Jesus is looking over Jerusalem. His hour is at hand. Yet at this moment he is feeling no excitement, no anxiety, no dread. Jesus’ heart is aching. He weeps.
You came to offer us a new, a different way of seeing, of living, of treating one another – an alternative to the painfully inadequate well-worn paths we habitually tend to follow. You lay before us shalom – an all-encompassing, all-inclusive peace – and we prefer to put on another layer of armor.This one more technologically advanced than the last, bolstering our illusion of security. After all. it’s us against them. We do not recognize, nor can we read, the signs of the times.
You warn us. Yet we go about our business as usual, convincing ourselves that we are happy in our denial. The kind of response you propose, the kind of change you ask of us is too much, opening the way to terrible suffering for many: devastation, destruction, death.
For you, the consequences of our refusal to radically change are all too clear. Today the whole world is Jerusalem. You look over it. You weep.