Intro On the day Jesus died, few sympathetic faces were milling in the crowd. You could probably count them on one hand: Mary, the mother of Jesus; Mary Magdalene; the disciple John, the criminal who came to faith; and the centurion who said Jesus was the Son of God. On the other hand, on that day, hatred for Jesus boiled over in the hearts of many.
But on that day, some others, some women of Jerusalem, wept for Jesus as He made His way toward Golgotha, the hill of death. Their sorrow for Him was real--and it seems even more beautiful when we see the stark contrast between their tears and the mad shouts of the mob, who earlier cried out for Christ’s crucifixion. Main Body Yet it was this man, Jesus--the same Jesus whom they were weeping over--who told them that they were crying for the wrong reason. Their sympathy for Jesus was heartfelt and genuine, to be sure. But there were other tears to cry, tears that these women had no idea that they should have been crying. And it’s the same with us. We, too, at times cry the wrong tears. It is then that we must take to heart what our Savior said to the women of Jerusalem. It is then that we must cry out to God to forgive us for our misplaced sorrow. Yet, the emotions the women displayed came from the heart. Never think otherwise. Yet, Jesus told them that the sorrow God looked for was something different. “Do not weep for me; weep for yourselves,” He told them. What God sought from the people of Jerusalem, and these dear women as well, was repentant, not sympathetic, sorrow. Jesus foresaw the destruction that would fall on the city of Jerusalem, the city that--from it stony heart--rejected its God. In the words of the prophets, Jesus spoke of the terror and despair that would then overtake those living in Jerusalem: The time will come when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then people will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’, and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ And if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” Jesus was the green tree--the true picture of spiritual health and vigor, the one man in whom the Lord God delighted. Israel was the dry tree--lifeless now in spirit. Israel had proven to be a nation that was clinging to the forms of religion, while denying the God who alone could give life. And if Christ, the perfect One, had to suffer as He suffered in this dark world, what might the sinful people of Jerusalem expect? The sin of rejecting their Messiah would be horrific. The earthly results would include much suffering at the hands of Rome. On a day not 40 years in the future, the legions of the great general Titus would sack the city and burn the Temple to the ground. An eyewitness account of that siege and its ending reads like a bloody, horror story--because it is! How much happier Jerusalem would be to have had the mountains fall on it and the hills cover it! Yet, even worse, would be the eternal suffering for those who had rejected their Messiah. They had had opportunity, again and again, to repent and believe in Christ, who walked among them for three years, preaching and teaching, and performing miraculous signs and many wonders. Yet most refused to do so, especially the religious leadership, and in the end, they screamed for His blood. Our Lord would tell us, as He told the women, that He does not seek our compassion but our repentance. After all, it was our sins that caused Him to suffer for our sake. If our sins had not been as scarlet, then it wouldn’t have taken the blood of Christ to make us as white as snow. Do we give that fact the thought it deserves? We are by nature sinful and unclean, so much so that only this could keep us from the eternal flames of hell--and that’s the sacrifice of the Son of God! What God seeks from us is a true and godly sorrow over our sin, a sorrow that confesses our many wrongdoings. God wants us to say with the writer of Psalm 51: “Against You [O God]--You alone--I have sinned and done this evil in Your sight. So You are right in Your verdict; You are blameless when You judge” (Psalm 51:4). When the Scriptures condemn everyone as sinners against the commandments of God, it is not our place to deny the truth of that statement. We, too, have done what is evil in God’s sight. We, too, are to admit that. Yet repentance is a hard pill to swallow. It’s not something we are fond of doing. This is a sorrow that can be more than we want to bear. We usually rationalize our sins, as if they are no big deal. We usually hide behind the worse sins of others, so ours don’t look so bad. We usually distract ourselves with the pleasures of the world, so we don’t have to think about our guilt. We usually convince ourselves that, by some scale of divine justice, we have done more good than bad, so our merits can wipe out our guilt. But that doesn’t mean squat to Jesus. “Weep for yourselves,” He told the women of Jerusalem. And to us He says, “Repent of your sins. Don’t hide them. Don’t ignore them. Don’t try to make them less serious than they are. No, confess them, and then come to me for a full and free pardon.” That’s the path Jesus sets before you. The sight of Jesus on the cross should impress on us the dead seriousness of our sins, so we might begin to understand how grave our sins are before the Lord God. How could we consider our guilt to be so slight when we consider the huge cost it was for Jesus to right our wrongs? The anguish was so intense that, on the night before, Jesus prayed fervently that the Father might find some other way, even at that late hour. But there was no other way. An unrepentant attitude is the same as spitting in the face of Jesus. The cost of our salvation was great, greater than we could ever imagine. But Jesus paid that cost out of selfless love for you. And how does faith respond? First, faith brings us to confess our sins. In such confession, we honor Jesus the Messiah who took all our sins onto His back and paid for them with His innocent sufferings and death. But faith also leads us to the second part of Christian repentance: trusting in that Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He did not, after all, offer up His life to make you feel guilty--but to make you guiltless in our judge’s sight. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him,” John 3:17 tells us. Our forgiveness is sure and unwavering, as Paul tells us, in Romans 8:1, that “no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus.” Believe God’s great promise. For faith lays hold of the forgiveness Jesus won for you and grasps it as your own. His Word has promised it to you, and you know His Word is true. And so faith honors Jesus by placing all your hope and confidence in that beautiful Word-laden truth. After that comes the fruit of repentance. This is the life of following God according to His way instead of your own. Living out such of love for Him and others from a heart of faith reveals that you really have repented of your sins. They show that you no longer wish to make yourself a slave of sin but, instead, to be a servant of God. For saving faith, after all, is not just some lump inside us. Faith is not an intellectual assent to certain facts. Even Satan and His demons do that. No, faith is living and vibrant, it’s as moving as the Holy Spirit breathing and blowing the faith within us. Faith shines in our lives as surely as the sun shines on a clear blue day. Yes, through faith, you are a new creation, created by God to do good works in His sight. You have been made new through faith in Christ Jesus. These good works show that your sorrow has, indeed, been a godly and God-pleasing repentance, a confession of sins coupled with faith in the forgiveness earned for you by Christ Jesus. And, once again, your new life will honor Him, the One who so generously and graciously gives His life for you. Conclusion “Do not weep for me,” Christ told the women of Jerusalem, “weep for yourselves.” Take Jesus’ words to heart--but in the right way! Pray to your Father in heaven that He would fill your heart with repentant sorrow over your sins that you would honor Christ’s death all the more. Pray that you trust Him with all your heart, showing true esteem for your Savior. And pray that you will always shine forth a life filled with the fruits of repentance, showing to all your love for the Lord Jesus Christ who first loved you. We pray, “Our Father, let this holy season of Lent bring the right type of tears to our eyes, the faith-filled tears that lead to eternal life through Your Son, in the Holy Spirit. Amen.” -- Rich Futrell, Pastor Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Kimberling City, MO Where we are to receive and confess the faith of the Church (in and with the Augsburg Confession): The faith once delivered to the saints, the faith of Christ Jesus, His Word of the Gospel, His full forgiveness of sins, His flesh and blood given and poured out for us, and His gracious gift of life for body, soul, and spirit. ___________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author (as long as no charge is made for the work and it is not made part of a compilation), as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list. 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