MIDWEEK
LENT 5 April 2, 2025 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude
Luke
23:26-31
THE WAY
OF SORROWS—A PLACE OF TEARS
So when it the last time you had a
good cry? What was it about? Kind of depends on what season of life you are in.
For you children tears come easy and often. Physical pain brings tears.
Frustration can bring you to tears. A mean classmate can bring you to tears. Disappointment
will cause tears. And when you get a little older, loss brings you to tears. People
cry when they are temporarily separated from a loved one going off to college
or overseas for a job. People cry when they are temporarily separated from a
loved one at death. There are many reasons for tears. Our Lenten journey with
Jesus brings us to a place of tears. It’s called the Way of Sorrows. If you visit
Jerusalem you can walk it. While likely not the exact path, it marks the path
that Jesus walked from the place of His sentencing to the place of His death.
As was Roman custom those sentenced to die by crucifixion carried their own
crosses to the place of crucifixion, one last Roman cruel joke. At some point
the soldiers compelled a man named Simon from Cyrene to carry Jesus’ cross for
him. If you watch the Passion of the Christ move it suggests the reason for
this was that Jesus was already too weak from loss for blood from the cruel
scourging and crown of thorns. Likely a good guess.
The Way of Sorrows became a place for
tears. “A large number of people followed him,
including women who mourned and wailed for him.” We aren’t told who this large number of people were.
Were they followers of Jesus who knew Him already? Were they citizens of Jerusalem
who regularly protested Roman cruelty? Were they Passover passerbys who got
caught up in the spectacle? We don’t know. We do know what they were doing.
Shedding tears. For Jesus. Compassion is a great quality. Compassion for Jesus,
appropriate. It is difficult to feel no compassion for Jesus on Good Friday. That
is the day when we spend time with our Savior, remembering His time on the
cross. The words. The hymns. “Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted. O Sacred Head
now wounded. Were you there?” Whether the tears come or do not, if you feel no
compassion for the Holy Son of God who takes your place, you may very well have
a heart of stone.
And yet in a way that only the Lord
Jesus could do on the Way of Sorrows, a place of tears, Jesus says that tears
for Him are misplaced! Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem,
do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For
the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the
wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then
they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover
us!” 31 For if people do these things when the tree is
green, what will happen when it is dry?” What’s
up with that?
THE WAY
OF SORROWS—A PLACE OF TEARS
Sorrow over Jesus is admirable yet there is a different
kind of sorrow that Jesus wants. Basically He said to these women, “If you want
something to mourn and wail about, don’t look at me. Look at yourselves. Look
at your sins and their consequences.” Jesus pointed them to the time when the
city of Jerusalem would be destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. It was the consequence
God announced for the peoples’ rejection of their Savior. After Jesus died,
rose and ascended to heaven, faith in Him spread among the Jews. Those who
rejected Jesus persecuted believers, so they left. An action God used to spread
the Christian faith even further. The Jewish Zealots who had rejected Jesus
because He didn’t rebel against the Roman government led their own rebellions.
Rome came with her legions. They trapped the normal 500,000 citizens of
Jerusalem plus 600,000 additional Jewish pilgrims in the city and starved them.
Food became scarce. People looked at each other in ways they should not look at
each other. Blessed are the barren women. Those who have no babies to eat or be
eaten. When the walls were breached the Roman soldiers had their way.
“Mountains, fall on us. Hills cover us!” The Jewish historian Josephus reports
that 1,100,000 Jewish people were slain. Jesus’ cryptic words became clear. If
this is how they treat me, the green living tree, the way the truth and the
life, how do you think it’s going to go for the spiritually dead rejecters of
God? You see while the destruction of Jerusalem was great, the eternal unending
destruction and despair that awaits the spiritually dead rejecters of Christ
Jesus is far worse.
So while sorrow for Jesus’ suffering is admirable it is
sorrow over sin and its consequences that He would rather see. Do we do that?
We give ourselves plenty of opportunities. Children disobey and are mean to
each other. Even if we are pretty good at controlling our actions our words
condemn us. God’s name is abused, misused or not used when it should be. Even
if we cut out all filthy talks there are the times when we should have spoken
up to defend another or to testify on the side of Gods’ truth but didn’t. Even
if we always speak up our hearts betray us for the Lord sees that the NFL’s draft
day, baseball’s opening day, March madness, and Spring clearance sales cause our
hearts to beat much faster than the thought of worshipping His Son.
And that is why Jesus walked the Way of Sorrows. So there
will come a time when there are no more tears. I know that Johnson and Johnson
Baby shampoo promises such a thing. Only Jesus delivers. He walked the Way of Sorrows
to Golgotha, a place we will talk about next week. He walked the Way of Sorrows
to put the Good into Good Friday by pay for our sins in full to open heaven to
all believers so the time can come for each of us that there will be no more
tears but only Heaven, a place of happiness. PICTURE
Thank you, Jesus! Amen.
