Before I was born, my grandfather had one of his kidneys removed because of cancer. The cancer was in remission for 18 years before it returned in a bone in his arm in 1995. The doctors scrapped out a big chunk of the bone and replaced it with a metal plate. And then they waited. Not too long after that, my grandfather started having bouts of severe dizziness. The doctors thought it was an inner ear infection, but nothing they tried ended the problem. Finally, they did a brain scan, only to discover two large, inoperable tumors at the base of my grandfather’s brain. I remember my Mom saying many times that my grandfather had always hoped that when it died it would be a quick and painless death. It’s a hope I think we all have. But it did not end up being a reality for my grandfather. He lingered for another three years or so. The last year he was completely bed-ridden, and the final six months were really awful—he was barely even cognizant. Certainly my grandfather was suffering in those final years and months, but he never sought sympathy from others. Even to the very end, he was more concerned with the well-being of my grandmother and the rest of his family. He did not want to be a burden to anyone. And even on the most difficult of days, my grandfather always tried to keep his spirits up and to be positive; mostly, I’d say, for everyone else’s sake. I think it’s fair to say that he shared the sentiment of so many others who have painfully approached death, not least of them Jesus of Nazareth; “Do not weep for me.”
Today, we continue our Lenten series, exploring together Jesus’ final words in the hours before his death. Most of the phrases we will study in the coming weeks were spoken by Jesus as he hung on the cross. But the words we heard this morning were spoken by Jesus as he made his way to Golgotha and the place of his crucifixion. At this point, Jesus has already been tried and convicted. The soldiers have savagely beaten him and then mockingly placed a crown of thorns upon his head. Jesus was battered and bruised, bloodied and weakened. And now, he was carrying the crossbeam of a massive cross out of the city to the place of crucifixion. There can be no doubt that Jesus was in a lot of pain and was suffering greatly at this point. It truly would have been a sad sight to see. And the crowd confirms that. As Jesus walks along what was surely a main road out of town and toward the Place of the Skull, he is passing many, many people; and many more are following him. Luke tells us that the women were mourning and wailing for him. This is rather ironic when you consider the fact that this is the same crowd that has just condemned Jesus. I suppose the “mob mentality” had gotten the best of them, and now as they followed Jesus in his painful steps, they were beginning to understand the true depth of what was about to happen. And so they cried out it grief and sadness.
Now, I don’t think anyone would’ve batted an eye if Jesus had just ignored the mourners, or even if he had turned and jeered at them in anger for what they had done to him. But this is Jesus, and that is not what he did. Instead, “Jesus turned and spoke to them. ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t cry for me.’” It seems that Jesus did not feel the pain that was surely surging through his body in those moments. It seems that Jesus was at peace with what was about to happen. He did not need, nor even want sympathy. It had taken a hard night praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, but Jesus had accepted God’s will for his life, and he did not need anyone’s sympathy, he did not want to hear people mourning for him.
Still, Jesus doesn’t stop there. Not only does Jesus discourage mourning on his part, but he continues on to redirect the grief of the women. In what would become his final effort to prepare the people for the coming kingdom, Jesus went on, “Rather, cry for yourselves and your children. The time will come when they will say, ‘Happy are those who are unable to become pregnant, the wombs that never gave birth, and the breasts that never nursed a child.’ Then they will say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ If they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
How’s that for confusing? It’s easy enough for us to understand what Jesus means when he tells the crowds not to weep for him. But his next sentences just don’t seem to make very much sense; not at all. To get an idea of what Jesus meant as he threw out these cryptic phrases, it is somewhat helpful to have an understanding of the lumber business. After trees are chopped down, they are cut up into huge planks and sent into a shed. The boards come out sideways on a huge conveyor belt, and they have to be manhandled, in their different sizes, on to the trucks that take them to the next stage of the process. Up to this point, the planks are heavy and wet, partly because they are freshly cut, and partly because they had arrived at the lumber camp by being floated down the river. This first conveyance system is known as the “green chain”; this is where the “green” lumber arrived and was dealt with.
The next stage of the process is to dry the planks, which is done in a huge drying shed, after which the boards were cut again and sent to the “dry chain”, where they were sorted for shipping. After this step, the boards are about half their original weight; all the moisture has been dried out of the planks, and they are easier to handle and ready for use.
This contrast between “green” and “dry” wood supplied Jesus with one of his darkest sayings. But if we can find our way to the heart of these words, we will learn a lot about what he, and Luke as well, thought the cross was all about. “If they do this,” he said, “when the wood is green, what will happen when it’s dry?”
Jesus wasn’t a rebel leader; he wasn’t “dry wood”, the same old, same old; timber ready for burning; quite the opposite, in fact. He was “green wood”; fresh, new: his mission was all about peace and repentance, about God’s reconciling kingdom for Israel and the nations. But now, he is saying, if they are even doing this to him, what will they do when Jerusalem is filled with young hotheads, firebrands eager to do anything to create violence and mayhem? If the Romans crucify the prince of peace, what will they do to genuine warlords?
Still confused? Here’s what it comes down to. We have to understand that Jesus knows that he is dying the death of the outlaw, the holy revolutionary. That is part of the point. He is bearing in himself the fate he had predicted so often all those hot-heads, for the warlike nation; the woes he had pronounced on Jerusalem and its inhabitants were coming true in him. He alone was bearing the sins of the many. But if the many refuse, even at this late hour, to turn and follow him, to repent of their violence, then the fate in store for them will make his crucifixion seem mild by comparison. It will be horrendous, so terrible that parents will wish their children had never been born. “Do not weep for me,” Jesus says. You’ve got bigger things to worry about. Jesus combines the clear statement of his intention to suffer the fate of Israel on her behalf, with a clear warning; a warning repeated over and over again throughout the gospels for those who do not follow him.
And so, in this Lenten season, the warning comes before us as well. The hour is late, but it’s not too late. Jesus’ offer still stands for all who will choose to accept it. It’s a warning, sure, and a rather scary one at that. But it’s also an offer of forgiveness and grace. Christ has borne the brunt of pain and suffering—all we have to do is repent, to turn and follow him, to believe and trust, and all of our wrongdoings will be forgiven. This needs to be our focus in these days leading up to Easter; we have to confront those things that are holding us back in our relationship with God.
No one likes to be reminded of his or her worst moments—times when they hurt someone else, stole something, denied everything they believe, or betrayed a friend. Yet, the passion narrative is filled with just such painful memories. This story of Jesus’ death continually confronts us with the underside of human sinfulness and its awful consequences, and that is exactly what this lament is. God could not spare Jesus from the cross, and Jesus could not spare Jerusalem the destruction that lay ahead; that is what he is trying to get across here. So instead, Jesus joined with the women who were wailing for him; and he mourns too, lamenting their imminent suffering. And it is in this lament that we see one of the most moving aspects of the meaning of Jesus’ death. Jesus had warned the crowds and his disciples of what was coming—both for him and for Jerusalem. He had called for repentance and wept for the city. When his pleas were not heeded, however, instead of shaking the dust off his feet and moving on to better things, he joined the people in their suffering. In fact, he suffered most of all.
We may weep and mourn. We may rail against God for the tragedy, and suffering, and loss that we experience in life. But God did not turn away from our plight or miraculously deliver Jesus from his suffering. Knowing that he could not stop the judgment that humanity had brought upon itself, Jesus went to the cross asking not to be mourned, but rather lamenting himself that although he was about to die, he could not deliver Jerusalem from the suffering that would come. Jesus’ words here are a call for us to see that our only hope is to trust God’s faithfulness; to believe that suffering can and will lead to new life, to know that God does not abandon us, and to trust that God loves us through it all. Yet apart from repentance and personal commitment to the kingdom of God, there is no hope for an end to the suffering we may experience.
I think it’s fair to say that we all want to be at a place where we are at peace with our lives. We want to have that faith and hope even in the midst of difficulties, so that we can say, “Do not cry for me.” And that’s what Christ’s passion does; that’s what God’s forgiveness does. Forgiveness brings God’s future even into the present. Christ’s passion and death brings the life of heaven to earth. We need not weep. God’s love in Christ Jesus can carry us through every trial; if only we will trust that truth.
