NOTES for Luk 19:41-44

When we read that our task is to imitate Christ in everything, we mostly take these words as a convention. We can try reading this Gospel passage from that point of view. In a similar situation, a person either waves a hand in resignation, saying, “So that is how it turned out,” or descends into undisguised gloating: “There, you were told that you must not do this, that you had to do it that way; now suffer and be tormented.” Jesus, however, “looking at it, wept over it.” He is powerless to impose Himself; everyone is free to accept or reject Him. Yet the result of refusing life with Christ is so terrible that God weeps when He thinks of it. This is not despair born of helplessness; it is sorrow at the choice made by a free human being. And this despite the fact that Jesus knows that, within a few days, such a refusal will lead Him Himself to the Cross. But He does not weep for that. He weeps for what the people chosen by God are bringing upon themselves. Here is the clearest possible portrait of God: He created the human being free; He will die a terrible death because humanity chose to kill Him; knowing this, He weeps over how terrible life will be for the person who made that choice. This is what He calls us to imitate.