Jesus Wept

You did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.
- Luke 19:44

These are the last words of Jesus’s lament over Jerusalem. You get this sense that the tears are flowing down and his eyes are downcast as he mutters over and over, “You missed it. You missed it. Oh, I’m so sad you missed it.”

Jesus is brokenhearted when we don’t recognize when God comes close. That’s because his life mission was to help us realize that every day God is coming close. Jesus was all about making God known and helping God’s ways to flourish on the earth. So when we miss it, he’s so bummed.

So many of us have an image of an angry God out there who is disappointed in us and feeling vengeful. Even many of us who have healthy theology can still FEEL the effects of the unhealthy theology we adopted earlier in life. (Bad theology tends to linger in our hearts). But what if, in the imagination of your soul, you took time to see Jesus weeping instead of being angry. Can you sense the care in his tears? Can you feel the value he places on you? Can you connect with his grief over the pain you invite into your life?

Take some time today to meditate on Jesus weeping over you - not giving in to guilt or shame or self-hatred, but rather allowing his tears to speak to you about how much you matter, how much he wants you to flourish, and how much he loves you. (And remember that the scriptures teach not just that Jesus is like God, but that God is like Jesus - so experiencing Jesus’s care in this meditation is experiencing the very care of God).