The Meaning of Tears

As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.” - Luke 19:41-42

In this passage Jesus has a realization that brings him to tears: Jerusalem missed its ‘kairos’ of God drawing near. A kairos is a God-moment, and insight about what God is up to which deserves a response. In this passage there’s such an irony here - Jesus capturing his kairos while they miss theirs (Jesus specifically uses that Greek word ‘kairos’ in 19:44 about how they missed their God-moment).

Take a moment and think about weeping and kairos. Reflect on this insight and pray in response to what God’s saying to you about how you handle your tears:

YOU NEVER KNOW what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it. Almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the Second World War, a horse cantering across a meadow, the high school basketball team running out onto the gym floor at the start of a game. You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention.

  They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next.

-Whistling in the Dark, Frederick Buechner