Jesus wept
Feb 19
Luke 19:41As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
There were two occasions where we read that Jesus wept. One was when he cam across Lazarus who was dead, and this is the second time. We know that there were other times when Jesus groaned in His spirit, like in Gethsemane, but only two occasions where we read that he actually wept. Wept means he really broke down and cried.
Perhaps the first time when he saw that Lazarus was dead (John 11), he thought of how death would and had destroyed people ove the centuries and how it separated them from the ones they loved and from God. On this occasion, Palm Sunday, Jesus looks over at Jerusalem and predicts the destruction, which we know cam in AD 70 (almost 40 years later). These things were all predicted in Daniel 9 with the prophecy of the weeks.
Jesus says if only they knew what would bring them peace, and of course that was Jesus himself. The Jews were waiting for their Messiah to come on a horse and destroy Rome and the Gentiles as had been done so many times in the old testament. But Jesus came on a colt to lay down his life, to bring lasting peace. A donkey was a symbol of work and Jesus came to work salvation for the people.
The Jesus weeps because he says that Jerusalem (the jews) did not recognise the time of God;s visitation. They did not recognise that jesus was in fact God, coming to save them and because they did not receive and reocginse him, they would miss the boat.
Oh that we do not miss God’s presence and moving in our life.