Spiritual Sunday
All my thoughts these days keep returning to the horrors in Ukraine. Therefore, when I read today’s Gospel reading about Jesus foretelling his death in Jerusalem (Luke 13:31-35), I thought of Ukrainian cities becoming death traps for its civilian population. The passage also reminded me of a later passage in Luke that tells of Jesus weeping for the future of Jerusalem, whose death he also foresees. Finally, those tears led me to a Malcolm Guite sonnet that provides some comfort in these troubled times. You’ll see my thought process once you read the passages and poem.
The first Luke passage has certain Pharisees warning Jesus to flee and him replying, like Ukraine’s Jewish president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that his place is in the capital city, regardless of the danger. Jesus becomes maternally tender as he thinks of his forthcoming death, and I love his sense of himself as a mother hen gathering her brood at a moment of danger:
Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'”
The second passage has Jesus weeping over the future of the city. Rome, of course, would one day surround and destroy Jerusalem, just as the Russians are attempting to surround and subdue Kyiv:
As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it and said, “If only you had known on this day what would bring you peace! But now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will barricade you and surround you and hem you in on every side.”
Jesus’s tears catch Guite’s attention. Again we see a comparison of him to a careful mother calling her children. “Fatigued compassion” is something we will have to watch out for in our own case since Ukraine’s nightmares could “stalk the light of day” for months:
Jesus Wept
By Malcolm Guite
Jesus comes near and he beholds the city
And looks on us with tears in his eyes,
And wells of mercy, streams of love and pity
Flow from the fountain whence all things arise.
He loved us into life and longs to gather
And meet with his beloved face to face
How often has he called, a careful mother,
And wept for our refusals of his grace,
Wept for a world that, weary with its weeping,
Benumbed and stumbling, turns the other way,
Fatigued compassion is already sleeping
Whilst her worst nightmares stalk the light of day.
But we might waken yet, and face those fears,
If we could see ourselves through Jesus’ tears.