Jesus: The Weeping Prophet of Doom

There is nothing quite like a global pandemic to bring out the conspiracy theorists and ‘prophets of doom’! I’m sure you have seen them too. No internet discussion forum is complete without the guy who is wearing a virtual ‘end is nigh’ sandwich board. They are not all promoting religious beliefs. Some people wear ‘climate-change’ sandwich boards. Then there are the 'police-are-communist-power-grabbers’ sandwich boards. But there are a fair few Christian ‘end-of-the-world’ voices out there too.

Whilst I do not agree with the apocalyptic vision that many of these voices are proclaiming I recognize that the views are held sincerely. Maybe they are right, maybe not. Who knows? It is not my intention to argue with them but on this Tuesday of ‘Holy Week’ I do want to ask them a simple question:

Are you weeping?

Let me explain why I am asking this. If you follow the Bible narrative closely you will see that it was either the Monday or Tuesday after Palm Sunday when Jesus uttered his own prophecy of doom over the city of Jerusalem.

“The days will come, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation”.

This prophecy was fulfilled in AD90 when the Roman armies besieged and devastated the city at the centre of Jewish religious and political life. Jesus’ prophecy was right. The people who rejected him and would soon have Him put to death by crucifixion would literally ‘get what was coming to them’. But Jesus did not rejoice at this. In fact, Luke’s Gospel says that:

"...when he drew near and saw Jerusalem, he WEPT over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes."

No higher-than-thou “I told you so” attitude here - just pity, sorrow, and compassion. Jesus was deliberately heading towards Jerusalem. He knew that when He arrived He would be put to death at the hands of wicked men. He also knew that God, in all His infinite wisdom and power, would turn these evil purposes upside down. In dying this way, Jesus would become the sacrificial offering required by the Law of God in order that sins can be forgiven. So Jesus willingly died whilst praying to God to forgive his tormentors. This is the heart of the Christian message: God has provided a way for sins to be forgiven, simply through trusting in all that Jesus is and has done for us.

On Easter Sunday Jesus rose from the dead. A few weeks later he ascended into heaven and then poured the Holy Spirit on the church. What was the immediate result? The good news of forgiveness of sins through repentance and faith in Christ was preached in Jerusalem. Many of the people who were denounced by Jesus’ prophecy and implicated in Jesus’ murderous execution were among the first converts to the Christian faith.

So maybe the end of the world is nigh and maybe the Earth will keep spinning for centuries yet to come. I do not know! But I do know this: the gospel of Jesus is supposed to be preached lovingly to people who are condemned by God’s Law. When Jesus preached judgement He did so weeping.