Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem
Luke 23.27-31
And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
When Jesus encountered the weeping women and some of His disciples on His way to crucifixion, He cautioned them that they should not weep for Him, but that their concerns should be for themselves and the lives of their children considering the rising evil throughout Jerusalem (Luke 23:27-31). Even while suffering great pain and personal humiliation, Jesus’ concern was not for Himself, but for the lives and souls of those who faced the danger of eternal damnation because of the sin in their lives. The same caution is relevant for Christians today that we should be careful not to allow our concerns for this world to come before our devotion and obedience to God. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), and as citizens of heaven, our focus and attention should be there.
Kriah: a Jewish funeral custom that involves tearing one's garments to represent the loss of a loved one.
It is often said, “grief I love with no where else to go.” Well, just imagine what it must of felt like for those that loved Christ that fateful day. Kriah, in Jewish tradition, is the tearing of clothing. It represents the outpouring of that grief for the whole world to see. And, it most often occurs at the time when the heart is most sensitive to the grief of its loss. We invite you to think what it must have felt like to be among Christ’s followers that day, and to tear at this cloth as your heart must certainly have been torn by the act.