victims of injustice, we are comforted by tears of friends. If there were no sympathy expressed, we would think that nobody cared for us. Right?
It is easy for us to understand why the women on Good Friday wept for Jesus. Because they loved him, they hated what evil men did to him. They heard the unjust trial. They saw his back lashed with forty stripes save one. They felt the pain of the crown of thorns. They felt for him when time after time he fell under the weight of the cross which he was compelled to carry until he reached the point of exhaustion. As he approached them on the way to Calvary, they could not help but cry, for they were filled with pity. Nevertheless, Jesus wanted no sympathy and almost rebuked them when he said in the words of our text, "Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children."
Not Tears but Obedience
Who can turn down sympathy at a time of dire distress? Why did Jesus refuse tears on his behalf? For one thing, Jesus did not want tears for himself because for him the cross was not a matter of tears but of obedience. He understood God was working in and through the cross. In Gethsemane, he learned this when he prayed, "Not my will but thine be done." It was God's will for him to suffer and die. In Isaiah 53, God's Messiah is "smitten of God," and "the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all." Accordingly, humanity did not produce the cross. Behind the human effort, God was working out our salvation. After the resurrection, Jesus explained to two men who walked with him to Emmaus, "Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things ...?" Note the word, "necessary." It was necessary for Christ to die that salvation could be gained.
Since the cross was a matter of obedience, tears had no place. In fact, tears in this case could be a tool of the Devil. Tears could have tempted Jesus to feel sorry for himself and thereby discourage him from fulfilling God's will to die on the cross. It is usually necessary to hurt in order to heal. There is temporary sacrifice for permanent gain or glory. Jesus knew this, and so he declined tears for himself.
Still, we wonder why the cross was God's will and why, if all things are possible with God, the cross was necessary. The cross was necessary because there was no other way God could redeem the world. Surely all of the world's gold and silver could not reconcile humanity to God. All of us realize that no person can buy love, goodwill, and friendship. These are things beyond price. Who can purchase God's favor? Also, no sacrifice of humankind could appease the holiness of God. Over the ages, people tried to appease God by sacrifices of food, animals, and even human beings. All of these were in vain to pay the price of sin. The one sufficient sacrifice was God's only Son. So St. Paul says, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself." What a monumental accomplishment! Only God could reconcile rebellious humanity, and he did it in Jesus.
The cross called for obedience, not tears, because there was no other person than Jesus good enough to die for the world's sin. The Bible teaches that a sacrifice, to be pleasing to God, had to be perfect in every respect, without a blemish. What human could fill that order? "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Even the greatest and best of people have some flaw or fault. To be effective, the sacrifice had to be perfect. Only God's Son could fulfill the demand. At least once Pilate spoke the truth when he said about Jesus, "I find no fault in him." One of our Lenten hymns has us sing this truth:
There was none other good enoughTo pay the price of sin, He only could unlock the gate Of heaven, and let us in.
Not Tears but Concern
"No tears for me, please," Jesus says to the crying women stationed along the street to Calvary. Why not? Because, in the second place, Jesus was more concerned about others' welfare than his own. One of the marvels of the cross is Jesus' concern for others. While on the cross, he was so concerned about his enemies that he prayed for their forgiveness, about the repentant thief, that he assured him of paradise, and about his mother, that he asked John to care for her. So in this case, Jesus is more concerned about the women and their children then about his own fate. He told them not to weep for him but for themselves and their children. He foresaw even worse things to come for them, "for if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?"
In the light of what they did to the only perfect man to live on earth, what will the world do to plain sinners? We will experience the same suffering and death. The world will and does erect crosses for us, too. The world has not changed in its hatred of all that is innocent, true, good, and beautiful. In today's world, there is the cross of persecution of minorities: blacks, Jews, the poor, and Hispanics. The popular musical, "Fiddler on the Roof," is a story about a colony of Russian Jews who for many years lived happily and in peace with their neighbors. Then a racist government official decides he needs publicity, and he orders the entire community, for no reason at all, to leave their village. It was absolutely senseless, a crime against a minority.
We need to weep for ourselves and our children because the world continues to erect a cross of economic oppression. How can we justify a world in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? We live in a world where one-fifth of the population is destitute, with 10,000 dying daily of starvation and where one-fifth lives in affluence, consuming four-fifths of the world's income. Though the affluent part of the world contributes annually forty-five billion dollars to the underprivileged Third World, the rich nations spend twenty-one times as much on armaments. Also, while some live in affluent homes with even two homes, one for vacations, thirteen million homeless people cry, "Save us. Save us. Where can we go?" Even in affluent America, in New York City alone, there are 36,000 people living on the streets and in abandoned buildings and steam tunnels.
Add to these crosses, the cross of violence and crime. Violence is seen in our movies and TV and transferred to city streets. By the time a child reaches age fourteen, he sees 18,000 acts of violence on TV. Guests in the hotels of the national capitol are warned not to leave the hotel after dark. Ushers in Washington's downtown churches must have armed guards to protect them when they take the Sunday offering to the bank. We need to weep for ourselves that we live in a society of crime and corruption on every level of society. A survey shows that the average person tells three lies a day. The American Polygraph Association reports that three out of four employees steal twenty billion dollars per year. Drunken drivers kill sixty-eight people each day. Forty million Americans regularly smoke marijuana. Pornography is on a rampage. There are three times as many adult book stores as there are MacDonald restaurants.
So what? This is our kind of world, a world of crosses. Jesus knew the answer to "so what?" He knew what the consequences would be when the wood would be dry. That is why the women should not weep for him but for themselves and their children. He was referring to the wrath of God against all unrighteousness. Today many of us have forgotten that the soul that sins shall die. Once again we need to take seriously Paul's warning, "The wages of sin is death." Lest we forget, God is a holy God, a God of justice. Indeed, God is a God of love, mercy, and forgiveness, but he also is a God of holiness. When holiness is violated, humankind experiences the wrath of God in terms of judgment. Unless we repent and turn to God, we shall experience a fate Jesus had in terms of sorrow, suffering, and death. Thus, Jesus does not want us to weep for him but for ourselves and our children.
Not Tears but You
"No tears for me, please," Jesus continues to say for the third time. Tears are just not enough. There must be deeds. No doubt, Jesus appreciated the women's tears as far as they went to express their love and sympathy, for every normal person appreciates understanding. But Jesus knew tears can be a substitute for something more important. If the world is as bad as it is, it needs more than tears. When things are bad, we moan. We feel sorry for the victims of persecution and violence. This is often seen when we witness a pathetic scene in the movies. We are moved to tears, but when the show is over, we dry our tears and continue on our merry way. One time a movie on Jesus' life was shown. The time came for the crucifixion with all of its agony and torture. While Jesus was being nailed to a cross, a young woman got up and said to her friend, "Let's go - this is where we came in." Can we dismiss the cross so flippantly? "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?" For some, the cross does not cause a tear. But even tears are not enough. Jesus wants more than tears; he wants you.
If Jesus does not want tears, what does he want? He wants our discipleship. He wants us to follow him in cross-bearing. He had a cross, and to follow him means to bear one also. Do you remember Jesus said, "If any one would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me"? Bonhoeffer claimed that when Jesus calls us to follow him, he bids us come and die with him. Discipleship means the voluntary assumption of a cross. And the world is full of crosses. Each Christian has a cross to bear. Because the world is evil, a Christian cannot avoid a cross. A good person cannot live peaceably in a wicked world. There is a cross waiting for you. Jesus would rather see a cross on your shoulder than tears in your eyes.
Moreover, Jesus wants obedience from us rather than tears. Once he said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." "Obedience" is not a popular word in our day. The tenor of current society is opposition to authority. Many think in terms of rebellion with violence. The theme is "Burn, Burn" or "Kill, Kill." This rebellious attitude applies to Jesus' commands to love God and neighbor, to be good to all men, and to go and sin no more. Rather, we wish to make our own rules on how to live, and we do what we think is right. Our slogan is, "This is my life and I will live it as I please." As a result, Christians become stumbling blocks to winning people to the Christian faith. Lenin, the founder of Communism, said, "If I ever met a Christian, I'd become one." Nietzsche, the father of the "God is dead" philosophy, once challenged, "Show me first that you are redeemed; then I'll listen to talk about your Redeemer." Really, Jesus does not want our tears of sympathy for his passion; he wants obedience. That is far harder to do than to shed a tear.
Not tears but witness is what Jesus wants from us. Our witness to others is extremely important to him, because he died to save all people, not only his own nation but every nation. If the news of his love, the benefit of his sacrificial death and his offer of life and liberty are not known throughout the world, his cross was in vain. He had a vision that his death on the cross would draw all men to him, not some but "all." It is a sin if we do not witness to his death and resurrection, for thereby we are keeping people from having the abundant life in Christ. Let each of us ask him/herself, "When was the last time I mentioned Jesus to another person?" or "When, if ever, did I attempt to bring with me someone to church?" How can you and I be silent when we stand at the foot of the cross? He died not only for me but for you, too. You didn't know that? Well, let me tell you the good news. Out of love, he died to give you life that is real and eternal.
Who then needs tears? Not Jesus, for he said in our text, "Do not weep for me" - no tears for me, please! We are the ones who need tears. Weep that our hearts are so cold that we do not let Christ be the Lord of our lives. Weep that we Christians tolerate the kind of world that creates crosses for innocent people. But even tears are not enough when we confront the strange man on the cross. If not tears, what then? A Lenten hymn replies:
But drops of grief can n'er repayThe debt of love I oweHere, Lord, I give myself away;'Tis all that I can do.